Hempel, Carl Gustav (1905-97) Philosopher of science. Hempel was born in Orianenberg, Germany, and went to the United States in the 1930s. He taught from 1939 at New York, Yale, Princeton, and Pittsburgh. His work on the nature of explanation and the structure of scientific theory has been the focus of all subsequent investigation into those subjects. Books include Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science (1952) and Aspects of Scientific Explanation (1970).

The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.