Adolf Grünbaum (born May 15, 1923, Cologne, Germany) is a philosopher of science and a critic of psychoanalysis. He is also well-known as a critic of Karl Popper's philosophy of science.
He became the first permanent Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh in 1960. In that year, he also became the founding Director of that University's Center for Philosophy of Science, serving as Director until 1978. Currently, at the University of Pittsburgh, besides being the Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy of Science, he is Chairman of its Center for Philosophy of Science (since 1978), Research Professor of Psychiatry (since 1979), and Primary Research Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science (since 2006).
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Grünbaum received a B.A. with twofold High Distinction in Philosophy and in Mathematics from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut in 1943. He obtained both his M.S. in physics (1948) and his Ph.D in philosophy (1951) from Yale University. He was a Selfridge Professor of Philosophy at Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, (1956 to 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. He and the colleagues he recruited then built world-class Philosophy and History and Philosophy of Science Departments at the University. Several of these colleagues had come from Yale University'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.
In 2003, 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.
His offices include presidencies of the American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division) and the Philosophy of Science Association (two terms). 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 2006-2007. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has 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 (1990). Also, in May 1995, he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Konstanz in Germany.
He is the author of nearly 400 articles and book chapters as well as books on space-time and the critique of psychoanalysis, which include:
Three celebratory books ("Festschrift" volumes) dealing with his work have been published to date: