John Woods graduated with a B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, and completed his Ph.D in Philosophy under Arthur Burks at the University of Michigan in 1965. He holds an LL.D honoris causa from Mount Allison University and a D.A. honoris causa from the University of Lethbridge. Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, he is also a recipient of the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal and the Alberta Centennial Gold Medal. He is a Life member of the Association of Fellows of the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, and President Emeritus of the University of Lethbridge.

John Woods has held regular or visiting appointments at the University of Michigan, the University of Toronto, Stanford University, Laurentian University, University of Victoria, the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Groningen and King's College London. He was Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Calgary from 1976-1979 and President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lethbridge from 1979-1986.

Current interests include abductive logic, logics of practical reasoning, fallacy theory, conflict resolution strategies, legal reasoning, the logic of error, the logic of fiction and the history of logic.
 

Selected books:

• Paradox and Paraconsistency: Conflict Resolution in the Abstract Sciences, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2003, ISBN 0 521 81094 9 (HB), ISBN 0521 00934 0 (PB)
   
• Agenda Relevance: A Study in Formal Pragmatics (with Dov M. Gabbay), volume 1 of A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems, Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland 2003, ISBN 0 444 51385 X
   
• The Rise of Modern Logic:  Leibniz to Frege (co-edited with Dov M. Gabbay), volume 3 of Handbook of History of Logic, Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland 2004, ISBN 0-444-51611-5
   
• Argument: Critical Thinking, Logic and the Fallacies, (with Andrew Irvine and Douglas Walton), 2nd Revised Edition, Toronto: Prentice-Hall 2004, ISBN 0-13-039938-8
   
• The Death of Argument: Fallacies in Agent-Based Reasoning, Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer 2004, ISBN 1-4020-2663-3.
   
• The Reach of Abduction: Insight and Trial, (with Dov M. Gabbay), volume 2 of A Practical Logic of Cognitive Systems, Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland 2005, ISBN: 0-444-51791-X.
   
• Logic and the Modalities in the Twentieth Century (co-edited with Dov M. Gabbay) volume 7 of the Handbook of the History of Logic, Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland, 2006. 
   
• The Many Valued and Nonmonotonic Turn in Logic (co-edited with Dov M. Gabbay) volume 8 of the Handbook of the History of Logic, Amsterdam: North-Holland 2007 ISBN: 978-0-444-51623-7 
   
• Fallacies: Selected Papers 1972-1982 (with Douglas Walton), 2nd edition, with a Foreward by Dale Jacquette, London: College Publications. 2007. Originally published in 1989
   
• Logic from Russell to Church (co-edited with Dov M. Gabbay), volume 5 of Handbook of the History of Logic. Amsterdam: Elsevier/North-Holland 2009, ISBN 978-0-444-51620-6
   
• The Logic of Fiction, 2nd edition, with a Foreword by Nicholas Griffin, 2009. Originally published in 1974.
   

• Sherlock's Member: New Perspectives on the Semantics of Fiction
   
• Seductions and Shortcuts: Error in the Cognitive Economy

• Seductions and Shortcuts: Error in the Cognitive Economy, Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3,
  Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8, Ch. 9, Ch. 10.
• Psychologizing the Semantics of Fiction (with Jill Isenberg)
• Unifying the Fictional (with Alirio Rosales)
• Virtuous Distortion (with Alirio Rosales)
• Making Too Much of Possible Worlds
• Advice on Abductive Logic
• Dialectical Considerations on the Logic of Contradiction I
• Eight Theses Reflecting on Stephen Toulmin.
• A Quantum Logic of Down Below

John Woods is Editor, with Dov Gabbay, of the eleven-volume Handbook of the History of Logic, published by North-Holland; Editor, with Dov Gabbay and Paul Thagard, of the sixteen-volume Handbook of the Philosophy of Science, also published by North-Holland; Editor, with Dov Gabbay, Joerg Siekmann and Johan van Benthem, of the monograph series Logic and Cognitive Systems, published by College Publications: Editor, with Trevor Bench-Capon, P.M. Dung, Marcello Guarini, Ulrike Hahn and Fabio Paglieri, of the monograph series Studies in Logic and Argumentation, also appearing with College Publications; and Editor, with Frans van Eemeren, Scott Jacobs and Erik C.W. Krabbe, of the monograph series Argumentation Library published by Springer.

John divides the year between Vancouver and London.