Johannes Franciscus Abraham Karel (Johan) van Benthem (born 12 June 1949 in

Rijswijk Rijswijk (), formerly known as Ryswick ( ) in English, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. Its population was in , and it has an area of , of which is water. The municipality also includes th ...

) is a University Professor (') of

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

at the

Institute for Logic, Language and Computation The Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) is a research institute of the University of Amsterdam, in which researchers from the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Humanities collaborate. The ILLC's central research area is the st ...

and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

(at CSLI). He was awarded the

Spinozapremie The Spinoza Prize ( nl, Spinozapremie) is an annual award of 2.5 million euro, to be spent on new research given by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The award is the highest scientific award in the Netherlands. It is named after the philosopher ...

in 1996 and elected a Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2015.

Biography

Van Benthem studied

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

(

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

1969),

( M.A. 1972) and

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

(

M.Sc. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

1973) at the University of Amsterdam and received a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from the same university under supervision of Martin Löb in 1977. Before becoming University Professor in 2003, he held appointments at the University of Amsterdam (1973–1977), at the

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...

(1977–1986), and as a

at the University of Amsterdam (1986–2003). In 1992 he was elected member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

. Van Benthem is known for his research in the area of

modal logic Modal logic is a collection of formal systems developed to represent statements about necessity and possibility. It plays a major role in philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and natural language semantics. Modal logics extend other ...

. This research has resulted in Van Benthem's theorem, which states that propositional modal logic is the fragment of first-order logic that is invariant under

bisimulation In theoretical computer science a bisimulation is a binary relation between state transition systems, associating systems that behave in the same way in that one system simulates the other and vice versa. Intuitively two systems are bisimilar if ...

. He has also been active in the fields of

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

, logical structures in natural language ( generalized quantifiers, categorial grammar, substructural

proof theory Proof theory is a major branchAccording to Wang (1981), pp. 3–4, proof theory is one of four domains mathematical logic, together with model theory, axiomatic set theory, and recursion theory. Jon Barwise, Barwise (1978) consists of four correspo ...

), dynamic logic and update logic, and applications of

game theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions among rational agents. Myerson, Roger B. (1991). ''Game Theory: Analysis of Conflict,'' Harvard University Press, p.&nbs1 Chapter-preview links, ppvii–xi It has appli ...

, as well as applications of

(

game semantics Game semantics (german: dialogische Logik, translated as ''dialogical logic'') is an approach to formal semantics that grounds the concepts of truth or validity on game-theoretic concepts, such as the existence of a winning strategy for a player, ...

). Van Benthem is a member of the group collectively publishing under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

L. T. F. Gamut L. T. F. Gamut was a collective pseudonym for the Netherlands, Dutch logicians Johan van Benthem (logician), Johan van Benthem, Jeroen Groenendijk, Dick de Jongh, Martin Stokhof and Henk Verkuyl. Gamut stands for the Dutch universities of Universit ...

. He has also taught in China. He made an effort to encourage and organize international collaboration between Chinese and Western logicians. Professor van Benthem retired from the

in September 2014.

Publications

*''Logic in action'', North Holland, 1991 *''Handbook of Logic and Language'', ed. with Alice ter Meulen,

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

, 1997 *''Modal Logic: A Semantic Perspective'', with Patrick Blackburn *
Modal Logic for Open Minds
'' CSLI Publications, 2010 *''Logic in Games'', MIT Press, January 2014

References

External links

*
Van Benthem's personal homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Benthem, Johan van 1949 births Living people 20th-century Dutch mathematicians 20th-century Dutch philosophers Dutch logicians Logicians Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences People from Rijswijk Stanford University Department of Philosophy faculty Spinoza Prize winners University of Amsterdam faculty University of Amsterdam alumni University of Groningen faculty Tarski lecturers