John Corcoran ( ; 20 March 1937 - 8 January 2021) was an
American 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 premi ...
ian,
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
,
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
...
, and
historian of logic. He is best known for his philosophical work on concepts such as the nature of
inference
Inferences are steps in reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences; etymologically, the word ''infer'' means to "carry forward". Inference is theoretically traditionally divided into deduction and induction, a distinction that in ...
, relations between
conditions,
argument-deduction-proof distinctions, the relationship between
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 premi ...
and
epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
, and the place of
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. Barwise (1978) consists of four corresponding parts, ...
and
model theory
In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between formal theories (a collection of sentences in a formal language expressing statements about a mathematical structure), and their models (those structures in which the ...
in logic. Nine of Corcoran's papers have been translated into
Spanish,
Portuguese,
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, and
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
; his 1989 "signature" essay was translated into three languages. Fourteen of his papers have been reprinted; one was reprinted twice.
His work on
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
's logic of the ''
Prior Analytics
The ''Prior Analytics'' ( grc-gre, Ἀναλυτικὰ Πρότερα; la, Analytica Priora) is a work by Aristotle on reasoning, known as his syllogistic, composed around 350 BCE. Being one of the six extant Aristotelian writings on logic ...
'' is regarded as being highly faithful both to the Greek text and to the historical context.
It is the basis for many subsequent investigations.
His mathematical results on definitional equivalence of formal
character-string theories, sciences of strings of characters over finite alphabets, are foundational for logic,
formal linguistics Formal linguistics is the branch of linguistics which uses applied mathematical methods for the analysis of natural languages. Such methods include formal languages, formal grammars and first-order logical expressions. Formal linguistics also form ...
, and
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
.
Education
Corcoran studied engineering at the
Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, with a degree in Advanced Curriculum Engineering in 1956, and at the
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
with a BES in Mechanical Engineering in 1959. After briefly working in engineering, he studied philosophy at the
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
where he obtained his PhD in philosophy in 1963. His post-doctoral studies in mathematics were at
Yeshiva University
Yeshiva University is a private Orthodox Jewish university with four campuses in New York City.["About YU]
on the Yeshiva Universi ...
in
1964 and at the
University of California Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
in 1965. His dissertation topic was Generative Structure of Two-valued Logics.
Corcoran's first logic teacher was
Albert Hammond
Albert Louis Hammond Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 18 May 1944) is a United Kingdom, British-Gibraltarians, Gibraltarian singer, songwriter, and record producer. A prolific songwriter, he also collaborated with other songwriters such ...
. Corcoran studied Plato and Aristotle with
Ludwig Edelstein
Ludwig Edelstein (23 April 1902 – 16 August 1965) was a classical scholar and historian of medicine.
Personal life and career
Edelstein was born in Berlin, Germany, to Isidor and Mathilde Adler Edelstein. He attended the University of Berlin fro ...
. His next two logic teachers were
Joseph Ullian and
Richard Wiebe. Corcoran's dissertation supervisor was
Robert McNaughton
Robert Forbes McNaughton, Jr. (1924–2014) was an American mathematician, logician, and computer scientist with several key contributions in formal languages, grammars and rewriting systems, and word combinatorics.
McNaughton was originally f ...
. At Yeshiva University in New York City Corcoran studied with
Raymond Smullyan
Raymond Merrill Smullyan (; May 25, 1919 – February 6, 2017) was an American mathematician, magician, concert pianist, logician, Taoist, and philosopher.
Born in Far Rockaway, New York, his first career was stage magic. He earned a BSc from ...
and
Martin Davis. Corcoran's first tenure-track position was at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
, where his dissertation supervisor was a Professor of Computer and Information Science.
Regular academic or research appointments
He has been Professor of Philosophy,
University at Buffalo
The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...
(SUNY), 1973–; Associate Professor of Philosophy, University at Buffalo, 1970–1973;
Assistant Professor of Linguistics,
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
, 1965–1969; Member of
Linguistics Group, IBM Research Center, 1963–1964.
Visiting academic or research appointments
He is or was Visiting Professor of Logic, University of
Santiago de Compostela 1994; Visiting Scholar, Linguistic Institute, SUNY Oswego 1976; NSF
Seminar Project Director, Linguistic Institute, University at Buffalo 1971; Visiting Associate
Professor of Philosophy and Research Associate,
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
1969–1970; Visiting
Lecturer in Philosophy,
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
1964–1965; Mathematician,
General Electric Research Laboratory 1962; Mathematician, Aeronca Astromechanics Institute, 1961; Junior
Instructor in Philosophy,
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
1960–1961.
Research profile
Corcoran's work in
history of logic
The history of logic deals with the study of the development of the science of valid inference (logic). Formal logics developed in ancient times in India, China, and Greece. Greek methods, particularly Aristotelian logic (or term logic) as found ...
involves most of the discipline's
productive periods. He has discussed
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
, the
Stoics
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting tha ...
,
William of Ockham
William of Ockham, OFM (; also Occam, from la, Gulielmus Occamus; 1287 – 10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and Catholic theologian, who is believed to have been born in Ockham, a small v ...
,
Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri,
George Boole
George Boole (; 2 November 1815 – 8 December 1864) was a largely self-taught English mathematician, philosopher, and logician, most of whose short career was spent as the first professor of mathematics at Queen's College, Cork in Ire ...
,
Richard Dedekind
Julius Wilhelm Richard Dedekind (6 October 1831 – 12 February 1916) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to number theory, abstract algebra (particularly ring theory), and
the axiomatic foundations of arithmetic. His ...
,
Gottlob Frege
Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic phil ...
,
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for ...
,
Clarence Irving Lewis
Clarence Irving Lewis (April 12, 1883 – February 3, 1964), usually cited as C. I. Lewis, was an American academic philosopher. He is considered the progenitor of modern modal logic and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted log ...
, the American Postulate Theorists,
Alfred Tarski
Alfred Tarski (, born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician a ...
,
Willard Van Orman Quine
Willard Van Orman Quine (; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
, and
Warren Goldfarb.
His 1972 interpretation of Aristotle's
Prior Analytics
The ''Prior Analytics'' ( grc-gre, Ἀναλυτικὰ Πρότερα; la, Analytica Priora) is a work by Aristotle on reasoning, known as his syllogistic, composed around 350 BCE. Being one of the six extant Aristotelian writings on logic ...
,
proposed independently by
Timothy Smiley
Timothy John Smiley FBA (born 13 November 1930) is a British philosopher, appointed Emeritus Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at Clare College, Cambridge University. He works primarily in philosophy of mathematics and logic.
Life and car ...
at about the same time, has been found to be more faithful than previous interpretations both to the Greek text and to the historical context. It has formed the basis for subsequent investigations by Edgar Andrade, George Boger, Manuel Correia, Paolo Crivelli,
Newton da Costa, Catarina Dutilh, Paolo Fait, Nicolas Fillion, James Gasser, Klaus Glashoff, John Martin, Mary Mulhern, Michael Scanlan, Robin Smith, Neil Tennant, and others. It was adopted for the 1989 translation of the Prior Analytics by Robin Smith and for the 2009 translation of the Prior Analytics Book A by
Gisela Striker
Gisela Striker (born 1943) is a German classical scholar. She is Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Classics at Harvard University and a specialist in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.
Education and career
Striker was born and educated in Ge ...
.
His 1980 critical reconstruction of Boole's original 1847 system revealed previously unnoticed gaps and errors in Boole's work and established the essentially Aristotelian basis of Boole's philosophy of logic. A 2003 article provides a systematic comparison and critical evaluation of
Aristotelian logic
In philosophy, term logic, also known as traditional logic, syllogistic logic or Aristotelian logic, is a loose name for an approach to formal logic that began with Aristotle and was developed further in ancient history mostly by his followers, ...
and
Boolean logic
In mathematics and mathematical logic, Boolean algebra is a branch of algebra. It differs from elementary algebra in two ways. First, the values of the variables are the truth values ''true'' and ''false'', usually denoted 1 and 0, whereas in ...
; it also reveals the centrality of
wholistic reference in Boole's
philosophy of logic
Philosophy of logic is the area of philosophy that studies the scope and nature of logic. It investigates the philosophical problems raised by logic, such as the presuppositions often implicitly at work in theories of logic and in their applicati ...
. According to Corcoran, Boole fully accepted and endorsed Aristotle's logic. Boole did not dispute one point that Aristotle made, but he did "go under, over, and beyond" Aristotle's logic by 1) providing it with mathematical foundations involving equations, 2) extending the class of problems it could treat—to assessing validity he added solving equations, and 3) expanding the range of applications it could handle—e.g. from propositions having only two terms to those having arbitrarily many.
More specifically, Boole agreed with what
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
said; Boole's 'disagreements', if they might be called that, concern what Aristotle did not say.
First, in the realm of foundations, Boole reduced Aristotle's four propositional forms to one form, that of equations—by itself a revolutionary idea.
Second, in the realm of logic's problems, Boole's addition of equation solving to logic—another revolutionary idea—involved Boole's doctrine that Aristotle's rules of inference (the "perfect syllogisms") must be supplemented by rules for equation solving.
Third, in the realm of applications, Boole's system could handle multi-term propositions and arguments whereas Aristotle could handle only two-termed subject-predicate propositions and arguments. For example, Aristotle's system could not deduce "No quadrangle that is a square is a rectangle that is a rhombus" from "No square that is a quadrangle is a rhombus that is a rectangle" or from "No rhombus that is a rectangle is a square that is a quadrangle".
His collaboration with Alfred Tarski in the late 1970s and early 1980s led to publications on Tarski's work and to the 2007 article ''Notes on the Founding of Logics and Metalogic: Aristotle, Boole, and Tarski,'' which traces Aristotelian and Boolean ideas in Tarski's work and which confirms Tarski's status as a founding figure in logic on a par with Aristotle and Boole.
Scientific work
His work in
philosophy of logic
Philosophy of logic is the area of philosophy that studies the scope and nature of logic. It investigates the philosophical problems raised by logic, such as the presuppositions often implicitly at work in theories of logic and in their applicati ...
focuses on the nature of logic, the role of logic in
inquiry, the conceptual structure of logic, the
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
and
epistemological
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
presuppositions
of logic, the nature of
mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal s ...
and the gaps between logical theory and mathematical
practice. His
mathematical logic
Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal s ...
treats
propositional logic
Propositional calculus is a branch of logic. It is also called propositional logic, statement logic, sentential calculus, sentential logic, or sometimes zeroth-order logic. It deals with propositions (which can be true or false) and relations ...
s,
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 ...
s, identity logics,
syllogistic logics, the logic of first-order variable-binding term operators,
second-order logic
In logic and mathematics, second-order logic is an extension of first-order logic, which itself is an extension of propositional logic. Second-order logic is in turn extended by higher-order logic and type theory.
First-order logic quantifies o ...
s,
model theory
In mathematical logic, model theory is the study of the relationship between formal theories (a collection of sentences in a formal language expressing statements about a mathematical structure), and their models (those structures in which the ...
, and
the theory of strings – a discipline which is foundational in all areas of logic
and which provides essential background for all of his other mathematical work. In
philosophy of mathematics
The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people ...
Corcoran has been guided by a nuanced and inclusionary
Platonism
Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary platonists do not necessarily accept all of the doctrines of Plato. Platonism had a profound effect on Western thought. Platonism at le ...
which
strives to do justice to all aspects of mathematical and logical experience including those aspects
emphasized by competing philosophical perspectives such as
logicism
In the philosophy of mathematics, logicism is a programme comprising one or more of the theses that — for some coherent meaning of 'logic' — mathematics is an extension of logic, some or all of mathematics is reducible to logic, or some or all ...
,
constructivism
Constructivism may refer to:
Art and architecture
* Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
* Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
,
deductivism
The hypothetico-deductive model or method is a proposed description of the scientific method. According to it, scientific inquiry proceeds by formulating a hypothesis in a form that can be falsifiable, using a test on observable data where the out ...
, and
formalism
Formalism may refer to:
* Form (disambiguation)
* Formal (disambiguation)
* Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary
* Formalism (linguistics)
* S ...
. Although several of his philosophical papers presuppose little
history or mathematics, his historical papers often involve either original philosophy (e.g. his
recent BSL article "Schemata") or original mathematics (e.g. his 1980 HPL article
"Categoricity"). He has referred to the mathematical dimension of his approach to history as
mathematical archaeology. His philosophical papers often involve original historical research. He has been
guided by the Aristotelian principle that the nature of modern thought is sometimes best
understood in light of its historical development, a view that he attributes to
Arthur Lovejoy
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873 – December 30, 1962) was an American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the discipline known as the history of ideas with his book ''The Great Chain of Being'' (1936), on the topic ...
's
History of Ideas Program at Johns Hopkins University and in which he has been encouraged by
the American philosopher and historian
Peter Hare.
Collaboration
Many of Corcoran's articles and reviews are co-authored and many of his single-author
publications acknowledge involvement of colleagues and students. Corcoran emphasizes the
intensely and essentially personal nature of all genuine knowledge including logical knowledge.
Nevertheless, he also stresses the importance of communities of knowers and how much each person can
benefit in the personal search for truth from critical cooperation with other objective researchers. For over 40 years he was the leader of the "Buffalo Syllogistic Group"—a community of philosophers, historians, linguists, logicians, and mathematicians dedicated to the study of the origin of logic. The achievements of this community are sketched in his 2009 pape
"Aristotle's Logic at the University at Buffalo's Department of Philosophy", Ideas y Valores Revista Colombiana de Filosofía 140 (August 2009) 99–117.
A list of his publications, complete through 2000, appears in the 1999 volume o
which also includes the expository article by M. Scanlan and S.
Shapiro
"The Work of John Corcoran: An Appreciation". Other articles about his work include
"Corcoran the Mathematician" by S.
Shapiro, "Corcoran the Philosopher" by J. M. Sagüillo, and
"Corcoran in Spanish" by C. Martínez-Vidal; all appear in a 2007 volume published by the
University of Santiago de Compostela
The University of Santiago de Compostela - USC ( gl, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela - USC, es, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela - USC) is a public university located in the city of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. A second ...
Press.
Corcoran's work in the 1990s on information-theoretic logic is discussed by José M. Sagüillo in the article "Methodological Practice and Complementary Concepts of Logical Consequence: Tarski's Model-Theoretic Consequence and Corcoran's Information-Theoretic Consequence" (History and Philosophy of Logic
volume 30, 2009, 21-48), which received the 2009 Ivor Grattan-Guinness Award for the History and Philosophy of Logic
informaworld.com.
Publications
*Three Logical Theories. Philosophy of Science 36:1969. 153–177.
*Completeness of an Ancient Logic. Journal of Symbolic Logic 37: 1972. 696–702.
*Gaps Between Logical Theory and Mathematical practice. In Bunge, M., Ed. Methodological Unity of Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 1973. 23–50.
*Meanings of Implication, Dialogos 9 (1973) 59–76. Reprinted in R. Hughes, Ed., Philosophical companion to first order logic. Indianapolis: Hackett. 1993. Spanish translation by J. M. Saguillo Agora 5(1985) 279–294.
*Aristotle's Natural Deduction System. In Ancient Logic and its Modern Interpretations. Ed. J. Corcoran, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1974. 85–131.
*Remarks on Stoic Deduction. Ibid., 169–181.
*String Theory. Journal of Symbolic Logic 39 (1974) 625–37. With W. Frank, and M. Maloney.
*Logical Structures of Ockham's Theory of Supposition. Franciscan Studies 38(1978) 161–83. With J. Swiniarski.
*Crossley on Mathematical Logic. Philosophia 8(1978) 79–94. Spanish translation by A. Garciadiego Mathesis X (1988) 133–150. With S.
Shapiro.
*Categoricity. History and Philosophy of Logic 1(1980) 187–208. Reprinted in S.
Shapiro, Ed., The Limits of Logic, Aldershot, England: Dartmouth Publishing Company. 1996.
*Boole's Criteria of Validity and Invalidity. Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 21(1980) 609–639. With S. Wood. Reprinted in J. Gasser, Ed. Boole Anthology. Dordrecht: Kluwer.2000.
*Introduction and analytical index. In Tarski, A. Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics. Second ed. Edited by J. Corcoran. Trans. J. H. Woodger. Indianapolis: Hackett. 1983.
*Contemporary Relevance of Ancient Logical Theory. Philosophical Quarterly 32(1982) 76–86. With M. Scanlan.
*Argumentations and Logic. Argumentation 3(1989) 17–43., Spanish translation by R. Fernandez and J. Sagüillo Agora 13/1 (1994) 27–55.
*Review of Alfred Tarski: Collected Papers. 4 Vols. Edited by S. Givant and R. McKenzie. Basel: Birkhäuser. 1986.
Mathematical Reviews
''Mathematical Reviews'' is a journal published by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) that contains brief synopses, and in some cases evaluations, of many articles in mathematics, statistics, and theoretical computer science.
The AMS also pu ...
91h:01101, 2, 3,4. 1991.
*The Founding of Logic. Ancient Philosophy 14(1994) 9–24.
*Information-theoretic logic, in Truth in Perspective edited by C. Martínez, U. Rivas, L. Villegas-Forero, Ashgate Publishing Limited, Aldershot, England (1998) 113–135.
*Second-Order Logic. In the "Church Memorial Volume", Logic, Meaning, and Computation: Essays in Memory of Alonzo Church edited by M. Zeleny and C.A. Anderson., Kluwer Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland. 1998.
*Aristotle's Prior Analytics and Boole's Laws of Thought. . History and Philosophy of Logic 24(2003) 261–288.
*Schemata: the Concept of Schema in the History of Logic. Bulletin of Symbolic Logic. 12 (2006) 219–40.
*
C. I. Lewis
Clarence Irving Lewis (April 12, 1883 – February 3, 1964), usually cited as C. I. Lewis, was an American academic philosopher. He is considered the progenitor of modern modal logic and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted logic ...
: History and Philosophy of Logic. Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society. 42 (2006)1–9.
*
*Review of "Aristotle, Prior Analytics: Book I, Gisela Striker (translation and commentary), Oxford UP, 2009, 268pp., $39.95 (pbk), ." in the ''Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews''
2010.02.02
* "The Absence of Multiple Universes of Discourse in the 1936 Tarski Consequence-Definition Paper", ''History and Philosophy of Logic 32 (2011)'': 359–80. Co-author José Miguel Sagüillo. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01445340.2011.577145#.UksmOD_-kQs
* "Existential Import Today: New Metatheorems; Historical, Philosophical, and Pedagogical Misconceptions", ''History and Philosophy of Logic 36 (2014)'': 39–61. Co-author Hassan Masoud. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01445340.2014.952947
For a complete list se
John Corcoran's homepage
Some of his papers are available online: https://buffalo.academia.edu/JohnCorcoran
Service to the profession
*Co-founder with George Weaver of Philadelphia Logic Colloquium 1966
*Founder of Buffalo Logic Colloquiu
1970.
*Chair of Buffalo Logic Colloquium 1970 to present with interruptions.
*Founding member of the Editorial Board, History and Philosophy of Logic 1980–present.
*Regular reviewer for
Mathematical Reviews
''Mathematical Reviews'' is a journal published by the American Mathematical Society (AMS) that contains brief synopses, and in some cases evaluations, of many articles in mathematics, statistics, and theoretical computer science.
The AMS also pu ...
1969–present.
*Occasional reviewer for
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 ...
, Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, and
Journal of Symbolic Logic
The '' Journal of Symbolic Logic'' is a peer-reviewed mathematics journal published quarterly by Association for Symbolic Logic. It was established in 1936 and covers mathematical logic. The journal is indexed by '' Mathematical Reviews'', Zen ...
.
*Occasional referee for various logic journals.
*Organizer of four conferences:
**Ancient Logic (Corcoran, Kretzmann, Mueller, et al.) 1972
**Nature of Logic (Tarski,
Putnam, Friedman, Jech, Vesley, Goodman, et al.) 1973
**Church Symposium (Church,
Davis
Davis may refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Mount Davis (Antarctica)
* Davis Island (Palmer Archipelago)
* Davis Valley, Queen Elizabeth Land
Canada
* Davis, Saskatchewan, an unincorporated community
* Davis Strait, between Nunavut and Gr ...
, Henkin, Rogers) 1990
**Conference on Gaps between Logical Theory and Mathematical Practice (
Shapiro, Scanlan, McLarty, Weaver, Tiezsen, Kearns, et al.) 2001.
*Sponsor of Alonzo Church for Doctor Honoris Causa at the University at Buffalo 1990.
*Board of Editorial Advisors,
Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
''The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy'' (1995; second edition 1999; third edition 2015) is a dictionary of philosophy published by Cambridge University Press and edited by the philosopher Robert Audi
Robert N. Audi (born November 1941) is an A ...
2012–present.
Teaching
Corcoran's courses are all introductory, having no prerequisites and presupposing no
previous knowledge. In each course he reconstructs its subject-matter from the ground up and never covers the same material twice. Stressing the priority of education over indoctrination and the superiority of learning how to think over learning what to think, he strives to assist his
students in connecting with the reality logic is about so that they may become autonomous judges of the adequacy of the field.
His former students teach at the Autonomous University of Mexico City, Bryn Mawr, Canisius College, Colorado State, Dordt College, Franciscan University, Fredonia State, Ohio State, Oregon State, Pontifical University of Rio de Janeiro, St. John Fisher College, St. John's College, UCLA,
University of Lausanne
The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switz ...
,
University of Santiago de Compostela
The University of Santiago de Compostela - USC ( gl, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela - USC, es, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela - USC) is a public university located in the city of Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. A second ...
, and elsewhere.
His best-known students include George Boger, James Gasser, Calvin Jongsma, Idris Samawi Hamid, Edward Keenan,Timothy Madigan, Sriram Nambiar, José Miguel Sagüillo, Michael Scanlan,
Stewart Shapiro
Stewart Shapiro (; born 1951) is O'Donnell Professor of Philosophy at the Ohio State University and distinguished visiting professor at the University of Connecticut. He is a leading figure in the philosophy of mathematics where he defends the ...
, and George Weaver.
Honors and awards
*Festschrift special double issue of History and Philosophy of Logic 1999 (Eds. M. Scanlan and
S. Shapiro);
*Exceptional Scholar Award from the University at Buffalo 2002;
*Doctor Honoris Causa from University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) 2003;
*Corcoran Symposium, University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) 2003.
*Corcoran Colloquium, University at Buffalo, October 2010.
Bibliography
* Corcoran, John (2009). "Aristotle's Demonstrative Logic". ''History and Philosophy of Logic'', 30: 1–20.
* Corcoran, John (2009). "Aristotle's Logic at the University of Buffalo's Department of Philosophy".''Ideas y Valores: Revista Colombiana de Filosofía'', 140 (August 2009) 99–117. http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/idval/article/viewFile/12581/13183
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Corcoran, John
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