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Bas van Fraassen's Birth
On April 5th, 1941, Bas van Fraassen was born in the Netherlands and then emigrated to Canada in 1956. -
Earning His Degree(s)
In 1963, Bas van Fraassen earned his B.A. in philosophy from the University of Alberta and then continued his education by seeking his M.A. (1964) and Ph. D. (1966) from the University of Pittsburgh. -
The Laws and Symmetry
Van Fraassen argues in his 1989 book, Laws and Symmetry, that there are no laws of nature or that we should not believe them, and therefore, laws should not be applied to science. He is thus rejecting that the "metaphysical account of laws can succeed," then uses this view and "develops the empiricist view of science as a construction of models to represent the phenomena" (Laws and Symmetry)—Van Fraassen's Work "Laws and Symmetry" Oxford University Press, 1989. -
The Empirical Stance
Bas Fraassen offers an answer to the following two questions in The Empirical Stance: "What Is Empiricism, and What Could It Be?" (Van Fraasseen) while he continues to look at traditional empiricism while critiquing that metaphysics "points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy." (The Empirical Stance) Van Fraassen's Work "The Empirical Stance." The Yale University Press, 2002. -
San Francisco University
Currently, Dr. Fraassen works at San Francisco University while teaching Philosophy of science and logic. 'Misdirection and misinterpretation in the debate on scientific realism' was recently published in Philosophy of Science.