Nicholas Rescher

PHILOSOPHIZING MAY BEGIN IN WONDER, as Aristotle said, but it soon runs into puzzlement and perplexity. We have many and far-reaching questions and endeavor to give answers to them. But generally, the answers that people incline to give to some questions are incompatible with those they incline to give to others. We try to resolve problems in the most straightforward way. But the solutions that fit well in one place often fail to square with those that fit smoothly in another. Inconsistency arises. And the impetus to remove such puzzlement and perplexity is a prime mover of philosophical innovation.

This collection of essays originated from an interdisciplinary conference held at the University of Pittsburgh. Contents: Aesthetic Factors in Natural Science, by Nicholas Rescher; Three Arguments against Simplicity, by Kristin Shrader-Frechette; Simplicity and the Aesthetics of Explanation, by Joseph C. Pitt; Simplicity as an Epistemic Virtue: The View from the Neuronal Level, by Paul M. Churchland; Taming a Regulative Principle: From Kant to Schlick, by Matti Sintonen; Simplicity and Distinctness: The Limits of Referential Semantics, by Ulrich Majer; The Aesthetics of Theory Testing: Economy and Simplicity, by Jane Duran; Simplicity in Evolutionary Explanations, by David B. Resnik; and The Role of Simplicity in Geology, by illiam R. Brice. Index. Co-published with Center for the Philosophy of Science

The paper argues a certain parallelism between the perception and the conception of real-world objects. Just as the former is always incomplete, perspectival, and error-prone, so is the latter. We can never claim ultimate correctness for our conception of things. This fact is crucial for communication, because if our own conceptions were claimed as definitive, then we could never be secure in our confidence that we are in communicative touch with one another regarding a common, shared object of communication.

Axiogenesis is an innovative philosophical work that dares to answer the question of the ultimate reason is behind the world's existence and nature. Despite drawing on various strands of neo-Platonic thought, Nicholas Rescher crafts an argument for a metaphysical theory grounded in evaluative considerations that is undeniably unique. With a keen intellectualism, it defends the idea that this actual world of ours represents a possibility that is—realistically speaking—beyond the prospect of improvement

Abu Nasur al-Farabi (ca. 872-950) was an Arabic polymath and philosopher, and the first Arabic logician credited with developing a non-Aristotelian logic. He discussed the topics of future contingents, the number and relation of the categories, the relation between logic and grammar, and non-Aristotelian forms of inference. He is also credited with categorizing logic into two separate groups, the first being “idea” and the second being “proof.” Nicholas Rescher assembles this annotated bibliography, listing printed materials relating to al-Farabi, and summaries that provide further details of these works.

Nicholas Rescher was born in Germany in 1928 and emigrated to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War II. After training in philosophy at Princeton University he embarked on a long and active career as professor, lecturer, and writer. His many books on a wide variety of philosophical topics have established him as one of the most productive and versatile contributors to twentieth-century philosophical thought, combining historical and analytical investigators to articulate an amalgam of German idealism with American pragmatism. This book accordingly has two dimensions, both as a contribution to German-American cultural interaction and as a contribution to the history of philosophical ideas.

In his day, al-Kindi (ca. 805-870) was the only philosopher of pure Arab descent, and became known as “the philosopher of the Arabs.” He was one of the first Arab scholars interested in a scientific rather than theological viewpoint, and played a key role in bringing Greek learning into the orbit of Islam. al-Kindi wrote over three hundred fifty treatises, for the most part short studies on special topics in science and philosophy. Nicholas Rescher assembles this annotated bibliography, listing of over three hundred items, to assist students and scholars through the maze of publications related to al-Kindi.