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Sabbatical
In an interview with Byrne, Fraassen states he took time off from teaching and backpacked through Southern Europe, Romania, Turkey, and Northern Africa. It was here that he began developing his ideas that "it is practically impossible to describe the chaos of what actually happens in the world" (2016). -
The Scientific Image
As the first book published by Fraassen, this work features his insights and invention of "Constructive Empiricism." This view contrasts the views of logical positivism and scientific realism and then accepts as its own that acceptance of theories should, rather, be based solely on the belief of it's empirical adequacy (Monton & Mohler, 2017). Fraassen is highly regarded within the field of Philosophy of Science due to his contributions with Constructive Empiricism. -
Laws and Symmetry
In this work by Fraassen, he theorizes that there, essentially, are no laws of nature, carrying on his antirealist views. -
Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist View
Van Fraassen contributes his work, in an empirical method, to Quantum mechanics, improving on the "model approach," adding to it "value states" and "dynamical states" of a system (Lombardi & Dieks, 2017). -
Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective
In this book, Fraassen states that scientific experimentation and observation are merely pieces of data obtained in an unobservable world and that its evidence does not actually represent truth or existence. He explains that scientists that believe in things that can not be proven have lost touch with science and entered speculation, comparing it to the enchanted forest (Byrne, 2016). -
Received the Hempel Award
A prestigious award that recognizes "lifetime scholarly achievement in Philosophy of Science" and is issued every 2 years. He was recognized for his work, contributing "constructive empiricism, which advocates a semantic approach to scientific theories and, on that basis, urges skepticism regarding laws of nature, anti-realism regarding unobservables, and pragmatism regarding explanation." He was also the co-recipient of the Lakatos award for The Scientific Image (Philosophy of Science, n.d.) -
Interview video
In this video, Fraassen participates in an interview to discuss science and his proposed limitations to it from his constructive empiricist view. He also explains what this study means, by his own words. ----Reference:
Closer to Truth. (2016, April 1). Bas van Fraassen - What are the Scope and Limits of Science? [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brAOVfAoimQ
