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Born
Carl Gustav Hempel was born in Oranienburg, Germany, in 1905 -
University of Heidelberg
In 1923 Hempel moved to the University of Heidelberg, where he studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy. -
University of Berlin
At the University of Berlin he met and studied with Hans Reichenbach, who would later introduce him and became part of a group of philosophers known as the ''Berlin Circle" -
The Vienna Circle
In 1929, Carl Hempel attended a first congress that included Rudolph Carnap. He was so impressed by Rudolf that he moved to Vienna, Austria and attended three courses at the University of Vienna in the fall semester, with Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap and Friedrich Waismann. This group of philosophers would later become part of ''the Vienna Circle'' -
Immigration to America
Carl Hempel emigrated to the US where he accepted a position as Carnap's assistant at the University of Chicago. -
Raven Paradox
In the Studies in the Logic of Confirmation essay Carl Hempel describes the paradox in terms of the hypothesis: 1 All ravens are black. In the form of an implication, this can be expressed as: If something is a raven, then it is black.
Via contraposition, this statement is equivalent to: (2) If something is not black, then it is not a raven.
In all circumstances where (2) is true, (1) is also true
In all circumstances where (2) is false, (1) is also false. (Smith, 2013) -
Studies in the logic of explanation
To explain the phenomena in the world of our experience, to answer the question "Why?" rather than only the question "What?", is one of the foremost objectives of all rational inquiry; and especially scientific research, in its various branches strives to go beyond a mere description of its subject matter by providing an explanation of the phenomena it investigates. (Hempel and Oppenheim, 1948) -
Aspects of Scientific Explanation and other Essays in the Philosophy of Science
A 1965 book by the philosopher Carl Gustav Hempel. It is regarded as one of the most important works in the philosophy of science written after the Second World War -
Philosophy of Natural Science
Philosophy of Natural Science was more popular in its approach to the philosophy of science than Hempel's earlier Aspects of Scientific Explanation (1965), it was extremely influential. -
Scientific Explanation
Hempel’s most important contributions to the theory of science have been a series of explications of the structure of scientific explanations. His methodology was such that, following the preliminary examination of the linguistic and physical phenomena under consideration, he would advance a semi-formal characterization, one which he would subsequently subject to formal characterization using the resources of symbolic logic (James, 2017) -
Carl Gustav Hempel's Death
Day we lost a great man of science.
