Saul Aaron Kripke (; born November 13, 1940) is an American philosopher and logician. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York and emeritus professor at Princeton University. Since the 1960s Kripke has been a central figure in a number of fields related to mathematical logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, epistemology, and set theory. Much of his work remains unpublished or exists only as tape recordings and privately circulated manuscripts. Kripke was the recipient of the 2001 Schock Prize in Logic and Philosophy. A 2009 academic poll ranked Kripke among the top ten most important philosophers of the past 200 years.