Academic CV
Blog
Fons Dewulf
Currently, I am a research assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where I investigate the emergence of anglophone philosophy of science as an independent subdiscipline of professional philosophy and the impact of this emergence on the methods and aims of philosophy (of science) and on its relation to the sciences and society.
I have a PhD in Philosophy from Ghent university, supervised by Maarten Van Dyck. In my PhD dissertation I showed how conflicts concerning the “Geisteswissenschaften” within early 20th century German philosophy had a major thematical impact on anglophone philosophy of science after the second world war, specifically on the assumption that science aims at both description and explanation.
An updated version of my CV can be found here.
Publications
Journal Articles
Dewulf, Fons. (2026) “Chang’s Hermeneutic Operational Coherence: Ambiguities and Prospects.” European Journal for Philosophy of Science 16 (28). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-026-00735-y
Dewulf, Fons. (2025) “Disciplinary Bounds and Their Upkeep: A Framework to Capture 20th Century Philosophy in its Context.” HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 15 (1), 9-34. https://doi.org/10.1086/734066
Petrovich, E., Verhaegh, S., Bös, G. et al. (2024) “Bibliometrics beyond citations: introducing mention extraction and analysis”. Scientometrics 129, 5731–5768. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05116-x
Dewulf, Fons (2023) "Wittgenstein & het logisch empiricism. Een gespannen verhouding." Algemeen Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de wijsbegeerte 115 (2), 180-195. https://doi.org/10.5117/ANTW2023.2.006.DEWU
Dewulf, Fons and Roth, Paul. (2022) “Real True Facts: a Reply to Currie and Swaim.” Journal of the Philosophy of History 16, 207–225. https://doi:10.1163/18722636-12341478
Dewulf, Fons. (2022) “Beyond Hempel: Reframing the Debate about Scientific Explanation.” Philosophy of Science, 89, 585–603. https://doi.org/10.1017/psa.2021.45
Dewulf, Fons and Massimiliano, Simons. (2021) “Positivism in Action: The Case of Louis Rougier.” HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 11 (2), 461-487. https://doi.org/10.1086/715873
Dewulf, Fons (2021) “The Institutional Stabilization of Philosophy of Science and its Withdrawal from Social Concerns after the Second World War.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 29 (5), 935-953. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2020.1848794
Dewulf, Fons. (2020) "The Place of Historiography in the Network of Logical Empiricism." Intellectual History Review 30 (2), 321-345. https://doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2019.1648056
Dewulf, Fons. (2018) "Revisiting Hempel's Contribution to Philosophy of History." Journal of the History of Ideas 79 (3), 285-406. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2018.0023
Dewulf, Fons. (2017) "Rudolf Carnap's Incorporation of the Geisteswissenschaften in the Aufbau." HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 7 (2), 199-225. https://doi.org/10.1086/693420
Book Chapters
Dewulf, Fons (Forthcoming) “Der Logische Aufbau der Welt.” In: Damböck, C. and Schiemer, G. (eds.) Rudolf Carnap Handbook. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag. (Accepted for publication)
Dewulf, Fons (Forthcoming) “Carnap, Feigl and Hempel.” In: Damböck, C. and Schiemer, G. (eds.) Rudolf Carnap Handbook. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler Verlag. (Accepted for publication)
Dewulf, Fons. (2025) “The Failed Reception of the Voluntarism in Logical Empiricism.” In: Verhaegh, S. (ed.), American Philosophy and the Intellectual Migration, 211-232. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111335209-012
Dewulf, Fons. (2022) “The Heuristic and Epistemic Account of Verstehen in 20th century American Philosophy.” In: Tuboly, A. and Sivadó, A. (eds), The History of Understanding in Analytic Philosophy: Before and After Logical Empiricism. London: Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350159235.ch-003
Dewulf, Fons. (2022) "Leo Apostel and Rudolf Carnap: The Development of Logical Empiricist Ethics in Post-War Europe." In: Tuboly, Adam and Damböck, Christian (eds.), The Socio-Ethical Dimension of Knowledge, 127-147. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80363-6_7
Dewulf, Fons (2021) “The Emergence of Scientific Explanation as a Problem for Philosophy of Science: Aristotle, Nagel and Hempel.” In: Tuboly, A. and Neuber, M. (eds), Ernest Nagel: Between Pragmatist Naturalism and Logical Empiricism, 67-87. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-81010-8_4
Dewulf, Fons. (2021) “Carnap’s Opposition to Logic of the Geisteswissenschaften.” In: Wolters, G. and Damböck, C. (eds), Young Carnap in an Historical Context: 1918–1935, 55-73. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58251-7_3
Dewulf, Fons. (2017) "The Epistemic Indispensability of Understanding in Historiography." In: Massimi M., Romeijn JW., Schurz G. (eds), EPSA15 Selected Papers, 25-36. European Studies in Philosophy of Science, Vol. 5. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53730-6_3
Reviews
Dewulf, Fons. (2020) “Review - Paul A. Roth, The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation.” Œconomia. History, Methodology, Philosophy 10 (2): 363-367. https://doi.org/10.4000/oeconomia.8092
Dewulf, Fons. (2025) “Alan Richardson and Adam Tamas Tuboly, eds., Interpreting Carnap: Critical Essays.” HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 15 (1): 296-272. https://doi.org/10.1086/734644
Dissertation
Dewulf, Fons. (2018) A Genealogy of Scientific Explanation: the Emergence of the Deductive-Nomological Model at the Intersection of German Historical and Scientific philosophy. PhD Dissertation. Ghent University. https://lib.ugent.be/en/catalog/rug01:002405019?i=5&q=fons+dewulf
Other
Dewulf, Fons. (2019) "Terug naar de ivoren toren." Rekto Verso https://www.rektoverso.be/artikel/terug-naar-de-ivoren-toren
Positions
Sep. 2024
Research Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Oct. 2022- Aug. 2024
Post-Doctoral Fellow; Department of Philosophy, Tilburg University; ERC/NWO project Exiled Empiricists (https://exiledempiricists.wordpress.com/)
Oct. 2021- Sep. 2022
Doctor-Assistant (50%); Higher Institute for Philosophy, KU Leuven
Oct. 2018- Sep. 2021
Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO); Department of Philosophy and Moral Science, Ghent University
Oct. 2014- Sep. 2018
PhD Fellow of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO); Department of Philosophy and Moral Science, Ghent University
Sep. 2019 - Dec. 2019
Visiting Fellow of the Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
Education
2014-2018 PhD, Philosophy, Ghent University
Dissertation: A Genealogy of Scientific Explanation, The Emergence of the Covering-Law Model at the Intersection of German Historical and Scientific Philosophy
Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Maarten Van Dyck
Committee: Prof. Dr. Alan Richardson, Prof. Dr. Paul Roth, Dr. Christian Damböck, Prof. Dr. Erik Weber
2013-2014 Special Teacher’s Program: Philosophy and Moral Science, Magna cum Laude, Ghent University
2013-2014 Master of Arts Literature and Linguistics: Greek, Summa cum Laude, Ghent University
2012-2013 Master of Arts Philosophy, Summa cum Laude, Ghent University
2009-2012 Bachelor of Arts Philosophy, Summa cum Laude, Ghent University
