Nicholas Rescher
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Nicholas Rescher (born July 15, 1928 in Hagen, Germany) is an American philosopher, affiliated for many years with the University of Pittsburgh, where he is currently University Professor of Philosophy and Chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science. He is among the most prolific of contemporary scholars, having written 100-odd books, some in German and Spanish, and more than 400 articles.
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Career
Rescher obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton University in 1951, the youngest person—he was 22 at the time—ever to do so. He has served as a President of the American Philosophical Association, American Catholic Philosophy Association, American G. W. Leibniz Society, C. S. Peirce Society, and the American Metaphysical Society. He has held visiting lectureships at Oxford, Constance, Salamanca, Munich, and Marburg. His work has been recognized by six honorary degrees from universities on three continents. He was awarded the Alexander von Humbolt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984.
Ideas
Rescher has written on a wide range of topics, including logic, epistemology, the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and the philosophy of value. He is best known for advocating forms of pragmatism and, more recently, process philosophy. He also:
- Has developed a system of pragmatic idealism, in which the activity of the human mind makes a positive and constitutive contribution to knowledge, and "valid" knowledge contributes to practical success;
- Defends a coherence theory of truth in a manner differing somewhat from that of classical idealism; see e.g. his exchange in The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard (in the Library of Living Philosophers series);
- Advocates Template:Ref an "erotetic propagation" of science, asserting that scientific inquiry will continue without end because each newly answered question adds a presupposition for at least one more open question to the current body of scientific knowledge.
- Has written historical studies on Leibniz, Kant, Charles Peirce, and on Arabic philosophy and logic.
Partial bibliography
OUP = Oxford University Press. PUP = Princeton University Press. SUNY Press = State University of New York Press. UPA = University Press of America. UPP = University of Pittsburgh Press.
- 1964. The Development of Arabic Logic. UPP.
- 1968. Studies in Arabic Philosophy. UPP.
- 1978. Scientific Progress: A Philosophical Essay on the Economics of Research in Natural Science. UPP
- 1982 (1973). The Coherence Theory of Truth. UPA.
- 1982 (1969). Introduction to Value Theory. UPA.
- 1983. Risk: A Philosophical Introduction to the Theory of Risk Evaluation and Management. UPA.
- 1988. Rationality. OUP.
- 1989. Cognitive Economy: Economic Perspectives in the Theory of Knowledge. UPP.
- 1989. A Useful Inheritance: Evolutionary Epistemology in Philosophical Perspective. Rowman and Littlefield.
- 1990. Human Interests: Reflections on Philosophical Anthropology. Stanford Uni. Press.
- 1991. Human Knowledge in Idealistic Perspective. PUP.
- 1992. The Validity of Values: Human Values in Pragmatic Perspective. PUP.
- 1993. Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus. OUP.
- 1994. Metaphilosophical Inquiries. PUP.
- 1995. Luck. Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
- 1995. Essays in the History of Philosophy. UK: Aldershot.
- 1995. Process Metaphysics. SUNY Press.
- 1996. Instructive Journey: An Autobiographical Essay. UPA.
- 1998. Complexity: A Philosophical Overview. Transaction Publishers.
- 1999. Kant and the Reach of Reason. Cambridge Uni. Press.
- 1999. Realistic Pragmatism: An Introduction to Pragmatic Philosophy. SUNY Press.
- 1999 (1984). The Limits of Science. UPP.
- 2000. Nature and Understanding: A Study of the Metaphysics of Science. OUP.
- 2001. Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues. UPP.
- 2003. Epistemology: On the Scope and Limits of Knowledge. SUNY Press.
- 2003. On Leibniz. UPP.
- 2004. Epistemic Logic. UPP.
- 2005. Metaphysics: The Key Issues from a Realist Perspective. Prometheus Books.
- 2005. Reason and Reality: Realism and Idealism in Pragmatic Perspective. Rowman & Littlefield.
- 2005-2006. Collected Papers, 8 vols. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.
- 2006. Epistemetrics. Cambridge University Press.
- 2006. Conditionals. MIT Press.
Eponymous concepts
- Logic: Rescher QUANTIFIER
- Non-classical logic: Dienes-Rescher inference engine (also Rescher-Dienes implication); Rescher-Manor consequence relation
- Paraconsistent logic: Rescher-Brandom semantics
- Temporal logic: Rescher operator
- Scientometrics: Rescher's Law of logarithmic returns
- Distributive justice: Rescher's effective average measure
- Rescher's theory of formal disputation
References
- Almeder, Robert, ed., 1982. Praxis and Reason: Studies in the Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher. UPA.
- Marsonet, Michele, 1995. The Primacy of Practical Reason: An Essay on Nicholas Rescher's Philosophy. UPA.
- Sosa, Ernest, ed., 1979. The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher. Reidel.
- Weber, Michael, ed., 2004. After Whitehead: Rescher and Process Philosophy. Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.
- Wüstehube, A., and Quante, M., eds., 1998. Pragmatic Idealism: Critical Discussions of Nicholas Rescher’s Philosophical System. Amsterdam: Ropodi.
Template:Note *1984, "The Limits of Science" in Paul Weingartner and Hans Czermak, eds., Epistemology and Philosophy of Science: Proceedings of the 7th International Wittgenstein Symposium: 223-231.