Bücher von Nicholas Rescher

The book presents a detailed examination of many key aspects of philosophizing, ranging from the mission of philosophy, its method, its dialectic, and its epistemology. It conveys to the reader, student and scholar alike, a clear account of the aspirations and potential of the discipline. Readers will come away with a clearer understanding of the promise and challenges of philosophizing.

The best and most instructive way to learn about philosophy is by examining the history of the field. For it is here that we come to see how its particulars are identified and addressed by some of humankind's sharpest intellects. Philosophy began hundreds of years BCE, and by now has grown to a scope and scale beyond acceptability by any single mind. But a sampling of episodes and issues can convey some idea of the nature of the field. And it is with this goal in view-clarifying the detail of some key philosophical issues-that these studies are being put into print. It is the aim of these forays into philosophical history to illustrate how contemporary perspectives, methods, and instruments of analysis can clarify some of the key philosophical teachings both by highlighting the difficulties they encounter and by providing instructive means for addressing them.

This book presents a retrospect of the author`s contacts and interactions with a wide array of philosophical contemporaries. The people of one¿s life come in a series of circles. One¿s identity comes to be shaped through interactive membership in all of them. Beginning at Princeton in 1950, Nicholas Rescher is still engaged in teaching philosophy continuing an active career extending to 68 years. During this time he has published well over 100 books and served as president of five major American philosophical societies. In the course of his unusually long career he has been in productive contact with scores of philosophers, scholars, and scientists, and the present book surveys his interactions with many of those who have left their mark on this work and thought. A book which, like this, deals with encounters between its author and others is bound to have a dual aspect. As far as its author goes, it is substantially autobiographic. But, as far as its subjects are concerned, in dealing with their impact upon others, it affords some raw material for the biographer who seeks to depict their subject¿s role in the larger scheme of things.

The Rescher family emerged from the fog of historical obscurity in the area of the Lake of Constance in the middle of the 17th Century. They were founders of the Israelite community that thrived in Hochberg from 1750 to 1850 and their fate typified that of their Swabian corrrelegionsts in a rise to prosperity and Germanification. However, as of the 1850s most persons bearing the family name crossed the Atlantic and by the time of Nazi Germany all living members had become part of American Christendom, with the unlikely exception of the eminent orientalist Oskar Rescher, but subsequently Osman Re¿er, living in Istanbul as a convert to Islam.

The book provides a view of the extraordinary people¿philosophers, scientists, and scholars¿whom the author encountered in Princeton in the years 1949-1952. It gives some account of who they were, what they did, and how they provided the author with incentive and inspiration. The 1950s were of another era, and the Princeton of the day was another world. As a young scholar in those days, the author came into contact with many interesting people, including Einstein, Gödel, and von Neumann. The book describes how these encounters occurred and what impression they left.

The book sees to show that the present discussion so unfolds as to show that ultimately Reality's inherent impetus to lawful order serves also to account for its existence. The ultimate explanation of its order is as something that also provides for its reason for being. Step by step, a train of thought unfolds to indicate that Reality both exists and has the nature it does for good reason, and specifically because this is somehow for the best. Such an approach goes back to the Platonism of classical antiquity. Many difficulties lie in the way of its acceptance. But is it, in the final analysis, the theory that works here takes the form of a Neo-Platonism of sorts. Or if reality has any rational explanation at all, it is one that will have to proceed along these lines, based upon rationality itself.An underlying theme that runs throughout the present elaboration of metaphysics is the dialectic of interaction between descriptive facts on the one hand and normative ideals on the other. On such a view, it is a salient factor in metaphysics that reality as such is descriptively constituted as a potentially perfect system of knowledge even though we imperfect beings cannot get a more than an imperfectly secure cognitive grip on it. Accordingly, we can never hope to surmount the contrast between:*;The metaphysical ideal of a perfected system of knowledge.*;The imperfect realization of actuality that we can ever hope to achieve in practice.

More than two centuries after his death, the influence of Immanuel Kant continues to loom large on the philosophical scene. The essays collected in the book consider various key aspects of his many-sided philosophical work. Addressing issues on metaphysics, epistemology, and metaphilosophy, they represent their authors multi-decade preoccupation with the thought and influence of this monumental philosopher.

It has been said, and may well be true, that Leibniz is the smartest person who ever lived. And there is no question but that he ranks high among mankind's small number of universal geniuses who made strikingly original contributions in every then-existing field of learning. The studies that are brought together here are new and heretofore unpublished investigations of various prominent and characteristic ideas in Leibniz's philosophy. They contribute new pieces to the virtually unending panorama that constitutes our understanding of Leibniz's multifaceted thought.

Develops a general theory of prediction that encompasses its fundamental principles, methodology, and practice and gives an overview of its promises and problems.

This book examines the nature, sources, and implications of fallacies in philosophical reasoning. There is widespread interest in the practice and products of philosophizing, yet the important issue of fallacious reasoning in these matters has been effectively untouched.

This book covers a varied spectrum of ethical topics, ranging from the fundamental considerations regarding ethical values, to the rationale of obligation, and the ethical management of societal and personal affairs.

Since the late 1960's Professor Rescher has carried on a series of investigations in value theory in an endeavor to clarify the nature of values and the ways in which they impact on human affairs. This book collects together some dozen of these studies in a way that showcases the author's characteristic perspective on this important range of basic philosophy issues. It bring clearly to view the author's characteristic combinations of analytical accuracies within a broad luminative outlook.

Since Rescher's earliest publication of the middle 1950's in this field, the philosophy of science has constituted one focus of his interest and preoccupation. Some dozen of Rescher's contributions to the field are published in the present volume, and they combine to convey his favored way of blending empirical data with philosophical theorizing.