Bas C. van Fraassen

Curriculum Vitae

McCosh Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Princeton University
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, San Francisco State University

Contact via ResearchGate or e-mail fraassen@princeton.edu

This is not a CV properly speaking, but a sort of informal equivalent.

I will give links to my work and research below. Some of that is from quite long ago; recentlyI have also been engaging -- and learning from -- two lively currents in philosophy of science. The first is structural realism, introduced originally by John Worrall and since developed in more radical form by e.g. Steven French and James Ladyman. The second is the subject of modeling in science in practice, which I have come to appreciate through the work of Isabelle Peschard


Personal and Academic History

I was born in Goes, the Netherlands, 5 April 1941, and emigrated with my family to Canada in the summer of 1956. I attended the University of Alberta (B.A. (hon.), Philosophy, 1963), and the University of Pittsburgh (M.A. 1964; Ph. D., Philosophy, 1966).

I've taught at Yale University, the University of Toronto, the University of Southern California, and Princeton University (since 1982).
         In the summer of 2008 I retired from Princeton and joined the Philosophy Department at San Francisco State University. There I have been teaching logic courses as well as joint seminars in philosophy of science with Isabelle Peschard; we also collaborated in three workshops on The Experimental Side of Modeling .

Professional Activities

I have been active as editor of the Journal of Philosophical Logic and co-editor of the Journal of Symbolic Logic, as well as in the American Philosophical Association, the Philosophy of Science Association, Society for Exact Philosophy, Evert Willem Beth Stichting, Association for Symbolic Logic, and the International Union for History and Philosophy of Science,
        and as McCosh Professor of Philosophy (Princeton University); D. Lett (hon), University of Lethbridge; LL. D.(hon),University of Notre Dame; Ph. D. (hon), Kath. Univ. Leuven; Foreign Member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences); Titular Member of the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences; Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy; Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
My Erdös number is 4 (Paul Erdös-Joel Spencer-Nuel Belnap-Hugues Leblanc)


Academic Publications

For the biblio. details for my books and articles, see publications or link to CV.pdf.
But you can also download some of my papers on the Articles page.


Stories and such

For my few non-academic publications, and for other interests (cats, rock climbing), see Personal

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