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Bas C. Van Fraassen Short Bio
Bas Van Fraassen, short for Basstiaan Cornelis Van Fraassen was born in April 5, 1941 in the Netherlands. In 1956, him and his family emigrated to Canada where he pursued an academic journey. Bas Van Fraassen has been a professor since graduating college with a several degrees earned. Van Fraassen continues to teach at a university in California professing philosophical logic, philosophy of science and the role of modeling in scientific practice. -
Constructive Empiricism
Constructive Empiricism states that "Science aims to give us, in its theories, a literally true story of what the world is like; and acceptance of a scientific theory involves the belief that it is true." (van Fraassen 1980, 8) (Monton, Bradley and Chad Mohler)
Van Fraassen explains that science should be empirically adequate rather than literally true when it comes to establishing theories. -
Van Fraassen distinguishes Aims
Van Fraassen made two different distinguished views on what the aim of science is, scientific agnostic and scientific gnostic. (Monton, Bradley and Chad Mohler)
Scientific Agnostic is "someone who believes the science s/he accepts to be empirically adequate but does not believe it to be true, nor believes it to be false."
Scientific Gnostic is "someone who believes the science s/he accepts to be true." (Monton, Bradley and Chad Mohler) -
Interview with Bas van Fraassen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brAOVfAoimQ
(Closer To Truth. (2016, April 1).)
This is a YouTube video of an interview with Fraassen; Fraassen answers questions regarding scientific realism, constructive empiricism, metaphysics, scientific realists. I found this video especially helpful in understanding Fraassens' philosophical views of science. -
Citations and References
Monton, Bradley and Chad Mohler, "Constructive Empiricism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/constructive-empiricism/.
Fraassen, B. C. van. (n.d.). Bas C. van Fraassen. http://www.basvanfraassen.org/
Closer To Truth. (2016, April 1). Bas van Fraassen - What are the Scope and Limits of Science? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brAOVfAoimQ