Max Cresswell Explained

Max Cresswell
Birth Name:	Maxwell John Cresswell
Birth Date:	1939 11, df=y
Birth Place:	Wellington, New Zealand
Alma Mater:	Victoria University of Manchester
School Tradition:	Analytic
Main Interests:	Modal logic, metaphysics, formal semantics
Influences:	A. N. Prior
Notable Ideas:	Semantics of degree
Doctoral Advisor:	G. E. Hughes, A. N. Prior
Thesis Title:	General and Specific Logics of Functions of Propositions
Thesis Year:	1964
Region:	Western philosophy
Era:	Contemporary philosophy
Relatives:	Lyell Cresswell (brother)

Maxwell John Cresswell (born 19 November 1939) is a New Zealand philosopher and logician, known for his work in modal logic.^{[1] [2]}

Education and career

Cresswell received his B.A. in 1960 and M.A. in 1961 from the University of New Zealand and then with the support of a Commonwealth Scholarship attended the Victoria University of Manchester, where he received in 1964 his PhD under the supervision of A. N. Prior. Cresswell's thesis was titled General and Specific Logics of Functions of Propositions. After returning to New Zealand, Cresswell was at the Victoria University of Wellington, from 1963 to 1967 as a lecturer, from 1968 to 1972 as a senior lecturer (also receiving in 1972 Lit.D. from the Victoria University), becoming a reader in 1973, and then a professor from 1974 to 2000, interrupted by several visiting professorships. In 2001 he became professor emeritus and a member of the Centre for Logic, Language and Computation, Victoria University of Wellington and has been a visiting or fixed-term professor at several universities.^[3]

Cresswell's research deals with the philosophy of logic, modal logic and formal semantics. He has also published on ancient Greek philosophy, on the logic of the nineteenth century, and on the philosophy of John Locke. With his colleague and former teacher G. E. Hughes, Cresswell was the co-author of An Introduction to Modal Logic, London, Methuen, 1968); this was the first modern textbook on modal logic and introduced many students to Kripke semantics.^[1]

Publications

Monographs and collections

• with G. E. Hughes, An Introduction to Modal Logic, London, Methuen, 1968, German trans.: Einführung in die Modallogik. Berlin, New York : de Gruyter, 1978
• Logics and Languages, London, Methuen, 1973, German trans.: Die Sprachen der Logik und die Logik der Sprache, Berlin, New York : de Gruyter, 1979
• with G. E. Hughes, A Companion to Modal Logic, London, Methuen, 1984
• Structured Meanings: The Semantics of Propositional Attitudes, Bradford Books/MIT Press, 1985
• Adverbial Modification, Dordrecht, Reidel, 1985
• Semantical Essays: Possible Worlds and Their Rivals, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988
• Entities and Indices, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1990
• Language in the World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994
• Semantic Indexicality, Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1996
• with G. E. Hughes, A New Introduction to Modal Logic, London, Routledge, 1996

Notes and References

1. Festschrift for Max Cresswell on the occasion of his 65th birthday. In: Logique et Analyse. Number 181, March 2003 (published November 2004). See the introduction by Thomas Forster.
2. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/hppi/about/staff/max-cresswell Max Cresswell, School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Victoria U. of Wellington
3. Web site: M. J. Cresswell: Curriculum Vitae. Centre for Logic, Language and Computation, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ.