Carl Gustav "Peter" Hempel (January 8, 1905 – November 9, 1997) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

writer, philosopher, logician, and epistemologist. He was a major figure in logical empiricism, a 20th-century movement in the philosophy of science. He is especially well known for his articulation of the

deductive-nomological model The deductive- nomological model (DN model) of scientific explanation, also known as Hempel's model, the Hempel– Oppenheim model, the Popper–Hempel model, or the covering law model, is a formal view of scientifically answering questions askin ...

scientific Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence f ...

explanation, which was considered the "standard model" of scientific explanation during the 1950s and 1960s. He is also known for the

raven paradox The raven paradox, also known as Hempel's paradox, Hempel's ravens, or rarely the paradox of indoor ornithology, is a paradox arising from the question of what constitutes evidence for the truth of a statement. Observing objects that are neither ...

(also known as "Hempel's paradox").

Education

Hempel studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded i ...

and subsequently at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative o ...

and the Heidelberg University. In Göttingen, he encountered David Hilbert and was impressed by his program attempting to base all mathematics on solid logical foundations derived from a limited number of

axiom An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or f ...

s. After moving to Berlin, Hempel participated in a congress on scientific philosophy in 1929 where he met Rudolf Carnap and became involved in the

Berlin Circle The Berlin Circle (german: die Berliner Gruppe) was a group that maintained logical empiricist views about philosophy. History Berlin Circle was created in the late 1920s by Hans Reichenbach, Kurt Grelling and Walter Dubislav and composed of ph ...

of philosophers associated with the Vienna Circle. In 1934, he received his doctoral degree from the

with a dissertation on

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...

, titled '' Beiträge zur logischen Analyse des Wahrscheinlichkeitsbegriffs'' (''Contributions to the Logical Analysis of the Concept of Probability''). Hans Reichenbach was Hempel's main doctoral supervisor, but after Reichenbach lost his philosophy chair in Berlin in 1933, Wolfgang Köhler and Nicolai Hartmann became the official supervisors.

Career

Within a year of completing his doctorate, the increasingly repressive and

anti-semitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

Nazi regime in Germany had prompted Hempel to emigrate to Belgium as his wife was of Jewish ancestry. In this he was aided by the scientist

Paul Oppenheim Paul Oppenheim (June 17, 1885 – June 22, 1977) was a German chemist, philosopher, independent scholar and industrialist. Biography Oppenheim was born in Frankfurt am Main. After studying natural sciences and chemistry at the University of Freibur ...

, with whom he co-authored the book ''Der Typusbegriff im Lichte der neuen Logik'' on

typology Typology is the study of types or the systematic classification of the types of something according to their common characteristics. Typology is the act of finding, counting and classification facts with the help of eyes, other senses and logic. Ty ...

and logic in 1936. In 1937, Hempel emigrated to the United States, where he accepted a position as Carnap's assistant at the University of Chicago. He later held positions at the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

(1939–1948), Yale University (1948–1955) and Princeton University, where he taught alongside Thomas Kuhn and remained until made emeritus in 1973. Between 1974 and 1976, he was an emeritus at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem before becoming University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh in 1977 and teaching there until 1985. In 1989 the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University renamed its Three Lecture Series the 'Carl G. Hempel Lectures' in his honor. He was an elected member of the

American Academy of Arts and 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 ...

and of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

for which he served as president.

Philosophical views

Hempel never embraced the term " logical positivism" as an accurate description of the Vienna Circle and Berlin Group, preferring to describe those philosophers, including himself, as "logical empiricists." He believed that the term "

positivism Positivism is an empiricist philosophical theory that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—meaning ''a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. G ...

," with its roots in the

materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialism ...

Auguste Comte Isidore Marie Auguste François Xavier Comte (; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the modern sense of ...

, implied a metaphysics that empiricists were not obliged to embrace. He regarded Ludwig Wittgenstein as a philosopher with a genius for stating philosophical insights in striking and memorable language, but believed that he, or at least the Wittgenstein of the '' Tractatus,'' made claims that could only be supported by recourse to metaphysics. To Hempel, metaphysics involved claims to know things which were not knowable; that is, metaphysical hypotheses were incapable of confirmation or disconfirmation by evidence. Hempel is also credited with the revival of the

Deductive-nomological model The deductive- nomological model (DN model) of scientific explanation, also known as Hempel's model, the Hempel– Oppenheim model, the Popper–Hempel model, or the covering law model, is a formal view of scientifically answering questions askin ...

of explanation in the 1940's with the publication of "The function of general laws in history".

Legacy

In 2005, the City of Oranienburg, Hempel's birthplace, renamed one of its streets "Carl-Gustav-Hempel-Straße" in his memory.

Bibliography

Principal works

*1936: "Über den Gehalt von Wahrscheinlichkeitsaussagen" and, with Paul Oppenheim, "Der Typusbegriff im Licht der neuen Logik" *1942: "The Function of General Laws in History" *1943: "Studies in the Logic of Confirmation" *1959: "The Logic of Functional Analysis" *1965: '' Aspects of Scientific Explanation'' *1966: '' Philosophy of Natural Science''

Essay collections

*'' Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays'' (1965), . *''Selected Philosophical Essays'' (2000), . *''The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel: Studies in Science, Explanation, and Rationality'' (2001), .

Articles

″On the Nature of Mathematical Truth"
and ″Geometry and Empirical Science″ (1945), ''American Mathematical Monthly'', issue 52. *Articles in '' Readings in Philosophical Analysis'' (pp. 222–249), edited by

Herbert Feigl Herbert Feigl (; ; December 14, 1902 – June 1, 1988) was an Austrian- American philosopher and an early member of the Vienna Circle. He coined the term "nomological danglers". Biography The son of a trained weaver who became a textile designer, ...

and Wilfrid Sellars (Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1949).

References

External links

Carl Gustav Hempel
at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"Problems and Changes in the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning" by Carl G. Hempel

by the Princeton University Office of Communications.
Carl Gustav Hempel Papers, 1903-1997, ASP.1999.01
at the Archives of Scientific Philosophy, Special Collections Department, University of Pittsburgh.

in the ''New York Times''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hempel, Carl Gustav 1905 births 1997 deaths 20th-century essayists 20th-century German male writers 20th-century German non-fiction writers 20th-century German philosophers City College of New York faculty Empiricists German essayists German logicians German male essayists German male non-fiction writers Hebrew University of Jerusalem faculty Heidelberg University alumni Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Logical positivism People from Oranienburg People from the Province of Brandenburg Philosophers of logic Philosophers of mathematics Philosophers of science Philosophy academics Philosophy writers Princeton University faculty University of Göttingen alumni University of Pittsburgh faculty Vienna Circle Yale University faculty Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy