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Early Life and School
Bas C. van Fraassen was born in Goes, Netherland 5 April, 1941. He and his family immigrated to Canada in 1956. He attended University of Alberta, which is where he gained his undergrad in philosophy (with honors). He then went to University of Pittsburgh where he got his Ph. D in 1966. His dissertation on casual theory of time was supervised by Adolf Grunbaum. -
Fraassen's Alma mater
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Contributions
Van Frasseen work and contributions are roughly divided into 3 major "periods". The philosophical logic phase (1966–1979); constructive empiricist period (1980–1993), and the the empirical stance phase (1994 to the present). Although they are different time periods, there has been a unified vision underlying his approach. They are 2 crucial features: The search for an empiricist (antirealist and, in a sense, antimetaphysically) approach to science and philosophy more generally -
Contributions (continued)
The 2nd crucial feature is an attempt to preserve through this empiricism "classical" features of the domain under consideration—by taking scientific theories literally, retaining classical logic whenever possible, and resisting the need for introducing causally irrelevant items (such as possible worlds). Several problems can be approached from a unified perspective.
the vision is articulated through the development of several proposals guided by techniques by Philosophical logic. -
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Aim of science and Book
The unified perspective with the development of constructive empiricism. This is a view about the aim of science: the search for empirically adequate theories. The constructive empiricist articulates something novel: an empiricist alternative to scientific realism that avoids the early pitfalls of logical positivism. Constructive empiricist takes the scientific theories literally. He advances a new interpretation of probability that is compatible with the rejection of real modalities in nature. -
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Aim of science and Book (continued)
Constructive empiricism's lack of commitment to metaphysical notions (at least from an empiricist perspective)is developed further in van Fraassen's book Laws and Symmetry (1989). The book argues that attempts to characterize the notion of law of nature are doomed to failure because either they are unable to justify the inference from It is a law that P to P, or they fail to identify the features that make P a law in the first place. -
Work
Fraassen taught at Yale University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Southern California before moving to Princeton University, where he's been a Professor of Philosophy since 1982. -
Beg the Question?
A more general question arises: How is it possible to be an empiricist instead of just developing an empiricist approach to science? To elaborate a broader perspective on empiricism that includes constructive empiricism as a particular case is a major goal of van Fraasen's empirical stance (2002). Instead of articulating empiricism as a doctrine (a set of beliefs), van Fraassen insists that empiricism should be conceptualized as a stance: an attitude, an epistemic policy. -
Present
The crucial features of van Fraassen's earlier works are also found here, notably in the development of an empiricist perspective that preserves the "classical" features of the phenomena under consideration. -
Books Cite
The Scientific Image
Bas C. Van Fraassen (October 2, 1980) The Empirical Stance
Bas C. Van Fraassen (January 1, 2002) Churchland, P. M., and C. A. Hooker, eds. Images of Science: Essays on Realism and Empiricism, with a Reply by Bas C. van Fraassen. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1985. van Fraassen, B. C. The Empirical Stance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.