Grünbaum's three chief fields of research were space-time philosophy, the methodological credentials of psychoanalysis, and reasons given in favor of the existence of God. Grünbaum defended the so-called conventionality thesis of physical geometry. He partially followed Hans Reichenbach in this respect but developed a new ontological argument for the conventionality claim in addition. In addressing the physical basis of the direction of time, Grünbaum advocated that there is a physical basis for the distinction between the past and the future, but (...) no such basis for the idea of a ‘present’ moving through time. His main claim in scrutinizing Freud’s theory methodologically was that supporting the causal claims Freud made would have required data that go beyond the clinical setting. Finally, Grünbaum worked on the philosophy of religion and set out to undermine arguments for the existence of God. (shrink)

. Science at the interface with society is regarded with mistrust among parts of the public. Scientific judgments on matters of practical concern are not infrequently suspected of being incompetent and biased. I discuss two proposals for remedying this deficiency. The first aims at strengthening the independence of science and suggests increasing the distance to political and economic powers. The drawback is that this runs the risk of locking science in an academic ivory tower. The second proposal favors “counter-politicization” in (...) that research is strongly focused on projects “in the public interest,” that is, on projects whose expected results will benefit all those concerned by these results. The disadvantage is that the future use of research findings cannot be delineated reliably in advance. I argue that the underlying problem is the perceived lack of relevance and reliability and that pluralism is an important step toward its solution. Pluralism serves to stimulate a more inclusive research agenda and strengthens the well-testedness of scientific approaches. However, pluralism also prevents the emergence of clear-cut practical suggestions. Accordingly, pluralism is part of the solution to the credibility crisis of science, but also part of the problem. In order for science to be suitable as a guide for practice, the leeway of scientific options needs to be narrowed – in spite of uncertainty in epistemic respect. This reduction can be achieved by appeal to criteria that do not focus on the epistemic credentials of the suggestions but on their appropriateness in practical respect. (shrink)