Jean Paul Van Bendegem (born 28 March 1953 in

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

) 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 t ...

, 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 government. listof all ...

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 peopl ...

from Leo Apostel. 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 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, whe ...

. 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