Stevan Robert Harnad (Hernád István Róbert, Hesslein István, born 1945) is a Canadian

cognitive scientist 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 ...

based in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

Early life and education

Harnad was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. He did his undergraduate work at

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

and his graduate work at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

's Department of Psychology. Harnad completed his

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

degree in

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

from McGill University in 1969 and received his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of Postgraduate education, graduate study and original resear ...

degree from Princeton University in 1992. He was awarded an

honorary doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or '' ad hon ...

by University of Liège in 2013.

Research

Harnad's research interests are in

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 ...

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

and animal sentience. He is currently professor of psychology at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM),

, and professor emeritus of cognitive science at the

University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...

. Elected external member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2001 (resigned in protest, 8 October 2016), he was Canada Research Chair in

2001–2015. His research is on

categorization Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identi ...

, communication,

cognition Cognition is the "mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thought, ...

, and

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

and he has written extensively on categorical perception, symbol grounding,

origin of language The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeolog ...

, lateralization, the

Turing test The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1949,. Turing wrote about the ‘imitation game’ centrally and extensively throughout his 1950 text, but apparently retired the term thereafter. He referred to ‘ iste ...

distributed cognition Distributed cognition is an approach to cognitive science research that was developed by cognitive anthropologist Edwin Hutchins during the 1990s. From cognitive ethnography, Hutchins argues that mental representations, which classical cognitive ...

, scientometrics, and

. Harnad is a former student of Donald O. Hebb and Julian Jaynes.

Research publishing and open access

In 1978, Harnad was the founder of '' Behavioral and Brain Sciences'', of which he remained

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

until 2002. In addition, he founded '' Psycoloquy'' (an early

electronic journal An academic journal (or scholarly journal or scientific journal) is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. They serve as permanent and transparent forums for the dissemination, scr ...

Scholarly skywriting

Scholarly skywriting, coined by Harnad around 1987, is the combination of multiple

email Electronic mail (usually shortened to email; alternatively hyphenated e-mail) is a method of transmitting and receiving Digital media, digital messages using electronics, electronic devices over a computer network. It was conceived in the ...

and a topic threaded

web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...

archive such as a

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start ...

electronic mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. Mailing lists are often rented or sold. If rented, the renter agrees to use the mailing list only at contra ...

, hypermail,

netnews Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

or Internet forum, linked and sortable by date, author, or subject-heading threads. The name derives from the idea that texts can be written in the "sky" (via multiple email and a web archive) for all to see ("skyreading") and all to add their own comments to ("skywriting"). Harnad suggested that it could be a kind of open peer review, a supplement to classical peer review, but not a substitute for it. What Harnad called student skywriting is scholarly skywriting done in a teaching/learning context.

Political activism

Harnad is the author of a 2011 open letter signed by over 60 external members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences addressed to the Academy's President, József Pálinkás, concerning the press and police harassment campaign against Hungarian philosophers who were critics of the current Hungarian ruling party, Fidesz, and its prime minister,

Viktor Orbán Viktor Mihály Orbán (; born 31 May 1963) is a Hungarian lawyer and politician who has been the 56th prime minister of Hungary since 2010, previously holding the office from 1998 to 2002. He has also led the Fidesz political party since 200 ...

. Harnad resigned from his external membership of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences on 8 October 2016 in protest against the increasingly " Illiberal democracy" of Viktor Orban.

Animal welfare

Harnad is Editor-in-Chief of the refereed journal ''Animal Sentience'' launched in 2015 by the Institute of Science and Policy of The Humane Society of the United States. A

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a ve ...

, Harnad is increasingly active in

animal welfare Animal welfare is the quality of life and overall well-being of animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures ...

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have Moral patienthood, moral worth independent of their Utilitarianism, utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as ...

, and animal law.

References

External links

Interview by Marc BekoffOpen Access Archivangelism Blog
Stevan Harnad's blog on Open Access
Publications by Harnad
archived in ''Archipel'', Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) {{DEFAULTSORT:Harnad, Stevan 1945 births Living people Academics of the University of Southampton Academic staff of the Université du Québec à Montréal Canadian animal welfare scholars Canada Research Chairs Canadian cognitive scientists Canadian people of Hungarian descent Hungarian emigrants to Canada McGill University Faculty of Science alumni Open access activists Princeton University alumni Scientists from Budapest