Region Western Philosophy Name Peter Achinstein | Role Philosopher Influenced by Carl Gustav Hempel | |
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Era 20th-century philosophy Books The Book of Evidence, Evidence and Method, The nature of explanation, Concepts of Science, Science Rules | ||
Schools of thought Analytic philosophy Education Harvard University (1961) | ||
Peter achinstein who needs proof james clerk maxwell on scientific method
Peter Achinstein (born June 30, 1935) is an American philosopher of science. He is the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein University Professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva University, director of the Yeshiva Center for History and Philosophy of Science, and a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Contents
- Peter achinstein who needs proof james clerk maxwell on scientific method
- Peter achinstein what is a theory of everything and why should we want one
- Biography
- Former students of Peter Achinstein
- Books monographs and collected papers
- Edited volumes
- Selected articles
- References
Peter achinstein what is a theory of everything and why should we want one
Biography
Achinstein received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard with a dissertation on Carnap's theory of probability. It was the German philosopher Carl G. Hempel, in a visit to Harvard in 1953–4 (replacing W.V. Quine who was on leave), that motivated him to pursue Philosophy of Science. Upon getting a Harvard Traveling Fellowship, Achinstein spent a year in Oxford in 1959 working under the guidance of P. F. Strawson. In Oxford he attended seminars and lectures delivered by Gilbert Ryle, A.J. Ayer, and J.L. Austin. Achinstein specializes in philosophy of science with strong interests in the history of science.
Achinstein has taught for many years at Johns Hopkins University, where he is currently Professor of Philosophy. In Spring 2009, Achinstein began teaching at Yeshiva University as the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein University Professor of Philosophy and is the founder and director of the Center for History and Philosophy of Science of Yeshiva University, New York. He returned to Johns Hopkins in Spring 2011. He has held Guggenheim, NEH, and NSF fellowships, and has served as a visiting professor at MIT, Stanford, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
He is the author of five influential books in the history and philosophy of science. Among them are Particles and Waves, which shared the prestigious Lakatos Award in 1993. This book is a study of methodological problems arising from three episodes in 19th century physics: the wave-particle debate about light, the development of the kinetic-molecular theory, and the discovery of the electron. In 2001, Achinstein published The Book of Evidence, a philosophical and historical study of various concepts of evidence employed in the sciences. A volume of his important collected essays over the years, Evidence, Explanation, and Realism, was published in the spring of 2010. A special volume honoring him, Philosophy of Science Matters: The Philosophy of Peter Achinstein, was published in 2011. In 2013, Achinstein published Evidence and Method: Scientific Strategies of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.
Former students of Peter Achinstein
Many of Professor Achinstein's students have gone on in careers as philosophers. Among his best-known students are Alexander Rosenberg, with whom he shared the Lakatos Award and Helen Longino.