Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at The University of Kansas
Follow @johnfsymons
Thank you for your interest in my work. These days I’m mostly working on problems related to the role of computing technology in science, but in the past I’ve worked in formal epistemology, philosophy of psychology, and the metaphysics of emergence.
A list of my publications, and links to some of them are below.
Books:
Special Sciences and the Unity of Science Co-edited with Olga Pombo, Shahid Rahman, and Juan Manuel Torres (New York: Springer 2012)
Masses of Formal Philosophy. Co-edited with Vincent Hendricks (Automatic Press, 2006)
Formal Philosophy. Co-edited with Vincent Hendricks (Automatic Press, 2005)
Logic, Epistemology and the Unity of Science. Co-edited with Jean Paul van Bendegem, Dov Gabbay and Shahid Rahman (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004)
On Dennett, (Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 2002). Translated into Slovak by Juraj Hvorecky as Dennett (Bratislava: Albert Marenčin 2004) Translated into French by Mathieu Aury with additional chapters on Quinean naturalism, as Dennett: Un naturalisme en chantier. (Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 2005)
Papers:
Epistemic Logic Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy : Updated version (2019)With Rasmus Rendsvig
Modeling and Graph Analysis for Enhancing Resilience With Amir Modarresi) The 10th International Conference on Emerging Ubiquitous Systems and Pervasive Networks. EUSPN 2019
Brute facts about emergence. in Vintiadis and Mekios (eds.) Brute Facts. Oxford University Press pp.177-196, 2018
“Teleosemantics and Natural Information” in Floridi, L. (ed.) Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Information. Routledge pp. 263-276 2016
“Software Intensive Science” (with Jack Horner) Philosophy and Technology, Volume 27, Issue 3, pp 461-477, 2014
“The Emergence of Systematicity in Minimally Cognitive Agents” (with Paco Calvo and Emma Martin) in The Architecture of Cognition: Rethinking Fodor and Pylyshyn’s Systematicity Challenge Co-edited with Paco Calvo Cambridge: MIT press 397-434, 2014
“Systematicity: an Overview” (with Paco Calvo) in The Architecture of Cognition: Rethinking Fodor and Pylyshyn’s Systematicity Challenge Co-edited with Paco Calvo Cambridge: MIT press 3-30, 2014
“What is a Model, Why People Don’t Trust Them and Why They Should.” (with Boschetti F, Fulton E.A., Bradbury, R.H.) In Negotiating Our Future: Living scenarios for Australia to 2050, Vol 2. Australian Academy of Science 107-119, 2012
“Beyond Error Correction” Frontiers in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00423 September, 2012 (with Paco Calvo and Emma Martin)
‘Borders’ (with Josiah Heyman) in A Companion to Moral Anthropology. Didier Fassin ed. Wiley-Blackwell 540-559, 2012
“Limiting Skepticism” (with Vincent Hendricks) Logos and Episteme 2, 2 211-224, 2011
“Six Questions on Complex Systems’ Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics ICNAAM 20111389, 956-958, 2011
“Logic and Formal Semantics for Epistemology” in Routledge Companion to Epistemology. Duncan Pritchard and Sven Bernecker (eds) New York: Routledge. 571-586, 2011
“Ontology and Methodology in the Analytic Philosophy” in Theories and Applications of Ontology Vol. 1 J. Seibt and R. Poli (eds.) New York: Springer. 349-394, 2010.
“Teleology in Biology: Haddox on the Basic Principles of the Living World” in Thought and Social Engagement in the Mexican-american Philosophy of John H. Haddox: A Collection of Critical Appreciations. Carlos Alberto Sanchez and J.Simon ed. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010
“Epistemic Logic’ (with Vincent Hendricks) in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2009/entries/logic-epistemic/
“Supervenience” in The Encyclopedia of Neuroscience. New York: Springer, vol. 19, 3901-3903, 2009
“What has Philosophy of Psychology Become?” Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology. John Symons and Paco Calvo (eds.) New York: Routledge xxi-xxiv, 2009
“Inquiry and Functionalism” in Cédric Dégremont, Laurent Kieff and Helge Rückert (eds.) Dialogues, Logic and Other Strange Things; Essays in Honour of Shahid Rahman. London: College Publications 385-393, 2008
“Intuition and Philosophical Methodology” Axiomathes 18: 67-89, 2008
“Detecting Emergence in the Interplay of Networks” Interplay of Networks”, in Goran P. Trajkovski and Samuel G. Collins (eds.) (2008) Emergent Agents and Socialities: Social and Organizational Aspects of Intelligence, AAAI Technical Report FS-07-04. Menlo Park, California: The AAAI Press. 86-93
“Computational Models of Emergent Properties” Minds and Machines 18, 4: 475-491, 2008 Reprinted in Nigel Gilbert (ed) Computational Social Science. London: Sage publications 2010
“A Computational Modeling Strategy for Levels” Philosophy of Science 75, 608-620. 2008
“Understanding the Complexity of Information Processing Tasks in Vision.’” In Carlos Gershenson,
Diederik Aerts, and Bruce Edmonds (eds.) Philosophy and Complexity: Essays on Epistemology, Evolution, and Emergence. Singapore: World Scientific 300-314, 2007
“Towards a General Description of Physical Invariance in Category Theory” (with Vladik Kreinovich and Julio Urenda) Journal of Uncertain Systems 1: 170-175, 2007
“Pattern-oriented analysis of communication flow: the case study of Cicada barbara lusitanica.” (with Louçã, J, Rodrigues, D., Morais, A.)Proceedings of the 21st European Conference on Modelling and Simulation ECMS 2007, Ivan Zelinka, Zuzana Oplatková, Alessandra Orsoni, ed. Prague: ECMS pp. 229-234, 2007
“Quine, Barcan-Marcus and Kripke on Modality” Southwest Philosophical Studies 29, 49-54, 2007
“No Mere Formality: On Why Formal Philosophy Matters” (with Vincent Hendricks) The Philosophers’ Magazine 3rd quarter 35-38, 2007
“Where’s the Bridge? Epistemic logic and epistemology” (with Vincent Hendricks) Philosophical Studies 128:137-167, 2006
“The Results are in: On the scope and import of Hintikka’s philosophy”, (With Daniel Kolak) in Questions, Quantifiers and Quantum Physics. New York: Springer 190-258, 2004
“Systems of visual identification in neuroscience: Lessons from epistemic logic.” With Jaakko Hintikka Philosophy of Science 70: 89-104, 2003 Reprinted in Hintikka, J. Socratic Epistemology: Explorations of Knowledge-Seeking by Questioning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2007
“Logic, Epistemology and the Unity of Science: An Encyclopedic Project in the Spirit of Diderot and Neurath” With Shahid Rahman in Logic, Epistemology and the Unity of Science. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers: 4-36, 2003
“Information, Representation, and the Dynamic Systems Approach to Language: Commentary on Shanker and King”, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 640-641, 2002
“What can Neuroscience Explain?” Brain and Mind 2: 243-248, 2001