John Haugeland


John Haugeland was a professor of philosophy, specializing in the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, phenomenology, and Heidegger. He spent most of his career at the University of Pittsburgh, followed by the University of Chicago from 1999 until his death. He is featured in Tao Ruspoli's film Being in the World.

Education and career

Haugeland studied at Harvey Mudd College, where he obtained a B.S cum laude in physics in 1966. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, completing his dissertation, entitled Truth and Understanding, under the supervision of Hans Sluga in 1976. At Berkeley, Hubert Dreyfus served as one of his important mentors, becoming almost a de facto doctoral advisor.
Haugeland was chair of the Chicago philosophy department from 2004 to 2007. He spent most of his career teaching at the University of Pittsburgh, from 1974 until 1999, and he also served as a visiting professor at Helsinki University, Finland.
Haugeland was a research fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities and of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. He had also been a member of the Council for Philosophical Studies. Before attending graduate school Haugeland served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tonga.

Philosophical work

In Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea, Haugeland coined the term GOFAI for symbolic artificial intelligence.
In Having thought, he gathered together some of his most influential papers, thirteen, ordered both chronologically and also thematically, under a number of subject headings, namely mind, matter, meaning and truth. Subject heading mind elaborates about cognitive science, with a couple of papers, and about Hume with a third one. Subject heading meaning addresses, through three papers, the relation between the intelligibility of mind and the material or physical. Meaning musters diverse papers all about the relationship between us and the world and, finally, truth deals, by means of four papers, with objectivity in terms of constitution as grounded in commitment.
Philosophers who completed their doctoral dissertations under John Haugeland's supervision include Danielle Macbeth, Tim van Gelder, and Zed Adams.

Books