CURRICULUM VITAE

Personal Details

Name: Hanoch Ben-Yami
( : +36 1 327 3000 /ext. 2557 (W)
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Education

Tel-Aviv University (TAU), Philosophy Department, PhD, 1 June 1995
TAU, Philosophy Department, MA, 10 Oct. 1989
The Hebrew University , Mathematics & Physics, BSc, 1 Sep. 1983

Career History

2005-Present  CEU Philosophy Department, Associate Professor, then Professor
1998-2004     TAU Philosophy Department, Lecturer
1997-1998     TAU Special Interdisciplinary Programme for Outstanding Students, Educational Advisor
1996-1998     TAU Philosophy Department, Instructor

Membership in Professional Organizations

2007-          European Philosophy of science Association (EPSA)
1995-2005 European Society for Analytic Philosophy (ESAP)
1998-2005 The New Israeli Philosophy Society
1994-2001 European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP)

Active Participation in Scientific Meetings

In each of the following conferences I read a paper.

2007 1st  Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association, 14-17 November, Madrid, Spain.
2007 8th Congress of the austrian Society of Philosophy, 7-9 June, Graz, Austria.
2007 Square of opposition, 1-3 June, Montreux, Switzerland.
2006 GAP6: Sixth International Conference organized by the German Society for Analytic Philosophy, 11-14 September, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany.
2005 Joint session of the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society, 8-11 July, University of Manchester, UK.
2005 Eighth Annual Meeting of the New Israeli Philosophy Society, 17 February, Haifa, Israel.
2004 SIFA 04: Sixth National Conference of the Italian Society of Analytic Philosophy, 23-25 September, Genoa, Italy.
2004 Seventh Annual Meeting of the New Israeli Philosophy Society, 25 February, Jerusalem, Israel.
2003 FOL 75: 75 Years of First-Order Logic, 18-21 September, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
2003 17th International Symposium LOGICA 2003, 17-20 June, Kravsko Chateau, Check Republic.
2003 Sixth Annual Meeting of the New Israeli Philosophy Society, 13 February, Tel Aviv, Israel.
2000 Ninth Annual Meeting of the ESPP, Salzburg, Austria.
1999 ‘Naming, Necessity, and More’: An International Conference on the Work of Saul Kripke, Haifa, Israel.
1997 Sixth Annual Meeting of the ESPP, Padova, Italy.
1996 Second European Congress of Analytic Philosophy (ECAP II), Leeds, England.
1996 Fifth Annual Meeting of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (ESPP), Barcelona, Spain.

Professional Service

Academic and Professional Awards

1998 The Alon Scholarship, for lectureship at Tel-Aviv University

1995-1996 The Rothschild Fellowship, for post-doctoral study and research work at The Queen’s College, Oxford.

1994-1995 The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)—Tel-Aviv University Scholarship, for post-doctoral study and research work at The Queen’s College, Oxford.

Research

My research and publications are mainly in two broad areas: (1) Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind; (2) Philosophical Logic and Philosophy of Language. In each of these areas I have published several papers; I have also published a book in Philosophical Logic and the Philosophy of Language. I am currently working in both areas on several projects.

(1) In my work on Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind I make ample use of my education in mathematics and physics. For instance, a paper I published on temporal order and causality in Special Relativity combines analytic philosophy with geometrical considerations on Minkowski space-time. I am now working on a sequel to this paper, in which I would like to explore the significance of some alternative approach to simultaneity, suggested in the earlier paper. I deposited a draft of this paper, Apparent Simultaneity, in Pittsburgh's PhilSci-Archive. This work has brought me to do some work on causation more generally, and I have recently published in the Philosophical Quarterly a paper in which I try to refute Michael Dummett’s claim that backward causation is possible.

I am also engaged in another large project in this field (together with Dr. V. Glickman), in which we enquire into the development of Descartes’ views on perception and life, a project in which we try to show how the mathematics, natural sciences and technology of his day contributed to the forming of his ideas.

In my published papers in the philosophy of mind I mainly criticize several aspects of currently dominant philosophical positions, specifically functionalism. My own view on the nature of thought, and of intentionality more generally, is largely Wittgensteinian, and in the course of some of my papers I also try to rehabilitate this position by replying to criticisms that it has received.

(2) Philosophical Logic and Philosophy of Language. My main publication in this area is my book, Logic & Natural Language. In it I criticize the adequacy of Frege’s predicate calculus, including its versions that use generalized quantifiers, for the analysis of the semantics and logic of natural language. I show that the absence of plural referring phrases from his calculus drove Frege to analyze common nouns in the grammatical subject position as logically predicative, e.g., ‘Greeks’ in ‘All Greeks are mortal’. I show how their analysis as plural referring expressions can explain many features of natural language that create difficulties to their analysis by means of Frege’s calculus. I also develop an alternative deductive system, comparable in its power to the first-order predicate calculus, but more adequate than it for representing and systematizing the logic of natural language. A short presentation of some of the main ideas of my book can be found in my paper, 'New Semantics and Deductive System for Natural Language'.

I have also published, together with Ran Lanzet, a paper in which we show how my semantic approach can serve as the basis for an artificial language with model-theoretic semantics. Lanzet has proved there that this artificial language is sound and complete, and that it is equivalent, in a sense specified there, to a version of First Order Logic. Lanzet has developed these ideas much further in his dissertation (pdf). In a paper I published in Ratio, 'A Critique of Frege on Common Nouns', criticize Frege’s arguments against the apparent role of some common nouns as logical subject-terms (e.g., ‘whales’ in ‘All whales are mammals’), and I show why he was led to what I argue is their incorrect analysis as logically predicative.

Two other papers expand themes I only touched upon in my book. In the first, 'Generalized Quantifiers, and Beyond', I show how my approach can explain why natural language has the quantifiers actually found in it better than can the approach currently predominant in philosophy and linguistics, the one using generalized quantifiers. I the second, 'Plural Quantification Logic: A Critical Appraisal', I compare my approach to recent work on plural quantification logic.

Another project in the philosophy of language is a Wittgenstyeinian attempt to resolve the Sorites paradox. I am also working on two papers criticising Kripke's ideas and claims about rigidity and his theory of names. These will continue an earlier paper of mine in which I criticized his, and Putnam's, claims about natural kinds, 'The Semantics of Kind Terms'.