The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. The Method of Applied Logic: Some Philosophical Considerations

   • Stephen Barker

   Pages 1-16

3. Reply to Barker

   • Nicholas Rescher

   Pages 17-18

4. Rescher’s Hypothetical Reasoning: An Amendment

   • Nuel D. Belnap Jr.

   Pages 19-28

5. Reply to Belnap

   • Nicholas Rescher

   Pages 29-31

6. Hypothetical Reasoning and Conditionals

   • Brian Ellis

   Pages 33-45

7. Reply to Ellis

   • Nicholas Rescher

   Pages 46-47

8. Rescher’s Theory of Plausible Reasoning

   • L. Jonathan Cohen

   Pages 49-60

9. Reply to L. J. Cohen

   • Nicholas Rescher

   Pages 61-63

10. A Modal Logic of Place

    • Georg Henrik Von Wright

    Pages 65-73

11. Reply to Von Wright

    • Nicholas Rescher

    Pages 74-75

12. Familiar Mental Phenomena

    • Annette Baier

    Pages 77-94

13. Reply to A. Baier

    • Nicholas Rescher

    Pages 95-96

14. Toward a Theory of Attributes

    • Roderick M. Chisholm

    Pages 97-105

15. Reply to Chisholm

    • Nicholas Rescher

    Pages 106-107

16. Potentiality from Aristotle to Rescher and Back

    • Jude P. Dougherty

    Pages 109-122

17. Reply to Dougherty

    • Nicholas Rescher

    Pages 123-124

18. Substances and Individual Notions

    • Hidé Ishiguro

    Pages 125-137

19. Reply to Ishiguro

    • Nicholas Rescher

    Pages 138-139

20. Utilitarianism and the Vicarious Affects

    • R. M. Hare

    Pages 141-152

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.

• Aristotle
• access
• bibliography
• building
• energy
• individual
• journal
• knowledge
• logic
• modal logic
• opera
• philosophy
• philosophy of science
• project
• reason

• Brown University, USA

  Ernest Sosa

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