Phlip Johnson-Laird

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Philip Johnson-Laird (12 October 1936 - ) is a psychologist and author of several notable books on human cognition and reasoning.

He was educated at Culford School and University College London where he won the Rosa Morison Medal in 1964, a James Sully Scholarship between 1964–66 and achieved BA in 1964 and PhD in 1967. He was elected to a Fellowship in 1994.

He is currently the Stuart Professor of Psychology at Princeton University.

Psychologist Philip Johnson-Laird was born in Leeds, England, on 12 October 1936. He married Maureen Sullivan in 1959, and their marriage produced two children. In 1961 Johnson-Laird entered University College, London, as a psychology student and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1967. His doctoral research was supervised by Peter Wason, with whom he collaborated on his first book, The Psychology of Reasoning. During and following his doctoral studies, Johnson-Laird served as a lecturer at University College until taking up a post at the University of Sussex in 1973.

After leaving Sussex in 1982 Johnson-Laird became the Assistant Director of the Medical Research Council’s Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge, serving until 1989. He then joined the faculty at Princeton University and is currently Stuart Professor of Psychology.

His entry in Who's Who (2007 edition) records the following career history:

• 10 years of miscellaneous jobs, as surveyor, musician, hospital porter (alternative to National Service), librarian, before going to university.
• Assistant Lecturer, then Lecturer, in Psychology, UCL, 1966–73
• Reader, 1973, Professor, 1978, in Experimental Psychology, University of Sussex
• Assistant Director, MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge University, 1983–89
• Fellow, Darwin College, Cambridge, 1984–89
• Visiting Member, Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, 1971–72
• Visiting Fellow, Stanford University, 1980
• Visiting Professorships: Stanford University, 1985; Princeton Univ., 1986.

He is a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society and has been awarded honorary doctorates from: Göteborg, 1983; Padua, 1997; Madrid, 2000; Dublin, 2000; Ghent, 2002; Palermo, 2005. He won the Spearman Medal in 1974, the British Psychological Society President's Award, 1985; and the International Prize from Fondation Fyssen in 2002.

He's a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences since 2007.

Selected Publications

• Johnson-Laird, Philip N (2006). How We Reason, Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198569763.
• Johnson-Laird, Philip N (1998). Computer and the Mind: An Introduction to Cognitive Science, Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674156166.
• Johnson-Laird, Philip N (1993). Human and Machine Thinking (Distinguished Lecture Series), LEA, Inc.. ISBN 978-0805809213.
• Johnson-Laird, Philip N (with Ruth M. J. Byrne) (1991). Deduction, Psychology Press. ISBN 9780863771491.
• Johnson-Laird, Philip N (1983). Mental Models: Toward a Cognitive Science of Language, Inference and Consciousness, Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674568822.
• Johnson-Laird, Philip N (with P.C. Wason) (1977). Thinking: Readings in Cognitive Science, Cambridge University Press.
• Johnson-Laird, Philip N (with G.A. Miller) (1976). Language and Perception, Belknap Press. ISBN 978-0674509481.
• Johnson-Laird, Philip N (with Peter C. Wason) (1972). Psychology of Reasoning: Structure and Content, Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0674721272.