Jc Beall is an American philosopher working in philosophy of

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

and

philosophical logic Understood in a narrow sense, philosophical logic is the area of logic that studies the application of logical methods to philosophical problems, often in the form of extended logical systems like modal logic. Some theorists conceive philosophic ...

, who since 2020, holds the O’Neill Family Chair of Philosophy at the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...

. He was previously the Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...

Education and career

Beall earned a BA in philosophy from

Grove City College Grove City College (GCC) is a private, conservative Christian liberal arts college in Grove City, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1876 as a normal school, the college emphasizes a humanities core curriculum and offers 60 majors and si ...

. Beall earned his Ph.D. in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

from the

University of Massachusetts, Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the Flagship university, flagship campus of the Univer ...

, and joined the faculty at the

as an assistant professor in 2000. He has also held part-time or visiting appointments at

Yonsei University Yonsei University () is a Private university, private Christian university, Christian research university located in Seoul, South Korea. Yonsei is one of the three most prestigious universities in the country, part of a group referred to as SK ...

University of Tasmania The University of Tasmania (UTAS) is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College (University of Tasmania), Christ College, one of the unive ...

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen (abbreviated ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; ) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bis ...

St Andrews University The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, following the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, t ...

and

University of Otago The University of Otago () is a public university, public research university, research collegiate university based in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Founded in 1869, Otago is New Zealand's oldest university and one of the oldest universities in ...

Philosophical work

Beall is best known in philosophy for contributions to

(particularly

non-classical logic Non-classical logics (and sometimes alternative logics or non-Aristotelian logics) are formal systems that differ in a significant way from standard logical systems such as propositional and predicate logic. There are several ways in which this ...

) and to the

philosophy of logic Philosophy of logic is the area of philosophy that studies the scope and nature of logic. It investigates the philosophical problems raised by logic, such as the presuppositions often implicitly at work in theories of logic and in their applicatio ...

. Beall, together with

Greg Restall Greg Restall (born 11 January 1969) is an Australian philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Restall is known for his research on logic and theories ...

(an Australian logician and philosopher), is a pioneer of a widely discussed version of logical pluralism, according to which any given natural language has not one but many relations of

logical consequence Logical consequence (also entailment or logical implication) is a fundamental concept in logic which describes the relationship between statement (logic), statements that hold true when one statement logically ''follows from'' one or more stat ...

. Beall is also widely known for advocating a glut-theoretic account of deflationary truth (Spandrels of Truth (2009) (glut theory is the view that there are true contradictions, a special case of which is

dialetheism Dialetheism (; from Greek 'twice' and 'truth') is the view that there are statements that are both true and false. More precisely, it is the belief that there can be a true statement whose negation is also true. Such statements are called "tr ...

). Against the standard no-gap tradition in glut theory, Beall's early and post-2013 work advocates a gluts-and-gaps account of language, advocating not only the existence of truth-value gluts but also of truth-value gaps. The adoption of both gaps and gluts distinguishes Beall from other researchers in a broadly glut-theoretic framework, who usually accept only gluts.

References

External links

Personal website
1966 births Living people Philosophers from Connecticut University of Connecticut faculty University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Humanities and Fine Arts alumni Princeton Theological Seminary alumni Australian National University alumni {{US-philosopher-stub