Brian Cantwell-Smith

Brian Cantwell Smith is professor of cognitive science and computer science, adjunct professor of philosophy, and assistant director of the cognitive science program, at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. Before moving to Indiana in 1996 he was principal scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)   and adjunct professor of philosophy at Stanford University. He was a founder of the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University (CSLI) , a founder and first President of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) , and is President (1998-99) of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SPP) . Smith received his BS , MS and PhD degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1974, 1978, 1982). He is on the editorial board of several journals in artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and philosophy. Smith's research focuses on the foundations and philosophy of computing, both in the practice and theory of computer science, and in the use of computational metaphors in other fields -- such as philosophy, cognitive science, physics, and art. His doctoral dissertation introduced the notion of computational reflection in programming languages -- an area of active ongoing research in computer science. Past publications have addressed questions in computational reflection, meta-level architecture, programming languages, and knowledge representation. Over the last decade, his work has focused on fundamental issues in the foundations of epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics.