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Bas van Fraassen
Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen was born in the German-occupied Netherlands on the fifth of April in 1941. It is important to note that his father, he was a steam fitter, was forced by the Nazis to work in a factory in Hamburg. This was a tragedy and caused the family to be separated. The happy part of this story is that after the war the family reunited and emigrated to Edmonton, in Western Canada. -
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Education and Jobs
B.A. in philosophy in 1963. University of Pittsburgh, where he received his M.A.1964 and his Ph.D. in 1966, writing a dissertation on the causal theory of time under the direction of Adolph Grünbaum. After graduating from Pittsburgh, Bas received an offer job from Yale,1969 -69. He also taught at the University of Toronto 1973–81, and the University of Southern California 1976–81 before finally joining the faculty at Princeton,1981-1982. In 98 Bas was named the McCosh Professor of Philosophy. -
Constructive Empiricism.
Follow this link to learn about Bas Van Fraassen's Constructive Empiricism. The video is short and defines this very well. https://youtu.be/rlejBkg8DAU 1980, Bas Van Fraassen major contribution -
The scientific image gets published
At the center of this work is his seminal book, The Scientific Image. In this book, Bas argues for a bold position in the philosophy of science that he calls “constructive empiricism.” According to constructive empiricism, “science aims to give us theories which are empirically adequate. -
award
In 1986, van Fraassen received the Lakatos Award for his contributions to the philosophy of science and, in 2012, the Philosophy of Science Association's inaugural Hempel Award for lifetime achievement in philosophy of science. -
laws and symmetry
Bas van Fraassen published "Laws and Symmetry" in 1989. In the book van Fraassen rejects the argument that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe there are. The book further builds upon the empiricist view of science previously described in his work. -
scientific representation
The most recent book van Fraassen has published, "Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective" presents a new way of looking at science. He considers scientific measurement outcomes as representations. In the book he mentions many paradoxes that have come up in contemporary science, as well as makes a complex analysis between appearance and reality in the scientific world. -
career
the world of Science Bas Van Fraassen is currently still alive. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University and the McCosh Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. The amount of accomplishments that he has are quite admirable and he continues to attempt to answer philosophical questions today at the age of seventy-seven.