Peter Achinstein

Peter Achinstein is a Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He received his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard. He specializes in philosophy of science, and also has interests in the history of science.

Professor Achinstein has held Guggenheim, NEH, and NSF fellowships, and has served as a visiting professor at MIT, Stanford, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a founder and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for History and Philosophy of Science.

Publications

Amongst numerous articles and reviews, Professor Achinstein is the author of Concepts of Science (1968), Law and Explanation (1983), and Particles and Waves (1991). The latter, which received the Lakatos Award, is a study of methodological problems arising from three episodes in 19th century physics: the wave-particle debate about light, the development of the kinetic-molecular theory, and the discovery of the electron.

Recent publications include The Book of Evidence, published in 2001, and, an article in the Journal of Philosophy titled Is There a Valid Experimental Argument for Scientific Realism? (2002). His most recent publication is Science Rules: A Historical Introduction to Scientific Methods (2004).