Carl Gustav Hempel (born January 8 1905 in Oranienburg, Germany died November 9 1997 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a philosopher of science and a major figure in 20th-century logical positivism. He is especially well-known for his defense of the Deductive-nomological model of scientific explanation and for his work on the Raven paradox.

Biography

Hempel studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy at the Universitiy of Göttingen, Heidelberg and Berlin. In Göttingen he encountered David Hilbert and was impressed by his attempt to base all of mathematics on solid logical foundations derived from a limited number of axioms (Hilbert's Program). Having moved to Berlin he participated in a congress on scientific philosophy in 1929, where he met Rudolf Carnap. Enthusiastic about Carnap's work, Hempel moved to Vienna and became part of the Vienna Circle. In 1934 he received his doctoral degree from the University of Berlin with a dissertation on probability theory. The same year he fled the increasingly repressive Germany and emigrated to Belgium with the help of Paul Oppenheim, with whom he co-authored the book "Der Typusbegriff im Lichte der neuen Logik" on typology and logics in 1936. In 1937 Hempel emigrated to the US where he accepted a position as Carnap's assistant at the University of Chicago. Subsequently he held positions at New York's City College (1939-1948), Yale University (1948-1955), and Princeton University where he stayed until he was given emeritus status in 1964. As an emeritus he spent the years from 1964-1966 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and taught at the University of Pittsburgh until 1985.

In 2005 the City of Oranienburg renamed a street to "Carl-Gustav-Hempel-Straße".

Bibliography

Main Works:

• 1936 Über den Gehalt von Wahrscheinlichkeitsaussagen
• 1936 Der Typusbegriff im Licht der neuen Logik mit Paul Oppenheim
• 1942 The Function of General Laws in History
• 1943 Studies in the Logic of Confirmation
• 1959 The Logic of Functional Analysis
• 1965 Aspects of Scientific Explanation
• 1966 Philosophy of Natural Science,
• 1967 Scientific Explanation

Essays:

• Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays, 1965, ISBN 0029143403
• Selected Philosophical Essays, 2000, ISBN 0521624754
• The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel: Studies in Science, Explanation, and Rationality, 2001, ISBN 0195121368

This article is in large part a translation from the Article on Carl Gustav Hempel on the German wikipedia site.

See also

• Raven paradox
• Hempel's Dilemma

External links

• Carl Gustav Hempel at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• "Problems and Changes in the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning" by Carl G. Hempel

German philosophers | Philosophers of science | 1905 births | 1997 deaths

Carl Gustav Hempel | Carl Gustav Hempel | קרל המפל | Carl Gustav Hempel | カール・ヘンペル