Arthur Isadore Fine (born November 11, 1937) is an American

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 ...

now emeritus at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

Education and career

Having studied physics, philosophy, and mathematics, Fine graduated from 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 ...

in 1958 with a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

in mathematics. He then, in 1960, earned a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

in mathematics from the

Illinois Institute of Technology Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...

with a thesis supervised by

Karl Menger Karl Menger (January 13, 1902 – October 5, 1985) was an Austrian-American mathematician, the son of the economist Carl Menger. In mathematics, Menger studied the theory of algebras and the dimension theory of low- regularity ("rough") curves ...

, Fine earned his Ph.D. from the

in 1963 under the direction of Henry Mehlberg. Before moving to the University of Washington, Fine taught for many years at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

and, before that, at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

and the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois ...

. He is a past president of the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

and the

Philosophy of Science Association The Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) is an international academic organization founded in 1933 that promotes research, teaching, and free discussion of issues in the philosophy of science from diverse standpoints. The PSA engages in activi ...

and has for many years been on the editorial board of the journal ''Philosophy of Science'', one of the leading publications in the field. In 2014, Fine was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

Philosophical work

Fine famously proposed the

natural ontological attitude "The Natural Ontological Attitude" (1984) is the name of a paper published by philosopher Arthur Fine in which he coins the term "natural ontological attitude" (NOA). It deals with the philosophy of science. He published a sequel, "And Not Antirea ...

(NOA) as a resolution to the debates over

scientific realism Scientific realism is the view that the universe described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted. Within philosophy of science, this view is often an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" T ...

. This philosophy takes on a neutral stance of realist and antirealist attitudes of acceptance in the industry's best theories, and calls out mistakes across existing theories. Fine also developed one of the possible

interpretations of quantum mechanics An interpretation of quantum mechanics is an attempt to explain how the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics might correspond to experienced reality. Although quantum mechanics has held up to rigorous and extremely precise tests in an extraord ...

yet to be decided between and has contributed to the

probabilistic Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speaking, ...

understanding of Bell's theorem. In 2001, Fine gave the following re-counting of the birth of NOA and its important relationship to

Bas van Fraassen Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen (; born 1941) is a Dutch-American philosopher noted for his contributions to philosophy of science, epistemology and formal logic. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University an ...

's antirealism:

''The Scientific Image'' arrived in 1980 like a breath of fresh air. Although in the introduction van Fraassen counts me among the realist foot soldiers, at just that time Micky Forbes and I were engaged in rethinking the whole realism/antirealism issue. The result was NOA. Van Fraassen's powerful and enlightening monograph encouraged us in that project. If Micky and I are parents of NOA, then Bas is perhaps a godfather. Paul Teller too, since he was among the people then who helped us refine our ideas as they developed.Fine, Arthur (2001) "The Scientific Image 20 Years Later" ''Philosophical Studies''. p.207.

References

External links

Arthur Fine's page
in

website 1937 births Living people 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Philosophers of science {{US-philosopher-stub

Education and career

Philosophical work

See also

References

External links