Kenneth Francis Schaffner (born October 30, 1939) is an emeritus Distinguished University Professor, University Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, and Professor of Psychiatry at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

. He specializes in the

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

and

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

Education

His formal education consists of: * BS, Physics and Philosophy,

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

, 1961 * PhD, Philosophy,

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, 1967 * MD,

, 1986

Career

Schaffner is a philosopher and medical doctor who specializes in the

history and philosophy of science The history and philosophy of science (HPS) is an Discipline (academia), academic discipline that encompasses the philosophy of science and the History of science and technology, history of science. Although many scholars in the field are trained ...

. He has published extensively on ethical and conceptual issues, and has written several books in those fields. He is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, but has also taught since 1962 at Brooklyn College, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

, and

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

, where he is a professor

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

and was formerly University Professor of Medical Humanities and Professor of Philosophy. His recent work has been on ethical and philosophical issues in human behavior. He was

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of the

academic journal An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...

Philosophy of Science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

'' from 1975 to 1980.

Honors

Schaffner was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and has received many academic honors, including: * Fellow,

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, 1986 * Fellow,

The Hastings Center The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy i ...

, 1991 * Fellow, Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry, 1992

Selected publications

Schaffner had been writing books for over forty years, and papers for over fifty. His books and some of his recent papers are listed below:

Books

* ''Nineteenth-Century Aether Theories'', Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1972 * ''Logic of Discovery and Diagnosis in Medicine'', K. Schaffner (ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 * ''Medical Innovation and Bad Outcomes: Legal, Social, and Ethical Responses'', M. Siegler, S. Toulmin, F. Zimring and K. Schaffner (eds.) Health Administration Press, Michigan, 1987 * ''Discovery and Explanation in Biology and Medicine'', University of Chicago Press, 1993 * ''Behaving: What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care'', Oxford University Press, 2016

Chapters

* "Theories, Models, and Equations in Systems Biology", in F. Boogerd, et al. (eds) ''Towards a Philosophy of Systems Biology'', Netherlands: Elsevier, 2007. Pages 145-162. * Schaffner, K.F. (2008) "Etiological Models in Psychiatry: Reductive and Nonreductive" in K. Kendler and Josef Parnas (eds.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008. pp. 48–90. * Schaffner, K.F. (2008) "A Tail of a Tiger, Comment: on Zachar's "Real Kinds but No True Taxonomy: An Essay in Psychiatric Systematics.," in K. Kendler and Josef Parnas (eds.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008. pp. 355–367. * Schaffner, K.F. "Theories, Models, and Equations in Biology: The Heuristic Search for Emergent Simplifications in Neurobiology" Philosophy of Science, ''Proceedings of Vancouver Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting'', 2008. 75 (2008), 1008-1021. * Schaffner, K.F. "Philosophy of Method," a revision of an earlier encyclopedia essay on "Method, Philosophy of," ''Encyclopedia of Microbiology'', 3rd edition, M. Schaechter (ed.) Elsevier, 2009. * "The validity of psychiatric diagnosis: Etiopathogenic and clinical approaches," in ''Psychiatric Diagnosis: Challenges and Prospects'', I. Salloum and J. Mezzich (eds.) London: Wylie, 2009. pp. 221–232

Papers

* "Medical Informatics and the Concept of Disease", Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 21: 85–101: 2000. * "Behavior at the Organismal and Molecular Levels: The Case of C. elegans", Philosophy of Science 67 2000( SA 1998Proceedings): S273-S288. * "Preventing severe mental illnesses--new prospects and ethical challenges", with Patrick D. McGorry. Schizophrenia Research Aug 1 2001; 51(1): 3–15. * "Nature and Nurture" Current Opinion in Psychiatry, September, 2001: 14: 486–490. * "Genes, Concepts, DST Implications, and the Possibility of Prototypes: Comments on Stotz and Griffiths, Burian, and Walters", History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 2004;26(1):81-90. * "Reduction: The Cheshire Cat Problem and a Return to Roots", Synthese, Volume 151, Number 3 / August, 2006. Pages 377-402.

References

External links

Hour-long interview of him, about his work.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schaffner, Kenneth Francis Living people Brooklyn College alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine alumni University of Pittsburgh faculty Philosophers of science 21st-century American philosophers Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 1939 births Historians of science 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Philosophers from New York (state) Hastings Center Fellows George Washington University faculty Philosophy journal editors American male non-fiction writers