John Corcoran

John Corcoran

John Corcoran (* 1937 in Baltimore ) is a contemporary logician and philosopher . He has mainly dealt with the relationship between logic and epistemology and the importance of proof theory and model theory in logic.

His work on Aristotle 's logic of the Analytica priora adheres closely to the spirit of the Greek text and the historical context. It is the basis of many further studies and was used for the translation of the Analytica Priora by Robin Smith in 1989.

education

Corcoran studied engineering, mathematics and philosophy from 1956 to 1962 and received a PhD in 1963. in Philosophy with the thesis Generative Structure of Two-valued Logics . His supervisor was Robert McNaughton (a student of Willard Van Orman Quine ). In 1964 he did a post-doc degree in mathematics.

academic career

From 1963 to 1964 he was a member of the Linguistics Group at the IBM Research Center. In 1965 he became an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania and finally in 1970 Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University at Buffalo (SUNY). Since 1973 he has been a professor of philosophy there.

Shorter research stays

• Visiting Professor of Logic, University of Santiago de Compostela 1994;
• Visiting Scholar, Linguistic Institute, University of Buffalo (SUNY) Oswego 1976;
• NSF (National Science Foundation) Seminar Project Director, Linguistic Institute, University of Buffalo 1971;
• Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy and Research Associate, University of Michigan 1969–1970;
• Visiting Lecturer in Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley 1964–1965;
• Mathematician, General Electric Research Center 1962;
• Mathematician, Aeronca Astromechanics Institute, 1961;
• Junior Instructor in Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University 1960–1961.

Research profile

Corcoran's work on the history of logic covers the majority of the most productive periods in the discipline. He has worked on the following logicians, among others: Aristotle, the Stoics , Wilhelm von Ockham , Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri , George Boole , Richard Dedekind , Gottlob Frege , Alfred Tarski and Willard Van Orman Quine .

His interpretation from 1972 of the Analytica Priora of Aristotle, which was proposed independently of him at the same time by Timothy Smiley, is regarded as more true to the original than all earlier interpretations; this applies to both the Greek text and the historical context. This work forms the basis for later research by Boger, Correia, Crivelli, Gasser, Martin, Mulhern, Scanlan, Smith and others, and it was used by Robin Smith as the basis for his translation of the Analytica Priora.

His critical reconstruction of Boole's logic system from 1847 brought to light previously neglected gaps and errors in Boole's work and made the essentially Aristotelian basis of Boole's logic philosophy clear. A 2003 article provides a systematic comparison and critical assessment of the logics of Aristotle and Boole.

Corcoran's collaboration with Alfred Tarski in the late 1970s and early 1980s resulted in publications on Tarski's work and the 2007 article Notes on the Founding of Logics and Metalogic: Aristotle, Boole, and Tarski, Tracing the Ideas of Aristotle and Boole is followed in Tarski's work and in which Tarski's status as one of the founding fathers of logic is confirmed - on a par with Aristotle and Boole.

The work

John Corcoran's work on philosophy of logic focuses on the nature of logic, the conceptual structure of logic, the metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions of logic, the nature of mathematical logic, and the differences between logical theory and mathematical practice. His mathematical logic deals with propositional logic , modal logic , identity logic , syllogistic logic, second-order predicate logic , model theory and the theory of character strings - a discipline that underlies all areas of logic and that provides the essential background for all of his other mathematical work.

In the philosophy of mathematics , Corcoran is guided by a nuanced inclusive Platonism which seeks to do justice to all aspects of mathematical and logical experience; this includes the aspects emphasized by competing philosophical perspectives such as logicism , constructivism , deductivism, and formalism .

Although some of his philosophical works require little historical or mathematical knowledge, his historical works often address original questions of philosophy (e.g. his article Schemata ) or mathematics (e.g. his 1980 article in the journal History and Philosophy of Logic Categoricity ). He called the mathematical dimension of his conception of history "mathematical archeology". His philosophical works often deal with the science of history. He is guided by the Aristotelian principle that the nature of modern thoughts can sometimes best be understood in the light of their historical development. He attributes this view to Arthur Lovejoy's "History of Ideas" program at Johns Hopkins University , to which he was encouraged by the American philosopher and historian Peter Hare .

More material on John Corcoran

Many of Corcoran's publications are co-authored, and many others explicitly acknowledge the involvement of colleagues and students. Corcoran emphatically emphasizes the essentially personal nature of all genuine knowledge, including logical knowledge. He also emphasizes the importance of knowledge communities and the benefit of each individual through critical cooperation with other researchers. A list of publications, complete up to the year 2000, appeared in the journal History and Philosophy of Logic , volume 1999. This volume contains a review article by M. Scanlan and S. Shapiro “The Work of John Corcoran: An Appreciation”. Three other articles about his work appear in the anthology Current Topics in Logic and Analytic Philosophy , published in 2007 by the University of Santiago de Compostela Press. It concerns the contributions

• "Corcoran the Mathematician" by S. Shapiro
• “Corcoran the Philosopher” by JM Sagüillo,
• “Corcoran in Spanish” by C. Martínez-Vidal

Fonts

• 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 JM 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) 609639. With S. Wood. Reprinted in J. Gasser, Ed. Boolean Anthology. Dordrecht: Kluwer. 2000.
• Introduction and analytical index. In Tarski, A. Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics. Second ed. Edited by J. Corcoran. Trans. JH 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. In Mathematical Reviews 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 CA 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.
• CI Lewis: History and Philosophy of Logic. Transactions of the CS Peirce Society. 42 (2006) 1-9.

Honors

• Festschrift: Double edition of the journal History and Philosophy of Logic 1999 (Eds. M. Scanlan and S. Shapiro);
• Exceptional Scholar Award from the University of Buffalo 2002;
• Doctor hc from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) 2003;
• Corcoran Symposium , University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) 2003.

Web links

• Homepage of Corcoran

Individual evidence

1. ↑ John Corcoran: Completeness of an Ancient Logic . In: ASL (Ed.): J. of Symbolic Logic . 37, No. 4, 1972, pp. 696-702.
2. ^ John Corcoran: Schemata: the Concept of Schema in the History of Logic . In: ASL (Ed.): Bulletin of Symbolic Logic . 12, 2006, pp. 219-40.
3. ^ John Corcoran: Categoricity. In: History and Philosophy of Logic 1 (1980) 187-208. Reprinted in S. Shapiro, Ed .: The Limits of Logic , Aldershot, England: Dartmouth Publishing Company. 1996