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Ernest Nagel was born in Austria-Hungary and migrated to America at a young age, acquiring his doctorate from Columbia in 1930 -
Ernest Nagel was the most prominent American philosopher in the 1930's-1960's. Renowned for his work on logical positivism and the study of logic and philosophy.
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Nagel provides an introduction to the scientific method, the logical steps taken to achieve an understood process in the natural and social sciences. His viewpoint was the scientific method has a formal structure and process that must be understood and followed. -
His most prominent work "The Structure of Science". This publication set forth bridge laws that boiled down social and behavioral sciences fitting or translating them into the physical sciences. His theory was that similar logic and scientific explanation was valid throughout the different areas of science. Nagle, Ernest, 1961 The Structure of Science -
Nagel in this book focuses on the logical status of scientific theories and relates those theories in relation to scientific observation. Are scientific theories actually testable? Can we know that theories can actually be proven true or false by the scrutiny we hold both the test and the observation to. -
Ernest Nagel, noted philosopher and professor at the University of Columbia, elected into the National Academy of Sciences passes away.