Historically, the Center for Logic and Analytic Philosophy grew out of the Logic program at South China Normal University. The program was founded by Professor Li Kuangwu, a distinguished Chinese logician, former Vice President of the Chinese Society of Logic, and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin (USA). It was included in the first cohort of master’s degree programs authorized by the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council in 1981. In 2006 it obtained the right to confer doctoral degrees, and in 2011 it was authorized to confer doctoral degrees in Philosophy as a first-level discipline. A postdoctoral research station has also been established. Building on this foundation, the discipline of Philosophy that underpins logic at South China Normal University has developed a complete talent-training system from undergraduate through doctoral and postdoctoral levels, and has become a provincial key discipline with distinctive strengths in Guangdong.

Supported by the Logic program, the Center for Logic and Analytic Philosophy was established in April 2014. After sustained construction and development, on 29 August 2025 it was approved as a Guangdong Provincial Research Center for Social Sciences. With the Logic team of South China Normal University at its core, and drawing on the disciplines of logic, philosophy, and cognitive science, the Center brings together a vibrant group of scholars in logic and philosophy. Starting from foundational issues in the philosophy of logic, the Center makes instrumental use of philosophical logic, advances in-depth interactive analyses of the logic of language and the philosophy of language, and ultimately extends to empirical research in cognitive logic, thereby forming an interconnected and progressively deepening research framework. These research directions not only promote the development of basic research in logic and philosophy, but also provide theoretical foundations and analytical tools for fields such as cognitive science, linguistics, and computer science.

Our core research foci include: frontier issues in the philosophy of logic, philosophical logic, the logic of language, the philosophy of language, cognitive logic and the philosophy of artificial intelligence.

Since its establishment, the Center has expanded steadily on the foundation of its core logic team. It now consists of 24 researchers working within an interdisciplinary structure centered on logic and spanning foreign philosophy, Chinese philosophy, Marxist philosophy, cognitive science, and related areas. Among them, 10 members are from outside the university and 14 are internal members. Of the 14 faculty members within the university, 7 are at the senior-professor level, 6 at the associate-professor level, and 1 at the mid-career (lecturer) level.

Group Photo of the Center’s Internal Team Members (Logic Discipline)
LIAO Yanlin, WU Su, HU Yang, HSIUNG Ming, HU Zehong, ZHAO Yi, GAO Beibei, LIANG Xianhua.

Initial Review: LIAO Yanlin

Secondary Review: WU Su

Final Review: HSIUNG Ming