John W. Etchemendy and of Basque

Basque people

The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...

 descent is Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

's twelfth and current Provost

Provost (education)

A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....

. He succeeded John L. Hennessy

John L. Hennessy

John LeRoy Hennessy is an American computer scientist and academician. Hennessy is one of the founders of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. and is the 10th President of Stanford University.-Background:...

 to the post on September 1, 2000.

John Etchemendy received his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Nevada, Reno

University of Nevada, Reno

The University of Nevada, Reno , is a teaching and research university established in 1874 and located in Reno, Nevada, USA...

 before earning his PhD in philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 at Stanford in 1982.

He has been a faculty member in Stanford's Department of Philosophy since 1983, prior to which he was a faculty member in the Philosophy Department at Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

. He is also a faculty member of Stanford's Symbolic Systems Program and a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford.

Etchemendy's research interests include logic

Logic

In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

, semantics

Semantics

Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....

 and the philosophy of language

Philosophy of language

Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...

. He has challenged orthodox views on the central notions of truth, logical consequence and logical truth

Logical truth

Logical truth is one of the most fundamental concepts in logic, and there are different theories on its nature. A logical truth is a statement which is true and remains true under all reinterpretations of its components other than its logical constants. It is a type of analytic statement.Logical...

. His most well-known book, The Concept of Logical Consequence (1990, 1999), criticizes Alfred Tarski

Alfred Tarski

Alfred Tarski was a Polish logician and mathematician. Educated at the University of Warsaw and a member of the Lwow-Warsaw School of Logic and the Warsaw School of Mathematics and philosophy, he emigrated to the USA in 1939, and taught and carried out research in mathematics at the University of...

's widely accepted analysis of logical consequence. The Liar: An essay on truth and circularity (1987, 1992), co-authored with the late Jon Barwise

Jon Barwise

Kenneth Jon Barwise was an American mathematician, philosopher and logician who proposed some fundamental revisions to the way that logic is understood and used....

, develops a formal account of the Liar Paradox

Liar paradox

In philosophy and logic, the liar paradox or liar's paradox , is the statement "this sentence is false"...

 modelled using a version of set theory

Set theory

Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies sets, which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics...

 incorporating the so-called Anti-Foundation Axiom.

Etchemendy's recent work has focused on the role of diagrams and other nonlinguistic forms of representation in reasoning. His latest book, written with Jon Barwise, is Language, Proof and Logic

Language, Proof and Logic

Language, Proof and Logic is an educational software package, devised and written by Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy, geared to teaching formal logic through the use of a tight integration between a textbook and four software programs, where three of them are logic related and the other is an...

(2000, 2006), a popular introductory logic textbook. He has also developed numerous pieces of instructional software, including Turing's World, Tarski's World, Fitch, and Hyperproof, software that allows computers to support the reasoning process.

At Stanford, Etchemendy served as director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information from 1990 to 1993, senior associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences from 1993 to 1997, and chair of the Department of Philosophy from 1998 to 2000.

He is a member of the American Philosophical Association, on the editorial boards of Synthese and Philosophia Mathematica, and a former editor of the Journal of Symbolic Logic. His wife is the writer Nancy Etchemendy

Nancy Etchemendy

Nancy Elise Howell Etchemendy is a writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her novels, short fiction, and poetry have appeared regularly since 1980, both in the United States and abroad...

 and they have one son Max Etchemendy.

External links

• Stanford Provost's office
• Etchemendy's Biography from Stanford
• Radio interview on Philosophy Talk
  Philosophy Talk
  Philosophy Talk is a talk radio program co-hosted by John Perry and Ken Taylor, who are professors at Stanford University. The show is also available as a podcast, available for purchase. The program deals both with fundamental problems of philosophy and with the works of famous philosophers,...