Read Books Online and Download eBooks, EPub, PDF, Mobi, Kindle, Text Full Free.
The Philosophy Of Nicholas Rescher
Download The Philosophy Of Nicholas Rescher full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online The Philosophy Of Nicholas Rescher ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!
Book Synopsis Idealism and Praxis by : Michele Marsonet
Download or read book Idealism and Praxis written by Michele Marsonet and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work manages to present a complete and informative overview of Nicholas Rescher’s philosphy. A prominent representative of contemporary pragmatism and of 20th century’s thought at large, Rescher wrote an impressive amount of volumes and essays on a wide variety of philosophical topics. The present book purports to make his theses and theories accessible in one single volume. Moreover, it provides an apparatus of references to the relevant literature produced by Rescher’s critics, and positions his work in the wider setting of its links with various contemporary American and European philosophers. The mixture of pragmatism and idealism, typical of Rescher’s stance, is carefully taken into account, along with his contributions to logic, philosophy of science, metaphysics, theory of knowledge, ethics, social and political philosophy.
Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher by : E. Sosa
Download or read book The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher written by E. Sosa and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1979-08-31 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When I entered the graduate program in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh in 1961, Nicholas Rescher had just joined the department of philosophy' to begin, with Adolf Grunbaum, the building of what is now a philosophy center of worldwide renown. Very soon his exceptional energy and versatility were in evidence, as he founded the American Philosophical Quarterly, generated a constantly rising stack of preprints, pursued impor tant scholarly research in Arabic logic, taught a staggering diversity of histori cal and thematic courses, and obtained, in cooperation with Kurt Baier, a major grant for work in value theory. That is all part of the record. What may come as a surprise is that none of it was accomplished at the expense of his students. Papers were returned in a matter of days, often the next class meet ing. And so easily accessible was he for philosophical discussion that, since (inevitably) we shared many philosophical interests, I asked him to serve as my dissertation advisor. My work in connection with this project led to a couple of journal articles while his, characteristically, led to a book. Our dis cussions certainly helped me, and while they may also have had some small influence on him, in the end our views were quite distinct. I was not only allowed complete independence, but was positively encouraged to think of my own ideas and to develop them independently. The length and breadth of Rescher's bibliography defy belief.
Book Synopsis Metaphilosophy by : Nicholas Rescher
Download or read book Metaphilosophy written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 and forward-thinking normative, or systematic, metaphilosophy cannot be independent of one another. The descriptive, or historical, metaphilosophy provides an account of what has been thought regarding the conduct of philosophical inquiry, and the prescriptive, or normative, metaphilosophy which deliberates about what is to be thought regarding the conduct of philosophizing. Rescher argues that metaphilosophy forms a part of philosophy itself. This is a unique feature of the discipline since the philosophy of biology is not a part of biology and the philosophy of mathematics is not a part of mathematics. Ultimately, the salient features of philosophizing in general—including the inherently controversial and discordant nature of philosophical doctrines—are also bound to afflict metaphilosophy. Thus, only by a careful analysis of the central issues can a plausible view of the enterprise be developed. Metaphilosophy: Philosophy in Philosophical Perspective challenges the static, compartmentalized view of metaphilosophy, providing insight for scholars and students of all areas of philosophy.
Download or read book Ignorance written by Nicholas Rescher and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2009-02-28 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 presents a broad-ranging study that examines the manifestations, consequences, and occasional benefits of ignorance in areas of philosophy, scientific endeavor, and ordinary life. Citing philosophers, theologians, and scientists from Socrates to Steven Hawking, Rescher seeks to uncover the factors that hinder our cognition. Rescher categorizes ignorance as ontologically grounded (rooted in acts of nature-erasure, chaos, and chance-that prevent fact determination), or epistemically grounded (the inadequacy of our information-securing resources). He then defines the basis of ignorance: inaccessible data; statistical fogs; secreted information; past data that have left no trace; future discoveries; future contingencies; vagrant predicates; and superior intelligences. Such impediments set limits to inquiry and mean that while we can always extend our existing knowledge-variability here is infinite-there are things that we will never know.Cognitive finitude also hinders our ability to assimilate more than a certain number of facts. We may acquire additional information, but lack the facility to interpret it. More information does not always increase knowledge; it may point us further down the path toward an erroneous conclusion. In light of these deficiencies, Rescher looks to the role of computers in solving problems and expanding our knowledge base, but finds limits to their reasoning capacity. As Rescher's comprehensive study concludes, ignorance itself is a fertile topic for knowledge, and recognizing the boundaries of our comprehension is where wisdom begins.
Download or read book Complexity written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 1998 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume explores the nature of complexity and considers its bearing on our world and how we manage our affairs within it." "Rescher's overall lesson is that the management of our affairs within a socially, technologically, and cognitively complex environment is plagued with vast management problems and risks of mishap. Although Rescher offers a sobering outlook, he also believes that complexity entails mixed blessings: our imperfect knowledge provides a rationale for putting forth our best efforts. This volume will be of interest to those interested in philosophy, the philosophy of science, science policy studies, and future studies." --Book Jacket.
Book Synopsis Philosophical Dialectics by : Nicholas Rescher
Download or read book Philosophical Dialectics written by Nicholas Rescher and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the pursuit of philosophy "of" studies—of science, of art, of politics—has blossomed, the philosophy of philosophy remains a comparatively neglected domain. In this book, Nicholas Rescher fills this gap by offering a study in methodology aimed at providing a clear view of the scope and limits of philosophical inquiry. He argues that philosophy's inability to resolve all of the problems of the field does not preclude the prospect of achieving a satisfactory resolution of many or even most of them.
Download or read book Aporetics written by Nicholas Rescher and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2009-02-15 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The word apory stems from the Greek aporia, meaning impasse or perplexing difficulty. In Aporetics, Nicholas Rescher defines an apory as a group of individually plausible but collectively incompatible theses. Rescher examines historic, formulaic, and systematic apories and couples these with aporetic theory from other authors to form this original and comprehensive survey. Citing thinkers from the pre-Socratics through Spinoza, Hegel, and Nicolai Hartmann, he builds a framework for coping with the complexities of divergent theses, and shows in detail how aporetic analysis can be applied to a variety of fields including philosophy, mathematics, linguistics, logic, and intellectual history.Rescher's in-depth examination reveals how aporetic inconsistency can be managed through a plausibility analysis that breaks the chain of inconsistency at its weakest link by deploying right-of-way precedence based on considerations of cognitive centrality. Thus while involvement with cognitive conflicts and inconsistencies are pervasive in human thought, aporetic analysis can provide an effective means of damage control.
Book Synopsis Essays in Philosophical Analysis by : Nicholas Rescher
Download or read book Essays in Philosophical Analysis written by Nicholas Rescher and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2010-11-23 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents twenty essays by Nicholas Rescher, representing more than a decade of his work. The first part of the collection offers thoughts on the history of philosophy from the Presocratics to the twentieth century; the second part features essays on epistemology, the philosophy of science, metaphysics, the theory of historiography, and the logic of temporal concepts. Despite the range of topics, all essays are closely integrated at the methodological level.
Book Synopsis Issues in the Philosophy of Religion by : Nicholas Rescher
Download or read book Issues in the Philosophy of Religion written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the years Nicholas Rescher has published various essays on religious issues from a philosophical point of view. The chapters of the present volume collect these together, joining to them four further pieces which appear here for the first time (Chapters 3, 7, and 8). While these studies certainly do not constitute a system of religious philosophy, they do combine to give a vivid picture of a well-defined point of view on the subject-the viewpoint of a Roman Catholic philosopher who, in the longstanding manner of this tradition, seeks to harmonize the commitments of faith with the fruits of inquiry proceeding under the auspices of reason.
Book Synopsis Metaphysical Perspectives by : Nicholas Rescher
Download or read book Metaphysical Perspectives written by Nicholas Rescher and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2017-12-15 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 architecture of nature at large, (2) ourselves as nature's denizens and our potential for learning about it, and (3) the transcendent domain of possibility and value. Rescher engages issues across a wide range of metaphysical themes, from different worldviews and ultimate questions to contingency and necessity, intelligent design and world-improvability, personhood and consciousness, empathy and other minds, moral obligation, and philosophical methodology. Over the course of this book, Rescher discusses, with his characteristic fusion of idealism and pragmatism, an integrated overview of the key philosophical problems grounded in an idealistically value-oriented approach. His discussion seeks to shed new light on philosophically central issues from a unified point of view.
Download or read book What If? written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thought experimentation has been a staple of philosophical methodology since classical antiquity, when Xenophanes of Colophon speculated that if horses had gods, they would be equine in form. Nicholas Rescher's What If? undertakes a systematic survey of the role and utility of thought experiments in philosophy. After surveying the historical issues, Rescher examines the principles involved, and explains the conditions under which thought experimentation can validly yield instructive results in philosophy. The reader gains understanding of the differences between scientific and philosophical experiments. What If? begins by examining the nature of thought experiments. It presents an overview of how thought experiments have figured in natural science and in historical studies, before moving on to examine how they function as an instrument of philosophical inquiry. After examining thought experiments from the pre-Socratics to the present day, Rescher turns from history to analysis, and examines the modes of reasoning involved in the use of speculative hypotheses in philosophical problem solving. He shows the limitations of speculative ontology, showing that thought experimentation can lead readily to paradox in a way that increasingly diminishes its usefulness. The book concludes by arguing and illustrating how and when it becomes pointless to push speculation, or thought experimentation beyond the limits of intelligibility and cogent sense. Among the principal features of Rescher's book is its elaborate analysis of the appropriate conditions for philosophical thought experimentation. Its cardinal thesis is that there indeed are limits to the appropriateness of this important methodological resource and that transgressing these limits destroys the prospect of drawing any valid lessons for the philosophical enterprise. What If? will be of interest to philosophers, students of philosophy, and theorists of logic and reasoning. Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of numerous philosophical works and holds six honorary degrees from universities on three continents. He has served as a president of the American Philosophical Association, the American Metaphilosophical Society, and the American Catholic Philosophical Association.
Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher by : E. Sosa
Download or read book The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher written by E. Sosa and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Reason, Method, and Value by : Dale Jacquette
Download or read book Reason, Method, and Value written by Dale Jacquette and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 643 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nicholas Rescher has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in philosophy, writing on many different areas from logic to philosophy of language, epistemology, pragmatism, ethics and political philosophy, and metaphilosophy. Reason, Method, and Value: A Reader on the Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher offers a selection of Reschers writings over a span of decades representing the core of his prodigious research interests in six key areas. Each section of the reader is accompanied by a compact critical introduction written by a leading philosophical scholar with special expertise in Reschers philosophy, and the volume opens with an appreciative introduction written by the editor and a concluding retrospective by Rescher, looking back over his oeuvre and explaining connecting themes and the unity of system contained in this extensive body of work. Taken together, the volume encapsulates the heart of Reschers impressive lifelong contributions to philosophy between two covers, in a single volume that provides a solid overview of his thought while serving to direct readers to the corpus of Reschers writings for amore complete picture.
Book Synopsis Philosophical Reasoning by : Nicholas Rescher
Download or read book Philosophical Reasoning written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2001-10-10 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study in the methodology of philosophical inquiry. It expounds and defends the thesis that systematization is the proper instrument of philosophical inquiry and that the effective pursuit of philosophy's mission calls for constructing a doctrinal system that answers our questions in a coherent and comprehensive manner.
Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher by : E. Sosa
Download or read book The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher written by E. Sosa and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When I entered the graduate program in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh in 1961, Nicholas Rescher had just joined the department of philosophy' to begin, with Adolf Grunbaum, the building of what is now a philosophy center of worldwide renown. Very soon his exceptional energy and versatility were in evidence, as he founded the American Philosophical Quarterly, generated a constantly rising stack of preprints, pursued impor tant scholarly research in Arabic logic, taught a staggering diversity of histori cal and thematic courses, and obtained, in cooperation with Kurt Baier, a major grant for work in value theory. That is all part of the record. What may come as a surprise is that none of it was accomplished at the expense of his students. Papers were returned in a matter of days, often the next class meet ing. And so easily accessible was he for philosophical discussion that, since (inevitably) we shared many philosophical interests, I asked him to serve as my dissertation advisor. My work in connection with this project led to a couple of journal articles while his, characteristically, led to a book. Our dis cussions certainly helped me, and while they may also have had some small influence on him, in the end our views were quite distinct. I was not only allowed complete independence, but was positively encouraged to think of my own ideas and to develop them independently. The length and breadth of Rescher's bibliography defy belief.
Book Synopsis Concept Audits by : Nicholas Rescher
Download or read book Concept Audits written by Nicholas Rescher and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concept Audits explores the obligation of philosophers to honor the existing meanings of terms and concepts such as knowledge, truth, justice, and fairness. This book explains how philosophers' treatments of topics relate to our presystematic understanding and how their deliberations should relate to the prevailing conception of the matters.
Download or read book Error written by Nicholas Rescher and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new analysis of the occurrence, causality, and consequences of error in human thought, action, and evaluation. Defines three main categories of error, and provides a historical perspective on error from Greek to modern philosophy.
