June 16, IIIS Dean Prof. Yao joined the certificate presentation ceremony of “Outstanding Overseas Professor” to Prof. Johan van Benthem and China–Netherlands Academic Cooperation Forum. Prof. Luo Lisheng, Director of the Tsinghua University International Exchange and Cooperation Office, Prof. Li Qiang, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deputy Director Selano Li of China Cooperation Office NESO, Netherlands Ministry of Education, Science Attaché David Pho from  Netherlands Office for Science and Technology NOST, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Beijing and Prof. Martin Stokhof, from University of Amsterdam, and former Chair Humanities Division of Dutch Science Foundation NWO also joined the event.

Prof. Yao extended his congratulations on Prof. Johan van Benthem for taking up the Outstanding Overseas Professorship and the Department of Philosophy for having Prof. van Benthem at Tsinghua University. Prof. Yao said in his remarks that Prof. van Benthem as a great master scholar and mater of educating students, is at the top of his profession which spans a large area in logic, language and computation. He shared an interesting story that was noted in the special issue on the occasion of Johan van Benthem’s 60th birthday in Journal of Philosophical Logic. Prof. Yao looked forward to many years of fruitful interaction with Prof. van Benthem.

Prof. van Benthem deeply appreciated the honor and said that logic is an interdisciplinary field that has contact with humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and computer science. He wished to work with people at Tsinghua University to promote its traditions in logic and establish a central role while cultivating talents in this field. Prof. van Benthem is currently at the University of Amsterdam at the Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, professor of philosophy at Stanford University (at CSLI) and Weilun Professor at Tsinghua University. He was awarded the Spinozapremie in 1996.