Kenneth Francis Schaffner (born October 30, 1939) is an emeritus Distinguished University Professor, University Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh. He specializes in the history of science and the philosophy of science.
Education His formal education consists of: BS, Physics and Philosophy, Brooklyn College, 1961 PhD, Philosophy, Columbia University, 1967 MD, University of Pittsburgh, 1986
Career Schaffner is a philosopher and medical doctor who specializes in the history and philosophy of science. He has published extensively on ethical and conceptual issues, and has written several books in those fields. He is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, but has also taught since 1962 at Brooklyn College, the University of Chicago, the University of Maryland, and George Washington University, where he is a professor emeritus and was formerly University Professor of Medical Humanities and Professor of Philosophy. His recent work has been on ethical and philosophical issues in human behavior. He was editor-in-chief of the academic journal Philosophy of Science from 1975 to 1980.
Honors Schaffner was a Guggenheim Fellow and has received many academic honors, including: Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1986 Fellow, The Hastings Center, 1991 Fellow, Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry, 1992
Selected publications Schaffner had been writing books for over forty years, and papers for over fifty. His books and some of his recent papers are listed below:
Books Nineteenth-Century Aether Theories, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1972 Logic of Discovery and Diagnosis in Medicine, K. Schaffner (ed.) Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985 Medical Innovation and Bad Outcomes: Legal, Social, and Ethical Responses, M. Siegler, S. Toulmin, F. Zimring and K. Schaffner (eds.) Health Administration Press, Michigan, 1987 Discovery and Explanation in Biology and Medicine, University of Chicago Press, 1993 Behaving: What's Genetic, What's Not, and Why Should We Care, Oxford University Press, 2016
Chapters "Theories, Models, and Equations in Systems Biology", in F. Boogerd, et al. (eds) Towards a Philosophy of Systems Biology, Netherlands: Elsevier, 2007. Pages 145-162. Schaffner, K.F. (2008) "Etiological Models in Psychiatry: Reductive and Nonreductive" in K. Kendler and Josef Parnas (eds.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008. pp. 48–90. Schaffner, K.F. (2008) "A Tail of a Tiger, Comment: on Zachar's "Real Kinds but No True Taxonomy: An Essay in Psychiatric Systematics.," in K. Kendler and Josef Parnas (eds.) Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2008. pp. 355–367. Schaffner, K.F. "Theories, Models, and Equations in Biology: The Heuristic Search for Emergent Simplifications in Neurobiology" Philosophy of Science, Proceedings of Vancouver Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting, 2008. 75 (2008), 1008-1021. Schaffner, K.F. "Philosophy of Method," a revision of an earlier encyclopedia essay on "Method, Philosophy of," Encyclopedia of Microbiology, 3rd edition, M. Schaechter (ed.) Elsevier, 2009. "The validity of psychiatric diagnosis: Etiopathogenic and clinical approaches," in Psychiatric Diagnosis: Challenges and Prospects, I. Salloum and J. Mezzich (eds.) London: Wylie, 2009. pp. 221–232
Papers "Medical Informatics and the Concept of Disease", Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 21: 85–101: 2000. "Behavior at the Organismal and Molecular Levels: The Case of C. elegans", Philosophy of Science 67 2000([PSA 1998] Proceedings): S273-S288. "Preventing severe mental illnesses--new prospects and ethical challenges", with Patrick D. McGorry. Schizophrenia Research Aug 1 2001; 51(1): 3–15. "Nature and Nurture" Current Opinion in Psychiatry, September, 2001: 14: 486–490. "Genes, Concepts, DST Implications, and the Possibility of Prototypes: Comments on Stotz and Griffiths, Burian, and Walters", History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, 2004;26(1):81-90. "Reduction: The Cheshire Cat Problem and a Return to Roots", Synthese, Volume 151, Number 3 / August, 2006. Pages 377-402.
References
External links Hour-long interview of him, about his work.