b. 1945
William J. Rapaport is an American philosopher and cognitive scientist, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Engineering at the University at Buffalo. His work spans philosophy of mind, philosophy of computer science, computational linguistics, and cognitive science, with particular focus on syntactic semantics and the philosophy of artificial intelligence.
Developed syntactic semantics as a theory of meaning for computational cognitive agents
Contributed foundational work to the philosophy of computer science as a distinct discipline
Authored 'Philosophy of Computer Science' (2023), a major textbook in the field
Advanced Meinongian analyses of fiction and intentionality in cognitive science
Extensive work on the SNePS knowledge representation and reasoning system