-born in Helsinki 1946
University of Helsinki:
- Master of Science in applied mathematics (1968)
- Doctor of Philosophy (1974)
- Associate Professor of Mathematics (Logic and Foundations) (1973-1977)
- Professor of Theoretical Philosophy (1977-2014)
- Rector (2003-2008)
- Chancellor (2008-2013)
Stanford University, USA: visiting scholar 1972
- President of the Philosophical Society of Finland in 1975-2015
- President of the Federation of Scientific Societies in 2000-2014
- Acta Philosophica Fennica: Editor-in-chief 1980-2019
- Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters: invited member 1985
- FISP: member of the governing board 1998-2013
- IIP: invited member 1988
- the title of Academician of science in 2017
Niiniluoto has worked in philosophical logic, philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of technology, philosophy of culture, and history of philosophy. His doctoral dissertation applied Jaakko Hintikka’s inductive logic to study the role of theoretical concepts in science. His defense of scientific realism, which has been inspired by Charles S. Peirce, employs his original explication of the notion of truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Niiniluoto has published monographs, textbooks, and articles in English and Finnish.
Main works in English:
Conceptual Enrichment, Theories, and Inductive Systematization (diss. University of Helsinki, 1973)
Theoretical Concepts and Hypothetico-Inductive Inference (with R. Tuomela, D. Reidel, 1973)
Is Science Progressive? (D. Reidel, 1984)
Truthlikeness (D. Reidel, 1987)
Critical Scientific Realism (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Truth-Seeking by Abduction (Springer, 2018).
