John Corcoran (logician)

John Corcoran
Born	(1937-03-20)March 20, 1937 Baltimore, Maryland,U.S.
Died	January 8, 2021(2021-01-08)(aged 83)
Alma mater	Johns Hopkins University
Known for	Interpretation ofAristotle'sPrior Analytics,reconstruction ofBoole's original works, work onlogic,work onmathematical logic,character-string theory,subregular polyhedra
Scientific career
Fields	Logic,history of logic,philosophy of logic,mathematical logic,philosophy of mathematics,epistemology,ontology,linguistics
Institutions	University at Buffalo(SUNY)
Doctoral advisor	Robert McNaughton

John Corcoran(/ˈkɔːrkərən/KOR-kər-ən;March 20, 1937 – January 8, 2021) was an Americanlogician,philosopher, mathematician, andhistorian of logic.He is best known for his philosophical work on concepts such as the nature ofinference,relations betweenconditions,argument-deduction-proof distinctions,the relationship betweenlogicandepistemology,and the place ofproof theoryandmodel theoryin logic. Nine of Corcoran's papers have been translated intoSpanish,Portuguese,Persian,andArabic;his 1989 "signature" essaywas translated into three languages. Fourteen of his papers have been reprinted; one was reprinted twice.

His workonAristotle's logic of thePrior Analyticsis 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 formalcharacter-string theories,sciences of strings of characters over finite Alpha bets, are foundational for logic,formal linguistics,andcomputer science.

Education

Corcoran graduated from the Advanced College Preparatory Program (the "A Course" ) of theBaltimore Polytechnic Institutein 1956 and received the BES in Mechanical Engineering in 1959 from theJohns Hopkins University,where he received the PhD in Philosophy in 1963. His post-doctoral studies in mathematics were atYeshiva Universityin 1964 and at theUniversity of California Berkeleyin 1965. His dissertation topic was Generative Structure of Two-valued Logics.

Corcoran's first logic teacher wasAlbert L Hammond.Corcoran studied Plato and Aristotle withLudwig Edelstein.His next two logic teachers wereJoseph UllianandRichard Wiebe.Corcoran's dissertation supervisor wasRobert McNaughton.At Yeshiva University in New York City Corcoran studied withRaymond SmullyanandMartin Davis.Corcoran's first tenure-track position was at theUniversity of Pennsylvania,where his dissertation supervisor was a Professor of Computer and Information Science.

Regular academic or research appointments

Corcoran was Professor of Philosophy,University at Buffalo(SUNY) from 1970 to 1973; Associate Professor of Philosophy, University at Buffalo between 1970 and 1973; Assistant Professor of Linguistics,University of Pennsylvaniabetween 1965 and 1969; Member of Linguistics Group, IBM Research Center between 1963 and 1964.

Visiting academic or research appointments

Corcoran 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 Michigan1969–1970; Visiting Lecturer in Philosophy,University of California, Berkeley1964–1965; Mathematician,General Electric Research Laboratory1962; Mathematician, Aeronca Astromechanics Institute, 1961; Junior Instructor in Philosophy,Johns Hopkins University1960–1961.

Research profile

Corcoran's work inhistory of logicinvolves most of the discipline's productive periods. He has discussedAristotle,theStoics,William of Ockham,Giovanni Girolamo Saccheri,George Boole,Richard Dedekind,Gottlob Frege,Charles Sanders Peirce,Clarence Irving Lewis,the American Postulate Theorists,Alfred Tarski,Willard Van Orman Quine,andWarren Goldfarb.

His 1972 interpretation of Aristotle'sPrior Analytics,proposed independently byTimothy Smileyat 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 byGisela Striker.

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 articleprovides a systematic comparison and critical evaluation ofAristotelian logicandBoolean logic;it also reveals the centrality ofwholistic referencein Boole'sphilosophy of logic.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 whatAristotlesaid; 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 "perfectsyllogisms") 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 1980sled to publications on Tarski's workand to the 2007 articleNotes 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 inphilosophy of logicfocuses on the nature of logic, the role of logic in inquiry, the conceptual structure of logic, themetaphysicalandepistemologicalpresuppositions of logic, the nature ofmathematical logicand the gaps between logical theory and mathematical practice. Hismathematical logictreatspropositional logics,modal logics,identity logics, syllogisticlogics, the logic of first-order variable-binding term operators,second-order logics, model theory,andthe 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. Inphilosophy of mathematicsCorcoran has been guided by a nuanced and inclusionaryPlatonismwhich strives to do justice to all aspects of mathematical and logical experience including those aspects emphasized by competing philosophical perspectives such aslogicism,constructivism, deductivism,andformalism.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 toArthur Lovejoy's History of Ideas Program at Johns Hopkins University and in which he has been encouraged by the American philosopher and historianPeter 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 paper"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 ofHistory and Philosophy of Logic,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 CompostelaPress. 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).

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. Sagüillo,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 Reviews91h: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:History and Philosophy of Logic.Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society.42(2006) 1–9.
• Corcoran, John (21 September 2008)."Schema".InZalta, Edward N.(ed.).Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Review of "Aristotle, Prior Analytics: Book I, Gisela Striker (translation and commentary), Oxford UP, 2009, 268pp., $39.95 (pbk),ISBN978-0-19-925041-7."in theNotre Dame Philosophical Reviews,2010.02.02Archived15 June 2011 at theWayback Machine.
• "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:// tandfonline /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:// tandfonline /doi/full/10.1080/01445340.2014.952947
• "Deductions and Reductions Decoding Syllogistic Mnemonics"Entelekya Logico-Metaphysical Review2 (1):5-39 (2018). Co-authors Daniel Novotný & Kevin Tracy.

For a complete list seeJohn 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 Colloquium[1]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 forMathematical Reviews1969–present.
• Occasional reviewer forPhilosophy of Science,Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, andJournal of Symbolic Logic.
• 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,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 Philosophy2012–present.

Death

Corcoran died on January 8, 2021, at the age of 83.

Honors and awards

• Festschrift special double issue of History and Philosophy of Logic 1999 (Eds. M. Scanlan andS. 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:// revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/idval/article/viewFile/12581/13183

External links

• VARIABLE BINDING TERM OPERATORSby JOHNCORCORAN,WILLIAMHATCHER,and JOHNHERRINGin Buffalo, New York and Quebec (Canada). It includes a statement of thetruth-set principle,which he co-discovered withNewton da Costa.