Peter Achinstein
Encyclopedia
Peter Achinstein is a distinguished American Philosopher of Science. He is the author of numerous influential books and articles. 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
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...

.

Biography

Achinstein received his B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 and Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 from Harvard. He specializes in philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...

 with strong interests in the history of science
History of science
The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....

.

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
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, NEH, and NSF fellowships, and has served as a visiting professor at MIT, Stanford, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

.

He is the author of five influential books in the philosophy and history of science. Among them are Particles and Waves, which received the prestigious Lakatos Award
Lakatos Award
The Lakatos Award is given annually for a contribution to the philosophy of science which is widely interpreted as outstanding. The contribution must be in the form of a book published in English during the previous six years....

 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
Electron
The electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge. It has no known components or substructure; in other words, it is generally thought to be an elementary particle. An electron has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 that of the proton...

. 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, will be published in 2011.

Former students of Peter Achinstein

Many of Professor Achinstein's students have gone on in careers as philosophers. They include:
  • Fred Kronz, University of Texas, Austin;
  • Marshall Spector, Stony Brook University;
  • Alexander Rosenberg
    Alexander Rosenberg
    Alexander Rosenberg is an American philosopher, and the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at Duke University.Rosenberg was educated at Stuyvesant High School, the City College of New York and Johns Hopkins University...

    , Duke University
    Duke University
    Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

    ;
  • Gregory J Morgan, Stevens Institute of Technology
    Stevens Institute of Technology
    Stevens Institute of Technology is a technological university located on a campus in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA – founded in 1870 with an 1868 bequest from Edwin A. Stevens. It is known for its engineering, science, and technological management curricula.The institute has produced leading...

    ;
  • Gerald Doppelt, University of California, San Diego
    University of California, San Diego
    The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

    ;
  • John Meixner, Central Michigan University
    Central Michigan University
    Central Michigan University is a public research university located in Mount Pleasant in the U.S. state of Michigan...

    ;
  • Helen Longino
    Helen Longino
    Helen E. Longino is an American philosopher of science who has argued influentially for the significance of values and social interactions to scientific inquiry.-Career:...

    , Stanford University
    Stanford University
    The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

    ;
  • Richard Richards, University of Alabama
    University of Alabama
    The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....

    ;
  • Kent Staley, St Louis University.

Monographs and collected papers

  • Concepts of Science: A Philosophical Analysis (1968)
  • Law and Explanation: An Essay in the Philosophy of Science (1971)
  • The Nature of Explanation (1983)
  • The Concept of Evidence (1983)
  • Particles and Waves: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Science (1991)
  • The Book of Evidence (2003)
  • "Evidence, Explanation, and Realism: Essays in Philosophy of Science by Peter Achinstein (2010)

Edited volumes

  • The Legacy of Logical Positivism in the Philosophy of Science (co-editor with Stephen F. Barker
    Stephen Francis Barker
    Stephen Francis Barker is an American philosopher of mathematics, a professor emeritus of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and a former faculty member at the University of Virginia and Ohio State University....

    , 1969)
  • Studies in the philosophy of science; essays by Peter Achinstein [and others] (1969)
  • Explanations: Papers and Discussions (Achinstein, et al.; edited by Stephan Körner. 1975)
  • Observation, Experiment, and Hypothesis in Modern Physical Science (co-editor with Owen Hannaway, 1985)
  • Kelvin's Baltimore Lectures and Modern Theoretical Physics: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives (co-editor with Robert Kargon, 1987)
  • Scientific Methods: Conceptual and Historical Problems (co-editor with Laura J. Snyder, 1994)
  • Science Rules: A Historical Introduction to Scientific Methods (editor, 2004)
  • Scientific Evidence: Philosophical Theories and Applications (editor, 2005)

Selected articles

  • "Is There a Valid Experimental Argument for Scientific Realism?" Journal of Philosophy (2002).
  • "What to do if you want to Defend a Theory you can't Prove?" Journal of Philosophy (2010).

See also


External links

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