caption work_institution birth_place awards field birth_date article_title name
melvin fitting , 2013 city university of new york u.s. herbrand award by cade , june 2012 mathematics , philosophy , computer science 24 january 1942 melvin fitting
 melvin fitting
melvin fitting

melvin `` mel '' fitting -lrb- born january 24 , 1942 in troy , new york -rrb- is a logician with special interests in philosophical logic and tableau proof systems .
from 1968 to 2013 he was a professor at city university of new york , lehman college and the graduate center .
at the graduate center he was in the departments of computer science , philosophy , and mathematics , and at lehman college he was in the department of mathematics and computer science .
he is now professor emeritus .
his undergraduate degree is from rensselaer polytechnic institute , and his doctorate is from yeshiva university , both in mathematics .
his thesis advisor was raymond smullyan .
in june 2012 melvin fitting was given the herbrand award by cade , for distinguished contributions to automated deduction .
a loose motivation for much of melvin fitting 's work can be formulated succinctly as follows .
there are many logics .
our principles of reasoning vary with context and subject matter .
multiplicity is one of the glories of modern formal logic .
the common thread tying logics together is a concern for what can be said -lrb- syntax -rrb- , what that means -lrb- semantics -rrb- , and relationships between the two .
a philosophical position that can be embodied in a formal logic has been shown to be coherent , not correct .
logic is a tool , not a master , but it is an enjoyable tool to use .
