Adolf Grünbaum (; ; May 15, 1923 – November 15, 2018) was a German-American
philosopher of science
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
and a critic of both
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...
and
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...
's philosophy of science. He was the first Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
from 1960 until his death, and also served as co-chairman of its
Center for Philosophy of Science (from 1978), research professor of psychiatry (from 1979), and primary research professor in the department of history and philosophy of science (from 2006). His works include ''
Philosophical Problems of Space and Time'' (1963), ''
The Foundations of Psychoanalysis'' (1984), and ''Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis'' (1993).
Life and career
Being
Jewish
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
, Adolf Grünbaum's family left
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
in 1938 and emigrated to the United States.
Grünbaum received a B.A. with twofold High Distinction in philosophy and in mathematics from
Wesleyan University,
Middletown,
Connecticut, in 1943.
During the Second World War, Grünbaum was trained at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, and thus was one of the
Ritchie Boys. He was stationed in Berlin and interrogated highly placed Nazis, returning to the United States in 1946.
Grünbaum obtained both his M.S. in physics (1948) and his PhD in philosophy (1951) from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
. He was a chaired professor of philosophy at
Lehigh University,
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1956–1960), after rising through the ranks there, starting in 1950, becoming a full professor in 1955.
In the fall of 1960, Grünbaum left Lehigh University to join the faculty of the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
, where he became the first Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy. In that year, he also became the founding director of that University's Center for Philosophy of Science, serving as director until 1978. He and the colleagues he recruited then built world-class
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
and
history and philosophy of science departments at the university. Several of these colleagues had come from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
's philosophy department, starting in 1962. During this recruitment period the University of Pittsburgh appointed
Nicholas Rescher,
Wilfrid Sellars, Richard Gale,
Nuel Belnap,
Alan Ross Anderson, and Gerald Massey, among others.
Grünbaum served as president of both the
American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division) and the
Philosophy of Science Association (two terms). He was the director of the
Center for Philosophy of Science from 1960 to 1978. He was the president of the
Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science of the
International Union of History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS) in 2004–2005 and then automatically became president of the IUHPS from 2006 to 2007. He was also a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He received the Senior U.S. Scientist Prize from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany, 1985), the Fregene Prize for science from the Italian Parliament (1998) and the
Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal for outstanding achievement from
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
(1990). Also, in May 1995, he received an honorary doctorate from the
University of Konstanz in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
. In 2013, he received an honorary doctorate of philosophy from the
University of Cologne and the
Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz from the
Federal Republic of Germany.
In April 2013 Grünbaum resigned from the department of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, while retaining his lifetime tenured Mellon Chair and all of his other affiliations at that university.
He died in November 2018 at the age of 95.
Philosophical work
Grünbaum was the author of nearly 400 articles and book chapters as well as books on space-time and the critique of psychoanalysis. He is often viewed as part of the American brand of
logical empiricism, associated especially with
Hans Reichenbach.
Grünbaum did not embrace the prevailing — especially among physical scientists —
Popperian philosophy of science, leading to some notoriety in the 1960s after he was ridiculed in print by the physicist
Richard Feynman.
[James Gleick, ''Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman'' (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992, pp. 123-4)] A much-quoted exchange followed Grünbaum's neo-
Leibnizian suggestion that the
flow of time might be an illusion only in conscious entities, in which Feynman asked whether dogs, then cockroaches, were sufficiently conscious entities. Reportedly as a mark of further disdain, Feynman refused to let his name be printed, becoming instead the easily recognizable "Mr. X".
Some 40 years later, writer
Jim Holt would characterize Grünbaum as, in the 1950s, "the foremost thinker about the subtleties of space and time," and as, by the 2000s, "arguably the greatest living philosopher of science." Holt portrays a rationalist Grünbaum who rejects any hint of mysteriousness in the cosmos (a "great rejector").
Selected publications
*''Modern Science and Zeno's Paradoxes'' (first edition, 1967; second edition, 1968)
*''Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective'' (1968)
*''
Philosophical Problems of Space and Time'' (first edition, 1963; second edition, 1973)
*''
The Foundations of Psychoanalysis'' (1984)
*''Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis: A Study in the Philosophy of Psychoanalysis'' (1993)
*Collected Works,
**Volume 1 (ed. by Thomas Kupka): ''Scientific Rationality, the Human Condition, and 20th Century Cosmologies'', Oxford University Press 2013.
**Volume 2: ''The Philosophy of Space & Time'' (ed. by Thomas Kupka), forthcoming
**Volume 3: ''Lectures on Psychoanalysis'' (ed. by Thomas Kupka & Leanne Longwill), forthcoming.
For more complete publication details see th
Full Bibliography of Prof. Adolf Grünbaum(2017).
Festschriften
Three celebratory books ("''
Festschrift''" volumes) dealing with his work have been published to date:
* (1983) ''Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum''. R.S. Cohen and L. Lauden (eds.). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
* (1993) ''Philosophical Problems of the Internal and External Worlds: Essays on the Philosophy of Adolf Grünbaum''. J. Earman, A.I. Janis, G.J. Massey, and N. Rescher (eds.). Pittsburgh, PA/Konstanz, Germany: University of Pittsburgh Press/University of Konstanz Press.
* (2009) ''Philosophy of Religion, Physics, and Psychology: Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum''. Proceedings of the international conference, "The Adolf Grünbaum Symposium in Honor of the Works of Professor Adolf Grünbaum," Santa Barbara, CA, October 2002. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
References
Further reading
* Carrier, M., Wolters, G. Inquiring into Space-Time, the Human Mind, and Religion: The Life and Work of Adolf Grünbaum (1923–2018). ''
J Gen Philos Sci'' 50, 409–427 (2019).
External links
Grünbaum's University of Pittsburgh web pageInterview - Testing Freud: Adolf Grünbaum On The Scientific Standing of PsychoanalysisOral history interview with Adolf Grünbaum''United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collections''.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grunbaum, Adolf
1923 births
2018 deaths
Atheist philosophers
Wesleyan University alumni
Philosophers of cosmology
Philosophers of science
Philosophers of time
University of Pittsburgh faculty
German male writers
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United States
Jewish atheists
Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Ritchie Boys
Yale University alumni