View source for Bas van Fraassen

{{Short description|American philosopher (born 1941)}}
{{Infobox philosopher
|name = Bas van Fraassen
|region = [[Western philosophy]]
|era = [[Contemporary philosophy]]
|image = 
|birth_date = {{birth date and age|1941|4|5|df=y}}
|birth_place  = [[Goes]], [[Reichskommissariat Niederlande|German-occupied Netherlands]]
|alma_mater = {{unbulleted list|[[University of Alberta]]|[[University of Pittsburgh]]}}
|school_tradition = [[Analytic philosophy]]<br>[[Instrumentalism]]<ref>[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/ Scientific Realism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]</ref>
|main_interests = {{unbulleted list|[[Philosophy of science]]|[[Bayesian epistemology]]|[[Philosophical logic]]|[[Free logic]]}}
|notable_ideas = {{unbulleted list|[[Constructive empiricism]]|[[Empiricism|Empiricist]] [[Structuralism (philosophy of science)|structuralism]]|Distinction between a theory's [[Conceptual framework|representing-as]] and [[empirical laws|representing-that]]<ref>David Marshall Miller, ''Representing Space in the Scientific Revolution'', Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 4 n. 2.</ref>|[[Supervaluationism]]<ref>[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-free/ Free Logic (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]</ref>|[[Epistemological voluntarism]]<ref>Sandy Boucher, "Stances and Epistemology: Values, Pragmatics, and Rationality", ''[[Metaphilosophy (journal)|Metaphilosophy]]'' '''49'''(4), July 2018, pp. 521–547.</ref> ([[van Fraassen's reflection principle|reflection principle]])}}
|doctoral_advisor = [[Adolf Grünbaum]]
| thesis_title      = Foundations of the Causal Theory of Time
| thesis_url        = 
| thesis_year       = 1966
| doctoral_students = [[Paul Thagard]]<ref>{{cite journal |year=1977 |title=Doctoral Dissertations, 1977 |journal=The Review of Metaphysics |volume=31 |issue=1 |page=174 |issn=2154-1302 |jstor=20127042}}</ref>
}}
'''Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen''' ({{IPAc-en|v|æ|n|_|ˈ|f|r|ɑː|s|ən}}; {{IPA|nl|vɑn ˈfraːsə(n)|lang}}; born 5 April 1941) is a [[Dutch-American]] philosopher noted for his contributions to [[philosophy of science]], [[epistemology]] and [[logic|formal logic]]. He is a [[Distinguished Professor]] of [[Philosophy]] at [[San Francisco State University]] and the McCosh Professor of Philosophy [[Professor Emeritus|Emeritus]] at [[Princeton University]].

== Biography and career ==
Van Fraassen was born in the [[Netherlands in World War II#German occupation|German-occupied Netherlands]] on 5 April 1941. His father, a [[pipefitter|steam fitter]], was forced by the Nazis to work in a factory in [[Hamburg]]. After the war, the family reunited and, in 1956, emigrated to [[Edmonton]], in western [[Canada]].<ref>[http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/-why-science-should-stay-clear-of-metaphysics Why Science Should Stay Clear of Metaphysics], ''Nautilus''</ref>

Van Fraassen earned his [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] (1963) from the [[University of Alberta]] and his [[Master of Arts|M.A.]] (1964) and [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] (1966, under the direction of [[Adolf Grünbaum]]) from the [[University of Pittsburgh]].  He previously taught at [[Yale University]], the [[University of Southern California]], the [[University of Toronto]] and, from 1982 to 2008, at [[Princeton University]], where he is now emeritus.<ref name=CV/> Since 2008, van Fraassen has taught at [[San Francisco State University]], where he teaches courses in the [[philosophy of science]], [[philosophical logic]], and [[Scientific modeling|the role of modeling in scientific practice]].<ref>[http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/2009/spring/39.html SF State News at SFSU]</ref><ref>[http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/cmemo/fall08/newfaculty08.htm SF State Campus Memo: New tenure-track faculty 2008-09]</ref>

Van Fraassen is an adult convert to the [[Roman Catholic Church]]<ref>New Blackfriars Vol. 80, No. 938, 1999.</ref> and is one of the founders of the [[Kira Institute]]. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; an overseas member of the [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]] since 1995;<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.knaw.nl/en/members/foreign-members/4118 |title=B.C. van Fraassen |publisher=Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences |access-date=17 July 2015 |archive-date=2 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202030930/https://www.knaw.nl/en/members/foreign-members/4118 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and a member of the [[International Academy of Philosophy of Science]].<ref>[http://www.lesacademies.org/aips/membres.html LES MEMBRES ACTUELS DE L'A.I.P.S.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130919032105/http://lesacademies.org/aips/membres.html |date=2013-09-19 }}</ref> In 1986, van Fraassen received the [[Lakatos Award]] for his contributions to the philosophy of science and, in 2012, the [[Philosophy of Science Association]]'s inaugural Hempel Award for lifetime achievement in philosophy of science.<ref>[http://www.philsci.org/2-uncategorised/221-hempel-award-recipients Hempel Award recipients]</ref>

Among his many students are the philosophers [[Elisabeth Lloyd]] at [[Indiana University]], Anja Jauernig at [[New York University]], Jenann Ismael at Johns Hopkins University, Ned Hall at Harvard University, Alan Hajek at the Australian National University and Professor of Mathematics Jukka Keranen at [[UCLA]].

==Philosophical work==
===Philosophy of science===
Van Fraassen coined the term "[[constructive empiricism]]" in his 1980 book ''The Scientific Image'', in which he argued for agnosticism about the reality of unobservable entities.  That book was "widely credited with rehabilitating scientific [[anti-realism]]."<ref name="ConstructiveEmpiricismSEP">{{cite encyclopedia|last1=Monton|first1=Bradley|last2=Mohler|first2=Chad|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|editor-link=Edward N. Zalta|encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]|title=Constructive Empiricism|at=Introduction and "Contrast with Logical Positivism"|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/constructive-empiricism/|access-date=31 May 2018|edition=Summer 2017|orig-year=First published 1 October 2008|publisher=The Metaphysics Research Lab|location=[[Stanford University]]|date=3 May 2017|issn=1095-5054}}</ref>  According to the ''[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]'': {{Blockquote|The constructive empiricist follows the [[logical positivist]]s in rejecting metaphysical commitments in science, but parts with them regarding their endorsement of the verificationist criterion of meaning, as well as their endorsement of the suggestion that theory-laden discourse can and should be removed from science. Before van Fraassen's ''The Scientific Image'', some philosophers had viewed scientific [[anti-realism]] as dead, because logical positivism was dead. Van Fraassen showed that there were other ways to be an empiricist with respect to science, without following in the footsteps of the logical positivists.<ref name="ConstructiveEmpiricismSEP" />}}

[[Paul M. Churchland]], one of van Fraassen's critics, contrasted van Fraassen's idea of unobservable phenomena with the idea of merely {{em|unobserved}} phenomena.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Churchland |first=Paul M. |date=1982 |title=The Anti-Realist Epistemology of van Fraassen's The Scientific Image |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0114.1982.tb00101.x |journal=Pacific Philosophical Quarterly |language=en |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=226–235 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-0114.1982.tb00101.x |issn=0279-0750}}</ref>

In his 1989 book ''Laws and Symmetry'', van Fraassen attempted to lay the ground-work for explaining physical [[Phenomenon|phenomena]] without assuming that such phenomena are caused by rules or laws which can be said to cause or govern their behavior. Focusing on the problem of [[underdetermination]], he argued for the possibility that theories could have empirical equivalence but differ in their [[ontological]] commitments. He rejects the notion that the aim of science is to produce an account of the physical world that is literally true and instead maintains that its aim is to produce theories that are empirically adequate.<ref>{{citation |title=Scientific Realism |author=Jarrett Leplin |publisher=University of California Press |year=1984 |isbn=0-520-05155-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UFCpopYlB9EC&pg=PA6 |page=1}}</ref> Van Fraassen has also studied the [[Interpretation of quantum mechanics|philosophy of quantum mechanics]], philosophical logic, and [[Bayesian epistemology]].

===Philosophical logic===
Van Fraassen has been the editor of the ''[[Journal of Philosophical Logic]]'' and co-editor of the ''[[Journal of Symbolic Logic]]''.<ref name=CV>[https://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen/cv/ Bas C. van Fraassen, Curriculum Vitae]</ref>

In logic, Van Frassen is best known for his work on [[free logic]] and his introduction of the [[supervaluationism|supervaluation]] [[semantics]]. In his paper "Singular Terms, Truth-value Gaps, and Free Logic",<ref>B. C. van Fraassen, "Singular Terms, Truth-value Gaps, and Free Logic", ''The Journal of Philosophy'' '''63'''(17), September 1966:481–495.</ref> van Fraassen opens with a very brief introduction of the problem of [[non-referring names]].

Instead of any unique formalization, though, he simply adjusts the axioms of a standard predicate logic such as that found in [[Willard Van Orman Quine]]'s ''Methods of Logic''.  Instead of an axiom like  <math>\forall x\,Px \Rightarrow \exists x\,Px</math>  he uses  <math>( \forall x\,Px \land \exists x\,(x = a)) \Rightarrow \exists x\,Px</math>; this will naturally be true  if the existential claim of the antecedent is false.  If a name fails to refer, then the atomic sentence containing it can be assigned a truth value arbitrarily, provided that it is not an identity statement. Free logic is proved to be complete under this interpretation.

He indicates that, however, he sees no good reason to call statements which employ them either true or false.  Some have attempted to solve this problem by means of [[many-valued logic]]s;  van Fraassen offers in their stead the use of [[supervaluation]]s. Questions of completeness change when supervaluations are admitted, since they allow for valid arguments that do not correspond to logically true conditionals.

His paper "Facts and tautological entailment" (J Phil 1969) is now regarded as the beginning of truth-maker semantics.

===Bayesian epistemology<!--'van Fraassen's reflection principle' redirects here-->===
In "Belief and the Will", van Fraassen proposed what is now known as '''van Fraassen's reflection principle'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->: "to satisfy the principle, the agent's present subjective probability for proposition ''A'', on the supposition that his subjective probability for this proposition will equal ''r'' at some later time, must equal this same number ''r''".<ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.2307/2026388| volume = 81| issue = 5| pages = 235–256| last = Fraassen| first = Bas C. van| title = Belief and the Will| journal = Journal of Philosophy| date = 1984}}</ref>  Within [[Bayesian epistemology]] this principle is recognized as an important [[Bayesian_epistemology#Beliefs,_probability_and_bets|synchronic norm]]; however van Fraassen points out that a [[Bayesian_epistemology#Dutch_books|Dutch Book argument]] can be made against the principle. <ref name="BayesianEpistemologySEP">{{Cite encyclopedia|last=Talbott|first=William|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|editor-link=Edward N. Zalta|encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]|title=Bayesian Epistemology|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/epistemology-bayesian/|access-date=31 May 2018|edition=Winter 2016|orig-year=First published 12 July 2001|publisher=The Metaphysics Research Lab|location=[[Stanford University]]|date=12 October 2016|issn=1095-5054|at=Other Principles of Bayesian Epistemology|quote=<strong>A. Other principles of synchronic coherence.</strong><!--Boldfacing in original text.--> Are the probability laws the only standards of synchronic coherence for degrees of belief? Van Fraassen has proposed an additional principle (Reflection or Special Reflection), which he now regards as a special case of an even more general principle (General Reflection).}}</ref><ref>W. J. Talbott, "Two Principles of Bayesian Epistemology", ''Philosophical Studies'' '''62'''(2), May 1991, pp. 135–150.</ref>

== Books ==
* ''Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective'', OUP, 2008.
* ''The Empirical Stance'', Yale University Press, 2002.
* ''Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist View'', Oxford University Press, 1991.
* ''Laws and Symmetry'', Oxford University Press 1989.
* ''The Scientific Image'', Oxford University Press 1980.
* ''Derivation and Counterexample: An Introduction to Philosophical Logic'' (with Karel Lambert), Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc. 1972.
* ''Formal Semantics and Logic'', Macmillan, New York 1971.
* ''An Introduction to the Philosophy of Time and Space'', Random House, New York 1970.

== See also ==
*[[American philosophy]]
*[[List of American philosophers]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://www.princeton.edu/~fraassen van Fraassen's homepage] at Princeton.
* [http://www.sfsu.edu/~phlsphr/?page=bas_van_fraassen van Fraassen's faculty page (2009)] at the Department of Philosophy, San Francisco State University.

{{Analytic philosophy}}
{{Logic}}
{{Philosophy of science}}

{{Authority control}}

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