William J. Rapaport


William Joseph Rapaport is an American philosopher who is an associate professor emeritus of the University at Buffalo.
WWW cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport

Philosophical work

Rapaport has done research and written extensively on intentionality and artificial intelligence. He has research interests in computer science, artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, cognitive science, logic and mathematics, and published many scientific articles on them.
While a philosophy graduate student at Indiana University in 1972, he concocted the sentence: "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". Throughout his career he developed this theme, and discussed it extensively. However, the idea of a grammatically correct sentence repeating "buffalo" was independently discovered several times in the 20th century, such as in Dmitri Borgmann's 1967 book, Beyond Language: Adventures in Word and Thought.
His early work on nonexistent objects was influenced by Alexius Meinong.
Rapaport has written on the field of intentionality, influencing scientists and writers including Daniel Dennett, Héctor-Neri Castañeda and John Searle.
Rapaport is interested in science educational theory, and received the New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Other activities

In June 1988, Rapaport compiled a list of restaurants in the Buffalo area for attendees of an ACL meeting at SUNY Buffalo. The list was continued, becoming interactive, with user reviews of restaurants.
Rapaport and his wife Mary, with whom he has a son Michael, are the principal donors to the Lucille Ball-Desi Arnaz Center in Jamestown, NY. The Desilu Playhouse, located in the Rapaport Center, contains memorabilia and other vintage I Love Lucy items. He and his wife have also purchased and renovated Lucille Ball's childhood home in Celoron, New York.

Books and articles

Intentionality and the Structure of Existence, unpublished Ph.D. Indiana University, 1976.
  • "Meinongian Theories and a Russellian Paradox", Noûs, 12, pp. 153–80.'. Edited by William J. Rapaport et al. Includes various essays by Rapaport and his colleagues.
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  • "", reply to Ford's "Helen Keller Was Never in a Chinese Room"
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  • ', online textbook on connections between philosophy, computer science and artificial intelligence, constantly being updated