Jean Paul Van Bendegem (born 28 March 1953 in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...

) is a mathematician, a

philosopher of science A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

, and a professor at the

Vrije Universiteit Brussel The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) () is a Dutch and English-speaking research university located in Brussels, Belgium.The Vrije Universiteit Brussel is one of the five universities officially recognised by the Flemish Community, Flemish gov ...

in Brussels.

Career

Van Bendegem received his master's degree in mathematics in 1976. Afterwards, he went to study philosophy. He attended lectures on the

philosophy of mathematics The philosophy of mathematics is the branch of philosophy that studies the assumptions, foundations, and implications of mathematics. It aims to understand the nature and methods of mathematics, and find out the place of mathematics in people's ...

from

Leo Apostel Leo Apostel (Antwerp, 4 September 1925 – Ghent, 10 August 1995) was a Belgian philosopher and professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent University. Apostel was an advocate of interdisciplinary research and the bridging of the gap b ...

. He received his master's degree in philosophy in 1979. Van Bendegem wrote his PhD thesis in philosophy on the subject of

finitism Finitism is a philosophy of mathematics that accepts the existence only of finite mathematical objects. It is best understood in comparison to the mainstream philosophy of mathematics where infinite mathematical objects (e.g., infinite sets) are ac ...

under the supervision of

Diderik Batens Diderik Batens (born 15 November 1944), is a Belgian logician and epistemologist at the University of Ghent Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Establishe ...

while at

Ghent University Ghent University ( nl, Universiteit Gent, abbreviated as UGent) is a public research university located in Ghent, Belgium. Established before the state of Belgium itself, the university was founded by the Dutch King William I in 1817, when the ...

. He defended his thesis in 1983. The content of the thesis was on notation systems, number theory, analysis, physics and logic in a finite empirical framework. Van Bendegem was the dean of the faculty of Arts and philosophy, and was until his retirement in September 2018 head of the CLPS (Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science) at the same university. He is an honorary chairman of SKEPP (Research Society for Critical Evaluation of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal), an organisation that is prepared to pay 10,000

euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

s to anyone who can prove the validity of a

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Nota ...

claim. Van Bendegem is the university's representative to the CNRL–NCNL (French: Centre National de Recherches de Logique,

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

: Nationaal Centrum voor Navorsingen in de Logica, English: National Centre for Investigations in Logic). He is chief editor of their quarterly magazine ''Logique et Analyse''. In mathematics, he is a strict finitist.

Bibliography

Books

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References

External links

Vrije Universiteit Brussel

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bendegem, Jean-Paul Van 1953 births Living people Philosophy academics Scientists from Ghent Flemish academics Academic staff of Vrije Universiteit Brussel Belgian skeptics 20th-century Belgian philosophers 21st-century Belgian philosophers