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Bas van Fraassen is a Dutch American philosopher, and was born in 1941 in the then German-occupied Netherlands. He has a B.A. from the University of Alberta, and a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He teaches classes at San Francisco State University, and has taught at Yale, Princeton, USC, and the University of Toronto.
"I began with the ambition to arrive at a coherent view of everything -- some day, within my lifetime -- and I am still cherishing that idea ..." -
In 1980 van Fraassenn published his book "The Scientific Image" in which he coined the term "constructive empiricism." Van Fraassen defines the view as follows: "Science aims to give us theories which are empirically adequate; and acceptance of a theory involves as belief only that it is empirically adequate. Van Fraassen is widely credited with rehabilitating scientific anti-realism.
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In 1986, van Fraassen won the Lakatos Award. It is awarded annually to somebody who has made great contribution to the philosophy of science community in the form of a book published in English within the last six years. Van Fraassen received this award for his work "The Scientific Image."
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Bas van Fraassen published "Laws and Symmetry" in 1989. Van Fraassen rejects the argument that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe there are. The book builds upon the empiricist view of science previously described in his work.
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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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brAOVfAoimQ