Nicholas Rescher: 23 books
by Nicholas Rescher
Language: English
Release Date: February 6, 2018
Language: English
Release Date: February 6, 2018
In theory and practice, the notion of fairness is far from simple. The principle is often elusive and subject to confusion, even in institutions of law, usage, and custom. In Fairness, Nicholas Rescher aims to liberate this concept from misunderstandings by showing how its definitive characteristics...
Ignorance
(On the Wider Implications of Deficient Knowledge)
Language: English
Release Date: February 28, 2009
Historically, there has been great deliberation about the limits of human knowledge. Isaac Newton, recognizing his own shortcomings, once described himself as “a boy standing on the seashore . . . whilst the great ocean of truth lay all underscored before me.”
In Ignorance, Nicholas Rescher...
Philosophical Inquiries
An Introduction to Problems of Philosophy
Language: English
Release Date: May 15, 2010
In Philosophical Inquiries, Nicholas Rescher offers his perspectives on many of the foundational concerns of philosophy and reminds us that the purpose of philosophy is to “question the questions.” Rescher sees the need to inquire as an evolutionary tool for adapting to a hostile environment and...
by Nicholas Rescher
Language: English
Release Date: December 15, 2017
Language: English
Release Date: December 15, 2017
In Metaphysical Perspectives, Nicholas Rescher offers a grand vision of how to conceptualize, and in some cases answer, some of the most fundamental issues in metaphysics and value theory. Rescher addresses what he sees as the three prime areas of metaphysical concern: (1) the world as such and the...
Free Will
A Philosophical Reappraisal
Language: English
Release Date: January 18, 2018
This volume is a reassessment of free will and, as such, seeks to answer the question: Do humans ever act under the guidance of the will? To determine if humans have free will, Rescher first examines what exactly free will is and how it should function. While the literature on the subject of free...
by Nicholas Rescher
Language: English
Release Date: June 18, 2015
Language: English
Release Date: June 18, 2015
Nicholas Rescher presents the first comprehensive chronology of philosophical anecdotes, spanning from antiquity to the current era. He introduces us to the major thinkers, texts, and historical periods of Western philosophy, recounting many of the stories philosophers have used over time to engage...
Metaphilosophy
Philosophy in Philosophical Perspective
Language: English
Release Date: October 23, 2014
The definitive mission of metaphilosophy is to facilitate an understanding of how philosophy works—the aim of the enterprise, the instrumental and procedural resources for its work, and the prospect of its success. Nicholas Rescher unites two facets of metaphilosophy to show that historical perspective...
Espionage, Statecraft, and the Theory of Reporting
A Philosophical Essay on Intelligence Management
Language: English
Release Date: December 29, 2017
Everything we know about what goes on in the world comes to us through reports, information transmitted through human communication. We rely on reports, which can take any number of forms, to convey useful information, and we derive knowledge from that information. It's no surprise, then, that reporting...
Axiogenesis
An Essay in Metaphysical Optimalism
Language: English
Release Date: August 20, 2010
Nicholas Rescher's book Axiogenesis: An Essay in Metaphysical Optimalism is a detailed exposition of axiogenerts: the philosophical theory seeking to explain the world's facts on the basis of evaluative considerations. In classical antiquity, this theory was espoused by Plato (in the Timaeus) and...
Luck
The Brilliant Randomness Of Everyday Life
Language: English
Release Date: March 15, 2001
Luck touches us all. "Why me?" we complain when things go wrong—though seldom when things go right. But although luck has a firm hold on all our lives, we seldom reflect on it in a cogent, concerted way.
In Luck, one of our most eminent philosophers offers a realistic view of the...
by Nicholas Rescher
Language: English
Release Date: January 16, 2018
Language: English
Release Date: January 16, 2018
Epistemology is more than the theory of knowledge. Its range of concern includes not only knowledge proper but also rational belief, probability, plausibility, evidentiation, and not least, erotetics, the business of raising and resolving questions. Aristotle indicated that human inquiry is grounded...
by Nicholas Rescher, Alasdair Urquhart
Language: English
Release Date: December 6, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: December 6, 2012
This book is an introduction to temporal logic, a now flourishing branch of philosophical logic whose origin is of recent date, its main impetus having been provided by the publication in the late 1950s of A. N. PRIOR'S pioneering book, Time and Modality (Oxford, The Clarendon Press, 1957). Virtually...
Concept Audits
A Philosophical Method
Language: English
Release Date: August 8, 2016
Concept auditing is based on an innovative premise for philosophers: when they address an everyday life conception on the order of knowledge, truth, justice, fairness, beauty, or the like and purport to be dealing with what it involves, then they must honor the existing meanings of these terms. And...
Pragmatism in Philosophical Inquiry
Theoretical Considerations and Case Studies
Language: English
Release Date: May 24, 2016
This book showcases the history and theory of pragmatism and its alignment to the sensibilities of contemporary analytic philosophy. It does this not only by describing its mode of operation and explaining its legitimating rationale, but also by substantiating its claims by a series of instructive...
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