Nicholas Rescher

Our language encloses us in certain conceptual horizons. As regards the range of our cognition, we can say with confidence that there is a terrain beyond our horizons but we cannot say what it is. With regard to languages, we can say that they will shift the horizon boundary but, of course, not say how. And considerations of general principles indicate that there will be some fact whose specification is beyond the capacity of any and all language whatsoever. Given that we cannot possibly tell what lies in this terra incognita, its existence has little practical importance for us but its theoretical importance is immense.

With phenomena remote from easy descriptive characterization and where our access to the relevant features is difficult, we confront questions whose resolution calls for considerable speculation. Thus, the nature of physical reality in the first instant after the big bang—let alone prior to it—is bound to be something highly speculative—as is the condition of the human race in the very distant future. Issues that transcend the reach of common experience become increasingly speculative and conjectural—and thereby pose cognitively risky issues.

Nature and Understanding explores the prospect of looking from a scientific point of view at such central ideas of traditional metaphysics as the simplicity of nature, its comprehensibility, or its systematic integrity. Rescher seeks to describe - in a way accessible to philosophers and nonphilosophers alike - the metaphysical situation that characterizes the process of inquiry in natural science. This is the culmination of many years of penetrating work in this area of philosophy by one of its most eminent exponents. It is the definitive presentation of some of Rescher's key ideas.

On Leibniz examines many aspects of Leibniz's work and life. This expanded edition adds new chapters that explore Leibniz's revolutionary deciphering machine; his theoretical interest in cryptography and its ties to algebra; his thoughts on eternal recurrence theory; his rebuttal of the thesis of improvability in the world and cosmos; and an overview of American scholarship on Leibniz. Nicholas Rescher is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science.

Epistemic Aphorisms is a wide-ranging consideration of issues in epistemology, from the classical and familiar (knowledge and justified true belief, and the problem of induction) to the unusual and often neglected (what alien science might look like, the ethics of epistemology, and the limits of conceptualization). In particular, it addresses questions in epistemology that are not generally asked, including questions regarding the ethics of secrets, the costs of inquiry, the factual trajectory of amassed information and its philosophical implications, and the prospect of science based on radically different categories. These inquiries are accompanied by suggestions for formal treatment in epistemic logic, again in directions that have not been previously pursued. This book will be of use for undergraduate and graduate courses on epistemology and systems of knowledge and will also appeal to those undertaking advanced research in the field.

Philosophical anthropology is the philosophical study of the conditions of human existence and the issues that confront people in the conduct of their everyday lives. This book surveys, from a contemplative, philosophical point of view, a wide variety of human-interest issues, including happiness, luck, aging, the meaning of life, optimism and pessimism, morality, and faith and belief. The author's deliberations blend historical, theoretical, and personal perspectives into philosophical appreciation of the human condition. The philosophers of Greek antiquity took philosophy to center around just this issue of intelligent living - of determining the nature of life under the guidance of reason. Such a perspective puts philosophical agenda - a position it contested with the philosophy of nature throughout classical antiquity. In more recent times, however, its prominence has declined - no doubt, the author suggests, because modern man's achievements have been more notable in the natural than in the human science.

Nicholas Rescher surveys and analyzes the different kinds of unreal possibilities and nonexistent objects, tying together all the diverse ways in which this area has been approached by philosophers. As he surveys the field and clarifies the kinds of unreality, he also makes a sustained argument against the philosophical fashion for dealing with nonexistent possible world as though they were authentic objects. The author holds that, while we may discuss possibilities, we ought not to accord them ontological status. The possibility of existence of a certain sort of world is not the existence of possible world of a certain sort. While we may reasonable discuss possibilities at the generic level, such as a world where dogs have horns, this does not require a commitment to a possible world where they do. The work that theorists of logic and language want to accomplish with possible worlds and individuals can be managed with propositional manifolds, stories or scenarios, while the modalities of necessity and possibility that modal logicians want to analyze in terms of realization in possible worlds can be handled by turning instead to figuring in stories or scenarios.

This book presents a series of coordinated studies that explain and illustrate how philosophy must be developed systematically with its problems and topics bound together by links of reciprocal interconnection. The book consists of two parts: The first part consists of a series of case studies which illustrate how philosophical issues do not remain in neatly separated compartments but reach out in interrelationship with one another. The second part analyzes the principle resources of philosophical methodology and shows in detail how and why they can only be implemented in a systemically interrelated manner. Overall, the book demonstrates and illustrates the systemic and holistic nature of philosophical inquiry.

Luck is at issue when it is a matter of pure chance that a result of significant positive of negative value ensues for someone. Luck differs from fate, which pivots on an individual's condition, and from fortune, which pivots on an individual's talent and effort. It is by luck that you are rich when you win the lottery, by fortune if your wealth comes from talent and hard work, and by fate if you inherit those millions. On this basis luck lies beyond anyone's rational control. With risk (R) as the probability of failure in a chancy situation and the stake (S) as the difference between a favorable and an unfavorable outcome, luck (L) can be measured as the product of these quantities: L = R × S. Lhe condition of humankind in an uncertain world being as it is, luck cannot be eliminated as a key factor of our existence, be it in cognitive, practical, or ethical regards.