Michiel van Lambalgen (born 6 November 1954,

Krimpen aan den IJssel Krimpen aan den IJssel () is a town and municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality had a population of in , and covers an area of of which is water. History Krimpen is first mentioned in a docum ...

) is a professor 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

Cognitive Science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

at the

Institute for Logic, Language and Computation The Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) is a research institute of the University of Amsterdam, in which researchers from the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Humanities collaborate. The ILLC's central research area is the s ...

and the Department of Philosophy,

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. In the 1980s van Lambalgen did research in randomness, and in

set theory Set theory is the branch of mathematical logic that studies Set (mathematics), sets, which can be informally described as collections of objects. Although objects of any kind can be collected into a set, set theory – as a branch of mathema ...

, where he developed a theory with a ''randomness predicate'' R(x) which had important consequences for Gödel's program of finding more primitive axioms from which statements like

Axiom of Choice In mathematics, the axiom of choice, abbreviated AC or AoC, is an axiom of set theory. Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of non-empty sets, it is possible to construct a new set by choosing one element from e ...

could be derived. After some time felt the subject was "too abstract". Then in the 1990s he moved to

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

, where he picked up the methodology for studying cognition. In 1999 he spent a sabbatical with Keith Stenning at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

where he made contributions to the

psychology of reasoning The psychology of reasoning (also known as the cognitive science of reasoning) is the study of how people reason, often broadly defined as the process of drawing conclusions to inform how people solve problems and make decisions. It overlaps w ...

. His research interests include philosophy and the foundations of mathematics, reasoning with uncertainty, the psychology of reasoning, and the cognitive semantics of natural language.Se
his CV
.

Notes

External links

Michael van Lambalgen's web pageProf. dr. M. van Lambalgen, 1954 -
at the

''Album Academicum'' website {{DEFAULTSORT:Lambalgen, Michael van 1954 births Living people Dutch logicians Dutch cognitive scientists 20th-century Dutch philosophers University of Amsterdam alumni Academic staff of the University of Amsterdam People from Krimpen aan den IJssel