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Birth and Childhood
Bas Van Fraassen was born in Goes, Netherlands, He was born during the Nazi occupation. His father was a steamfitter. (construction worker focused on piping systems) The Germans transported his father to Hamburg to work in a factory. He was able t escaped only to be recaptured and was threatened to be sent to a concentration camp. http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/-why-science-should-stay-clear-of-metaphysics -
Oh Canada!
Surviving the internment, Bas's father returned home after the war. At the age of 15, Bas and his family immigrated to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in the summer of 1956. In high school, his interest in philosophy began to grow. He became well read in religion, psychology, and philosophy. He highly enjoyed reading post-war Existentialists such as Sartre and Camus. Their worldview was very similar to Bas'. http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/-why-science-should-stay-clear-of-metaphysics -
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College Educated
Van Fraassen earned his B.A. from the University of Alberta in 1963. He earned his M.A. a year later in 1964. He would go on to earn his Ph.D in Philosophy in 1966 from the University of Pittsburgh. -
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Yale University
Professor at Yale University -
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University of Toronto
A professor at University of Toronto -
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University of Southern California
A professor at University of Southern California, Los Angeles, -
Constructive Empiricism
Van Fraassen introduced his idea of constructive empiricism in his book "The Scientific Image". He reimagined empiricism in a scientific context, avoiding many of the challenges faced by logical empiricism. This was done by adopting a realist semantics. His position holds that the aim of science is empirical adequacy, where “a theory is empirically adequate exactly if what it says about the observable things and events in the world, is true”
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Princeton University
A professor at Princeton University -
The Empirical Stance
Published one of his most famous works. Van Fraassen goes into detail about how "we should not, in our philosophical capacity, form beliefs about what the world contains. As philosophers, we can have stances, but not beliefs. Scientists, and other “objectifying inquirers” who restrict themselves to observing and theorizing about entities in particular domains, are entitled to beliefs. But philosophy should not try to model itself on science." https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/the-empirical-stance/
