Brian Cantwell Smith
Biography
Since completing his doctoral dissertation at MIT in 1981, in which he
introduced the notion of reflection in programming languages embodied in
3-Lisp, Brian Cantwell Smith has pursued foundational questions in
computing, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. He is currently
Principal Scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, where he has
worked since 1981. He was a co-founder and principal investigator of the
Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI), and since 1983 has
been consulting professor of philosophy at Stanford University. He was
also a co-founder and first President of Computer Professionals for Social
Responsiblity (CPSR).
Smith's 25-year project to reconstruct the foundations of computation and
intentionality (meaning, semantics, symbols, etc.) is due to be reported in
a forthcoming series of books, collectively entitled The Middle Distance.
The new metaphysics to which this investigation has led is presented in
On the Origin of Objects (MIT 1995).
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