Adolf Grünbaum

Background

Grünbaum, Adolf was born on May 15, 1923 in Cologne, Germany. Came to the United States, 1938, naturalized, 1944. Son of Benjamin and Hannah (Freiwillig) Grünbaum.

Education

Bachelor, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, 1943. Master of Science in Physics, Yale University, 1948. Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy, Yale University, 1951.

Doctor Honoris Causa, University Konstanz.

Career

55-60. Professor of Philosophy, then Selfridge rofessor of Philosophy (1956), Lehigh Uni verity. Pennsylvania; 1956 and 1959, Visiting Research Professor, University of Minnesota. *60-, Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh.

Founder (1960), director ( 1960-1978) and Chairman of the Centre of the Philosophy of Science. Research Professor of Psychiatry. 1963, Vice President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

1965-1970, President of the Philosophy of Science Association. 1982-1983, President of the American Philosophical Association. Visiting appointments in the USA and Europe.

On the editorial board of several journals and coeditor of the Pittsburgh Series in the Philosophy and History of Science. Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Association, the Philosophy of Science Association, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academy of Humanism. Prizes in the USA and Italy, and awarded Yale’s Wilbur Lucius Cross medal, 1990.

Achievements

• Adolf Grunbaum has been listed as a notable Philosophy educator, author by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Philosophical Problems of Space and Time

    (Philosophical treatise on the problems of time and space ...)

  • The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique. (Pittsburgh Series in Philosophy and History of Science)

    ( This study is a philosophical critique of the foundatio...)

  • Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective (Minnesota Archive Editions)

    ( Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective w...)

  • Philosophical Problems of Space and Time: Second, enlarged edition (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science)

    (It is ten years since Adolf Griinbaum published the first...)

  • Philosophical Problems of Space and Time

    (Good Hardback with worn DJ. 1963 Ed The DJ has a few tear...)

  • Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis: A Study in the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis (Psychological Issues)

    (Book by Grunbaum, Adolf)

  • Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective

    (philosophy, science)

  • The Foundations of Psychoanalysis: A Philosophical Critique (Pittsburgh Series in Philosophy and History of Science) by Grunbaum, Adolf (1985) Paperback
  • Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective. Univ. of Minnesota Press. 1962.
  • Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective by Grunbaum, Adolf (1968) Hardcover
  • Philosophical Problems of Space and Time: Second, enlarged edition (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science) 2nd, enlarged edition by Adolf Grunbaum (1973) Paperback
  • Psicoanalisi. Obiezioni e risposte

Views

Adolf Grunbaum is known for his work in the philosophy of science: his studies in the philosophy of space and time, scientific rationality and the foundations of psychoanalytical theory are complemented on a practical level by his directorship of the Centre of the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, and his concern with science is continued by the work of such of his pupils as W. C. Salmon and B. C. Van Fraassen. In the area of philosophy of space and time, he follows Hans Reichenbach in arguing for the conventional basis of the relation of simultaneity in Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. Griinbaum's position was criticized by H. Putnam: and a panel discussion in the 1969 volume of Philosophy of Science was devoted to this issue. Against the thesis ascribed to P. Duhcm and maintained by W. V. O. Quine denying the feasibility of crucial experiments in science, Griinbaum has maintained, not without criticism, that ‘there are cases in which we can establish a strong presumption of the falsity of a component hypothesis, although we cannot falsify [it] in these cases beyond any and all possibility of subsequent rehabilitation'. His criticisms of Popper's appeal to falsifiability as the criterion demarcating science and non-science underlie his examination of the use of this criterion in Popper's rejection of Freudian psychoanalytic theory as pseudoscience. In Foundations of Psychoanalysis (1984) and Validation (1993) he argues that Popper’s charge of unfalsifiability against psychoanalysis is ill founded. None the less. Griinbaum believes the reasoning upon which Freud rested his major hypotheses was fundamentally flawed. Moreover, the clinical tests often put forward as vindicating those hypotheses cannot, in the light of placebo effects and the like, provide a firm evidential base. Griinbaum concludes that ‘the validation of Freud’s cardinal hypotheses has to come, if at all, mainly from well-designed extraclinical studies'.

Membership

Served with M.I.S. United States Army, 1944-1946. Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science (vice president section L 1963). Member Academy International de Philosophie des Sciences, British Society Philosophy Science, American Philosophical Association (president Eastern division 1982-1983), Philosophy of Science Association (president 1965-1970), American Academy Arts and Sciences, International Academy Humanism (laureate 1985), International Union History and Philosophy Science (president division logic, methodology and philosophy of science 2004-2005, president union 2006^), Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi.

Interests

• Philosophy of Physics. Philosophy of psychology.

Connections

Married Thelma Braverman, June 26, 1949. 1 child, Barbara Susan.

Father:

Benjamin Grünbaum

Mother:

Hannah (Freiwillig) Grünbaum

Spouse:

Thelma Braverman

child:

Barbara Susan Grünbaum