Nicholas Rescher (; ; born 15 July 1928) is a
German-American
German Americans (german: Deutschamerikaner, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. With an estimated size of approximately 43 million in 2019, German Americans are the largest of the self-reported ancestry groups by the Unite ...
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
,
polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
, and author, who has been a professor of philosophy at the
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...
since 1961. He is chairman of the
Center for Philosophy of Science
The Center for Philosophy of Science is an academic center located at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, dedicated to research in the philosophy of science. The center was founded by Adolf Grünbaum in 1960. The current direc ...
and was formerly chairman of the philosophy department.
[
Rescher has served as president for the ]American Catholic Philosophical Association
The American Catholic Philosophical Association (ACPA) is an organization of Catholic philosophers established in 1926 to promote the advancement of philosophy as an intellectual discipline consonant with Catholic tradition. Among the means used t ...
, Leibniz Society of North America
The Leibniz Society of North America is a philosophical society whose purpose is to promote the study of the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The society publishes The Leibniz Review, organizes an annual conference, sponsors group sessions ...
, American Metaphysical Society, American Philosophical Association
The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarly ...
, and Charles S. Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
Society. He is the founder of ''American Philosophical Quarterly
The ''American Philosophical Quarterly'' (APQ) is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering philosophy. It was established in 1964 by Nicholas Rescher and is published quarterly by University of Illinois Press under license with North American Phil ...
'', '' History of Philosophy Quarterly'', and ''Public Affairs Quarterly
''Public Affairs Quarterly'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers current issues in social and political philosophy. The current editor is Jason Brennan (Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private r ...
''.
Early life and education
Nicholas Rescher was born in Hagen
Hagen () is the Largest cities in Germany, 41st-largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany. The municipality is located in the States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located on the south eastern edge of the R ...
in the Westphalia
Westphalia (; german: Westfalen ; nds, Westfalen ) is a region of northwestern Germany and one of the three historic parts of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has an area of and 7.9 million inhabitants.
The territory of the regio ...
region of Germany. In his autobiography he traces his descent to Nehemias Rescher (1735-1801), a founder of the Hochberg-Remseck Jewish community in Swabian Germany. He relocated to the United States when he was 10 and obtained a degree in mathematics at Queens College, New York
Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...
. Thereafter, he attended Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, graduating with his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1951 at the age of 22, the youngest person to earn a Ph.D. in that department. From 1952 to 1954 during the Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
he served a term in the United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...
, and then from 1954 to 1957 he worked for the Rand Corporation
The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
's mathematics division.[ After a time at ]Lehigh University
Lehigh University (LU) is a private research university in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer and was originally affiliated with the Epis ...
, he has taught philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh since 1961. The orientalist Oskar Rescher
Oskar Rescher (October 1, 1884 – March 26, 1972), also known as Osman Reşer, was a prolific German-Turkish scholar in Arabic literature, Arabic, Persian literature, Persian, and Turkish literature who specialized in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry ...
is the first cousin of his father.
Career
Rescher began his career as an academic at Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in 1951.[ He joined the philosophy department at the University of Pittsburgh in 1961, becoming the first associate director of its new Center for Philosophy of Science the following year. In 1964, he founded the ''American Philosophical Quarterly''. From 1980 to 1981, Rescher served as the chairman of the philosophy department.] In July 1988, Rescher changed roles at the Center for Philosophy of Science, resigning as its director and becoming its chairman. In 2010, he donated his philosophy collection to the Hillman Library
Hillman Library is the largest library and the center of administration for the University Library System (ULS) of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Located on the corner of Forbes Avenue and Schenley Drive ...
.
An honorary member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford
Corpus Christi College (formally, Corpus Christi College in the University of Oxford; informally abbreviated as Corpus or CCC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1517, it is the 12th ...
, he has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...
, the Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
, the Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...
, and the , among others.
Rescher is a prolific writer, with over 100 books and 400 articles, generating the jest that Rescher is not a single person, but a committee sharing the name.[ Philosopher ]Michele Marsonet
Michele Marsonet (born 1950) is professor of philosophy of science and methodology of the human sciences, chairman of the philosophy department and vice-rector for international relations at the University of Genoa in Italy. Having worked as asso ...
, who has published extensively on Rescher's philosophy, writes that his prolific publication is in itself the most common objection against Rescher, adding "it is, indeed, a leitmotiv of all those unwilling to discuss his ideas". He is known for his system of pragmatic idealism
Neopragmatism, sometimes called post-Deweyan pragmatism, linguistic pragmatism, or analytic pragmatism, is the philosophical tradition that infers that the meaning of words is a result of how they are used, rather than the objects they represent.
...
, which synthesizes British idealism with the pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...
of the U.S.
Philosophy
Rescher's university biography describes his philosophical work thus:[
]His work envisions a dialectical tension between our synoptic aspirations for useful knowledge and our human limitations as finite inquirers. The elaboration of this project represents a many-sided approach to fundamental philosophical issues that weaves together threads of thought from the philosophy of science, and from continental idealism and American pragmatism.
In the mid and late 1960s, his studies were focused on medieval Arabic logic, but he soon broadened his areas of inquiry in metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
and epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
, moving towards the methodological pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...
he would define. In the 1970s, he began working more extensively with American pragmatism with a focus on the writings of C. S. Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
, who was to number among his major influences. In 1966, Rescher collaborated with Herbert A. Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist, with a Ph.D. in political science, whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary ...
on a ground-breaking paper on the theory of causality.
He has contributed to futuristics, and with Olaf Helmer
Olaf Helmer (June 4, 1910 – April 14, 2011) was a German-American logician and futurologist. He was a researcher at the RAND Corporation from 1946 to 1968 and a co-founder of the Institute for the Future.
Biography
Born in Berlin, Helmer studi ...
and , invented the Delphi method }
The Delphi method or Delphi technique ( ; also known as Estimate-Talk-Estimate or ETE) is a structured communication technique or method, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The ...
of forecasting.[ A lifelong aficionado of the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz, Rescher has been instrumental in the reconstruction of Leibniz's ''machina deciphratoria'', an ancestor of the famous Enigma cipher machine. Rescher is also responsible for two further items of historical rediscovery and reconstruction: the model of cosmic evolution in Anaximander, and the medieval Islamic theory of modal syllogistic.
]
Honors
Rescher has been honored for his work. In 1984, he received the Humboldt Prize
The Humboldt Prize, the Humboldt-Forschungspreis in German, also known as the Humboldt Research Award, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of G ...
for Humanistic Scholarship. In 2005, he received the Cardinal Mercier Prize, and in 2007 the American Catholic Philosophical Society's Aquinas Medal. In 2011, his contributions as a German-American to philosophy were recognized with the premier cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...
, the Founder's Medal of the American Metaphysical Society (2016), and the Helmholtz Medal of the German Academy of Sciences Berlin-Brandenburg.[ He holds eight honorary degrees. Having held visiting lectureships at Oxford, ]Konstanz
Konstanz (, , locally: ; also written as Constance in English) is a university city with approximately 83,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south of Germany. The city houses the University of Konstanz and was th ...
, Salamanca
Salamanca () is a city in western Spain and is the capital of the Province of Salamanca in the autonomous community of Castile and León. The city lies on several rolling hills by the Tormes River. Its Old City was declared a UNESCO World Heritag ...
, Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, and Marburg
Marburg ( or ) is a university town in the German federal state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district (''Landkreis''). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has a population of approximate ...
, he has been awarded fellowships by the Ford
Ford commonly refers to:
* Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford
* Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river
Ford may also refer to:
Ford Motor Company
* Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company
* Ford F ...
, Guggenheim, and National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
s. In April 2021, University of Tehran
The University of Tehran (Tehran University or UT, fa, دانشگاه تهران) is the most prominent university located in Tehran, Iran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as its research and teaching pro ...
held a session in his honor where Nadia Maftouni
Nadia Maftouni ( fa, نادیا مفتونی, born 14 January 1966) is an Iranian academic, philosophical author and artist. She is best known as a leading Researcher on Farabian, Avicennian and Suhrawardian philosophy with her modern reading ...
asserted:
Rescher's ''A Journey through Philosophy in 101 Anecdotes'' is a successful framework to reach a broader audience in the field. At first glance it seems an easy book to write. But at least in philosophy, it's easy to write in a complicated style and it's hard to write in a simple, clear, and readable fashion.
The Nicholas Rescher Prize and Medal
In 2010, the University of Pittsburgh created the Dr. Nicholas Rescher Fund for the Advancement of the Department of Philosophy which bestows the Nicholas Rescher Prize for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy.[ The first recipient of the prize was Rescher's former student, ]Ernest Sosa
Ernest Sosa (born June 17, 1940) is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. Since 2007 he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, but he spent most of his career at Brown University.
Educa ...
. As of 2012, the prize included a gold medal and $25,000, subsequently raised to $30,000. Later awardees have included Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic.
From 1963 to 198 ...
, Jürgen Mittelstraß
Jürgen Mittelstraß (born 11 October 1936 in Düsseldorf) is a German philosopher especially interested in the philosophy of science.
Career
Mittelstraß studied philosophy, history and protestant theology at the universities of Bonn, Erlangen, ...
, Hilary Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist, and a major figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He made significant contributions ...
, Ruth Millikan
Ruth Garrett Millikan (born 1933) is a leading American philosopher of biology, psychology, and language. Millikan has spent most of her career at the University of Connecticut, where she is now Professor Emerita of Philosophy.
Education and car ...
, and Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 to 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are legal philosophy, ...
. When the American Philosophical Association inaugurated its own Rescher Prize for Systematic Philosophy in 2018, the University of Pittsburgh redesignated its award as the Rescher Medal.
Eponymous concepts
*Formal logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...
: Rescher quantifier
*Non-classical logic Non-classical logics (and sometimes alternative logics) are formal systems that differ in a significant way from standard logical systems such as propositional and predicate logic. There are several ways in which this is done, including by way of ...
: Dienes–Rescher inference engine
In the field of artificial intelligence, an inference engine is a component of the system that applies logical rules to the knowledge base to deduce new information. The first inference engines were components of expert systems. The typical expert ...
(also Rescher–Dienes implication); Rescher–Manor consequence relation
*Paraconsistent logic
A paraconsistent logic is an attempt at a logical system to deal with contradictions in a discriminating way. Alternatively, paraconsistent logic is the subfield of logic that is concerned with studying and developing "inconsistency-tolerant" syste ...
: Rescher–Brandom semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy
Philosophy (f ...
*Temporal logic In logic, temporal logic is any system of rules and symbolism for representing, and reasoning about, propositions qualified in terms of time (for example, "I am ''always'' hungry", "I will ''eventually'' be hungry", or "I will be hungry ''until'' I ...
: Rescher operator
*Scientometrics
Scientometrics is the field of study which concerns itself with measuring and analysing scholarly literature. Scientometrics is a sub-field of informetrics. Major research issues include the measurement of the impact of research papers and academi ...
: Rescher's Law of logarithmic returns
*Distributive justice
Distributive justice concerns the socially just allocation of resources. Often contrasted with just process, which is concerned with the administration of law, distributive justice concentrates on outcomes. This subject has been given considera ...
: Rescher's effective average measure
*Dialectics
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to ...
: Rescher's theory of formal disputation
In the scholastic system of education of the Middle Ages, disputations (in Latin: ''disputationes'', singular: ''disputatio'') offered a formalized method of debate designed to uncover and establish truths in theology and in sciences. Fixed ru ...
*Theory of luck: Rescher's luck equation
Membership in learned societies
*Academia Europaea
The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences.
The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...
: European Academy of Arts and Sciences
*Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences
*American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
*Institut International de Philosophie
*Pennsylvania Academy of Science
*Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...
*Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...
Selected works
For a more complete list of publications (books) from 1960 to 2016, see th
List of piblications by Nicholas Rescher
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. UCP = University of California Press.
*1964. ''The Development of Arabic Logic''. UPP.
*1966. ''Galen and the Syllogism''. UPP.
*1966. ''The Logic of Commands''. Dover Publications, New York, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
*1967. ''Studies in Arabic Philosophy''. UPP.
*1969. ''Introduction to Value Theory''. (Reissued 1982) UPA.
*1973. ''The Coherence Theory of Truth''. (Reissued 1982) UPA.
*1977. ''Methodological Pragmatism: A Systems-Theoretic Approach to the Theory of Knowledge''. Basil Blackwell; New York University Press.
*1978. ''Scientific Progress: A Philosophical Essay on the Economics of Research in Natural Science''. UPP
*1983. ''Risk: A Philosophical Introduction to the Theory of Risk Evaluation and Management''. UPA.
*1984. ''The Limits of Science''. (Reissued 1999) UPP.
*1985. ''The Strife of Systems: An Essay on the Grounds and Implications of Philosophical Diversity''. UPP.
*1987. '' Ethical Idealism : An Inquiry into the Nature and Function of Ideals.'' UCP
*1988. ''Rationality''. OUP.
*1989. ''Cognitive Economy: Economic Perspectives in the Theory of Knowledge''. UPP.
*1989. ''A Useful Inheritance: Evolutionary Epistemology in Philosophical Perspective''. Rowman & Littlefield.
*1990. ''Human Interests: Reflections on Philosophical Anthropology''. Stanford University Press.
*1993. ''Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus''. OUP.
*1993 "In Matters of Religion," in Kelly James Clark, ed., ''Philosophers Who Believe: The Spiritual Journeys of 11 Leading Thinkers'', pp. 127–136. InterVarsity Press.
* ''A System of Pragmatic Idealism''
**1991. ''Volume I: Human Knowledge in Idealistic Perspective''. PUP.
**1992. ''Volume II: The Validity of Values: Human Values in Pragmatic Perspective''. PUP.
**1994. ''Volume III: 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.
*1997. ''Predicting The Future: An Introduction To The Theory Of Forecasting''. SUNY Press
*1998. ''Complexity: A Philosophical Overview''. Transaction Publishers.
*1999. ''Kant and the Reach of Reason''. Cambridge University Press.
*1999. ''Realistic Pragmatism: An Introduction to Pragmatic Philosophy''. SUNY Press.
*2000. ''Nature and Understanding: A Study of the Metaphysics of Science''. OUP.
*2001. ''Paradoxes: Their Roots, Range, and Resolution''. Open Court Publishing.
*2001. ''Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues''. UPP.
*2003. ''Epistemology: On the Scope and Limits of Knowledge''. SUNY Press.
*2003. ''On Leibniz''. UPP.
*2005. ''Epistemic Logic''. UPP.
*2005. ''Reason and Reality: Realism and Idealism in Pragmatic Perspective''. Rowman & Littlefield.
*2005–2006. ''Collected Papers'' in 10 vols. Ontos.
*2006. ''Metaphysics: The Key Issues from a Realist Perspective''. Prometheus Books.
*2006. ''Epistemetrics''. Cambridge University Press.
*2006. ''Error: On Our Predicament When Things Go Wrong''. UPP.
*2007. ''Conditionals''. MIT Press.
*2007. ''Dialectics: A Classical Approach to Inquiry''. Ontos.
*2009. ''Aporetics''. UPP.
*2009. ''Free Will''. Transaction Books.
*2009. ''Ignorance: On the Wider Implications of Deficient Knowledge''. UPP.
*2009. ''Unknowability''. Lexington Books.
*2009. ''Wishful Thinking and Other Philosophical Reflections''. Ontos.
*2009. ''Epistemological Studies''. Ontos.
*2010. ''Ideas in Process: A Study of the Development of Philosophical Concepts''. Ontos.
*2010. ''Studies in Quantitative Philosophy.'' Ontos.
*2010. ''Reality and Its Appearance.'' Continuum.
*2010. ''A Free Will Bibliography''. Ontos. With Estelle Burris
*2010. ''Philosophical Inquiries''. UPP.
*2010. ''Infinite Regress''. Transaction Books
*2010. ''Axiogenesis: An Essay in Metaphysical Optimalism''. Lexington Books.
*2010. ''Philosophical Textuality: Studies on Issues of Discourses in Philosophy''. Ontos.
*2010. ''On Rules and Principles: A Philosophical Study of their Nature and Function''. Ontos.
*2010. ''Finitude: A Study of Cognitive Limits and Limitations''. Ontos.
*2010. ''Beyond Sets: A Venture in Collection-Theoretico Revisionism''. Ontos. With Patrick Grim.
*2011. ''On Certainty: And Other Philosophical Essays''. Ontos.
*2011. ''Philosophical Explorations''. Ontos.
*2011. ''Philosophical Episodes''. Ontos.
*2011. ''Productive Evolution''. Ontos.
*2012. ''Pragmatism''. Transaction Books.
*2012. ''Reflexivity''. (With Patrick Grim) Ontos.
*2012. ''On Explaining Existence''. Ontos.
*2012. ''Philosophische Vorsellungen''. Ontos.
*2012. ''Philosophical Deliberations''. Ontos.
*2012. ''On Leibniz''. UPP. econd, revised and expanded edition of the 2003 edition.*2012. ''Epistemic Merit: And Other Essays in Epistemology''. Ontos.
*2013. ''On Leibniz: Expanded Edition''. University of Pittsburgh Press.
*2013. ''Reason and Religion''. ONTOS.
*2014. ''Philosophical Progress, And Other Philosophical Studies''. De Gruyter.
*2014. ''The Pragmatic Vision: Themes in Philosophical Pragmatism''. Rowman & Littlefield.
*2014. ''Logical Inquiries''. De Gruyter.
*2014. ''The Vagaries of Value: Basic Issued in Value Theory''. Transaction.
*2014. ''Metaphilosophy''. Lexington Books.
*2015. ''A Journey through Philosophy in 101 Anecdotes''. University of Pittsburgh Press.
*2015. ''Ethical Considerations: Basic Issues in Moral Philosophy''. Mellen Press.
*2015. ''Cognitive Complications: Epistemology in Pragmatic Perspective''. Lexington Books.
*2016. ''Pragmatism in Philosophical Inquiry''. Springer.
*2016. ''Concept Audits: A Philosophical Method''. Lexington Books.
*2018. ''Leibniz Essays.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
*2018. ''Philosophical Encounters.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
*2018. ''Family Matters.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
*2018. ''Kant Essays.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
*2018. ''A Philosopher's Story: The Autobiography of an American Philosopher.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.
See also
* American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
* List of American philosophers
This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States.
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* Delphi method }
The Delphi method or Delphi technique ( ; also known as Estimate-Talk-Estimate or ETE) is a structured communication technique or method, originally developed as a systematic, interactive forecasting method which relies on a panel of experts. The ...
* Vagrant predicate Vagrant predicates are logical constructions that exhibit an inherent limit to conceptual knowledge. Such predicates can be used in general descriptions but are self-contradictory when applied to particulars. For instance, there are numbers which ha ...
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*Michel Weber
Michel Weber (born 1963) is a Belgian philosopher. He is best known as an interpreter and advocate of the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, and has come to prominence as the architect and organizer of an overlapping array of international ...
has worked on the meaning and significance of Rescher's process works: Michel Weber (ed.),
After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics
', Frankfurt / Paris / Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2004
"Rescher on Process"
in Robert Almeder (ed.), ''Rescher Studies. A Collection of Essays on the Philosophical Work of Nicholas Rescher. Presented to Him on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday'', Frankfurt / Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2008, 429–444
"Nicholas Rescher, Autobiography, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, Nicholas Rescher Collected Papers. Supplementary Volume, 2007. Critical review"
''Process Studies'' 37.2, 2008, pp. 211–213.
*
Further reading
*Ernest Sosa (ed), ''The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher'' (Dordrecht, 1979).
*Robert Almeder (ed.), ''Praxis and Reason: Studies in the Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher'' (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982).
*Heinrich Coomann, ''Die Kohaerenztheorie der Wahrheit: Eine kritische Darstellung der Theorie Reschers von Ihrem historischen Hintergrund'' (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1983).
*Andrea Bottani, ''Veritá e Coerenza: Suggio su'll epistemologia coerentista di Nicholas Rescher'' (Milano: Franco Angeli Liberi, 1989).
*Michele Marsonet, ''The Primacy of Practical Reason: An Essay on Nicholas Rescher's Philosophy'' (Lanham MD: University Press of America, 1995).
*A. Wüstehube and M. Quante (ed's.), ''Pragmatic Idealism: Critical Essays on Nicholas Rescher's System of Pragmatic Idealism'' (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998).
*Martin Carrier et al. (eds.), ''Science at the Century's End: Philosophical Questions on the Progress and Limits of Science'' (Pittsburgh and Konstanz: University of Pittsburgh Press and University of Konstanz Press, 2000).
*Lotfallah Nabavi, ''Avicennan Logic Based on Nicholas Rescher's Point of View'' (Tehran: Scientific and Cultural Publication Co., 2003).
*Michel Weber (ed.), ''After Whitehead: Rescher and Process Philosophy: Critiques and Replies'' (Frankfurt: ONTOS Verlag, 2004).
*Robert Almeder (ed.), ''Rescher Studies: A Collection of Essays on the Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher'' (Frankfurt: ONTOS Verlag, 2008).
*Wenceslao González, ''La predicción científica: concepciones filosófico-metodológicas desde H. Reichenbach a N. Rescher'' (Barcelona: Editorial-Montesinos, 2010).
*Wulf Kellerwessel, ''Nicholas Rescher: Das philosophische System'' (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014).
*Sami Piltsröm (ed.), ''Pragmatism and Objectivity: Essays Sparked by the Work of Nicholas Rescher'' (London: Routledge, 2017).
*F. L. Giralido Gutiérrez, ''Racionalidad technológia en el uso y consumede technológia'' (Bogala: Institutio Technológico Metropolitano, 2017).
*Amanda Guillán, ''Pragmatic Idealism and Scientific Predication'' (Berlin: Springer, 2017).
External links
*
Nicholas Rescher home page
Philosophical purpose and purposive philosophy: an interview with Nicholas Rescher by Jamie Morgan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rescher, Nicholas
1928 births
Living people
20th-century American philosophers
21st-century American philosophers
Analytic philosophers
Epistemologists
Catholic philosophers
Converts to Roman Catholicism
German Roman Catholics
German emigrants to the United States
German people of Jewish descent
People from the Province of Westphalia
University of Pittsburgh faculty
Presidents of the Metaphysical Society of America
Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Process philosophy