HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Nicholas Rescher (; ; 15 July 1928 – 5 January 2024) was a German-born American philosopher,
polymath A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...
, and author, who was a professor of philosophy at the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
from 1961. He was chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science and chairman of the philosophy department. Rescher served as president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Leibniz Society of North America, American Metaphysical Society,
American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...
, and Charles S. Peirce Society. He was the founder of '' American Philosophical Quarterly'', '' History of Philosophy Quarterly'', and '' Public Affairs Quarterly''. He died in Pittsburgh on January 5, 2024, at the age of 95.


Early life and education

Rescher was born in
Hagen Hagen () is a city in the States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, on the southeastern edge of the Ruhr area, 15 km south of Dortmund, where the rivers Lenne and Volme meet the Ruhr (river), Ruhr. In 2023, the ...
in the Westphalia region of Germany. In his autobiography he traces his descent to Nehemias Rescher (1735–1801), a founder of the Hochberg-Remseck Jewish community in Swabian Germany. He relocated to the United States when he was 10 and became a naturalized United States citizen in 1944. In 1949 he obtained a degree in mathematics at Queens College, New York, thereafter attending
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
and graduating with a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1951 at the age of 22, the youngest person to earn a Ph.D. in that department. From 1952 to 1954 during the
Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
he served a term in the
United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionar ...
, and then from 1954 to 1957 he worked for the
Rand Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...
's mathematics division. After a time at
Lehigh University Lehigh University (LU), in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, United States, is a private university, private research university. The university was established in 1865 by businessman Asa Packer. Lehigh University's undergraduate programs have been mixed ...
, he taught philosophy at the
University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...
starting in 1961. The orientalist Oskar Rescher is the first cousin of his father.


Career

Rescher began his career as an academic at Princeton University in 1951. He joined the philosophy department at the University of Pittsburgh in 1961, becoming the first associate director of its new Center for Philosophy of Science the following year. In 1964, he founded the ''American Philosophical Quarterly''. From 1980 to 1981, Rescher served as the chairman of the philosophy department. In July 1988, Rescher changed roles at the Center for Philosophy of Science, resigning as its director and becoming its chairman. In 2010, he donated his philosophy collection to the Hillman Library. An honorary member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he was elected to membership in the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
, the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, the
Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...
, the
Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...
, and the , among others. Rescher was a prolific writer, with over 100 books and 400 articles, generating the jest that Rescher is not a single person, but a committee sharing the name. Philosopher Michele Marsonet, who has published extensively on Rescher's philosophy, writes that his prolific publication is in itself the most common objection against Rescher, adding "it is, indeed, a leitmotiv of all those unwilling to discuss his ideas".


Philosophy

Rescher's university biography describes his philosophical work thus:
His work envisions a dialectical tension between our synoptic aspirations for useful knowledge and our human limitations as finite inquirers. The elaboration of this project represents a many-sided approach to fundamental philosophical issues that weaves together threads of thought from the philosophy of science, and from continental idealism and American pragmatism.
He is known for his system of pragmatic idealism, which synthesizes British idealism with the
pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that views language and thought as tools for prediction, problem solving, and action, rather than describing, representing, or mirroring reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics� ...
of the U.S. The original term he used for his system was conceptual idealism, an attempt to renew the idealist approach to knowledge in the domain of modern science. In the mid and late 1960s, his studies were focused on medieval Arabic logic, but he soon broadened his areas of inquiry in
metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
and
epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...
, moving toward the methodological pragmatism he would define. In the 1970s, he began working more extensively with American pragmatism with a focus on the writings of C. S. Peirce, who was to number among his major influences. In 1966, Rescher collaborated with Herbert A. Simon on a ground-breaking paper on the theory of causality. Rescher had contributed to futuristics, and with Olaf Helmer and , invented the Delphi method of forecasting. A lifelong aficionado of the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz, Rescher has been instrumental in the reconstruction of Leibniz's ''machina deciphratoria'', an ancestor of the famous Enigma cipher machine. Rescher was also responsible for two further items of historical rediscovery and reconstruction: the model of cosmic evolution in Anaximander, and the medieval Islamic theory of modal syllogistic.


Honors

Rescher was honored for his work. In 1984, he received the Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship. In 2005, he received the Cardinal Mercier Prize, and in 2007 the American Catholic Philosophical Society's Aquinas Medal. In 2011, his contributions as a German-American to philosophy were recognized with the premier cross of the
Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...
, the Founder's Medal of the American Metaphysical Society (2016), and the Helmholtz Medal of the German Academy of Sciences Berlin-Brandenburg. He holds eight honorary degrees. Having held visiting lectureships at Oxford, Konstanz,
Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...
,
Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
, and Marburg, he has been awarded fellowships by the Ford, Guggenheim, and
National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
s. In April 2021,
University of Tehran The University of Tehran (UT) or Tehran University (, ) is a public collegiate university in Iran, and the oldest and most prominent Iranian university located in Tehran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as ...
held a session in his honor where Nadia Maftouni asserted:
Rescher's ''A Journey through Philosophy in 101 Anecdotes'' is a successful framework to reach a broader audience in the field. At first glance it seems an easy book to write. But at least in philosophy, it's easy to write in a complicated style and it's hard to write in a simple, clear, and readable fashion.


Prize and medal

In 2010, the University of Pittsburgh created the Dr. Nicholas Rescher Fund for the Advancement of the Department of Philosophy which bestows the Nicholas Rescher Prize for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy. The first recipient of the prize was Rescher's former student,
Ernest Sosa Ernest Sosa (; ; born June 17, 1940) is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. Since 2007 he has been Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, but he spent most of his career at Brown University. ...
. As of 2012, the prize included a gold medal and $25,000, subsequently raised to $30,000. Later awardees have included
Alvin Plantinga Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving theory of justification, epistemic ...
, Jürgen Mittelstraß,
Hilary Putnam Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He contributed to the studies of philosophy of ...
, Ruth Millikan, and Thomas Nagel. When the American Philosophical Association inaugurated its own Rescher Prize for Systematic Philosophy in 2018, the University of Pittsburgh redesignated its award as the Rescher Medal.


Eponymous concepts

*
Formal logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
: Rescher quantifier *
Non-classical logic Non-classical logics (and sometimes alternative logics or non-Aristotelian logics) are formal systems that differ in a significant way from standard logical systems such as propositional and predicate logic. There are several ways in which this ...
: Dienes–Rescher inference engine (also Rescher–Dienes implication); Rescher–Manor consequence relation *
Paraconsistent logic Paraconsistent logic is a type of non-classical logic that allows for the coexistence of contradictory statements without leading to a logical explosion where anything can be proven true. Specifically, paraconsistent logic is the subfield of log ...
: Rescher–Brandom
semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
* Temporal logic: Rescher operator * Scientometrics: Rescher's Law of logarithmic returns *
Distributive justice Distributive justice concerns the Social justice, socially just Resource allocation, allocation of resources, goods, opportunity in a society. It is concerned with how to allocate resources fairly among members of a society, taking into account fa ...
: Rescher's effective average measure * Dialectics: Rescher's theory of formal disputation *Theory of luck: Rescher's luck equation


Membership in learned societies

*
Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...
: European Academy of Arts and Sciences *Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences *
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
* Institut international de philosophie *Pennsylvania Academy of Science *
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...
*
Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...


Selected works

For a more complete list of publications (books) from 1960 to 2016, see th
List of publications by Nicholas Rescher
OUP = Oxford University Press. PUP = Princeton University Press. SUNY Press = State University of New York Press. UPA = University Press of America. UPP = University of Pittsburgh Press. UCP = University of California Press. *1964. ''The Development of Arabic Logic''. UPP. *1966. ''Galen and the Syllogism''. UPP. *1966. ''The Logic of Commands''. Dover Publications, New York, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. *1967. ''Studies in Arabic Philosophy''. UPP. *1968. ''Topological Logic'' *1969. ''Introduction to Value Theory''. (Reissued 1982) UPA. *1973. ''The Coherence Theory of Truth''. (Reissued 1982) UPA. *1977. ''Methodological Pragmatism: A Systems-Theoretic Approach to the Theory of Knowledge''. Basil Blackwell; New York University Press. *1978. ''Scientific Progress: A Philosophical Essay on the Economics of Research in Natural Science''. UPP *1983. ''Risk: A Philosophical Introduction to the Theory of Risk Evaluation and Management''. UPA. *1984. ''The Limits of Science''. (Reissued 1999) UPP. *1985. ''The Strife of Systems: An Essay on the Grounds and Implications of Philosophical Diversity''. UPP. *1987. '' Ethical Idealism : An Inquiry into the Nature and Function of Ideals.'' UCP *1988. ''Rationality''. OUP. *1989. ''Cognitive Economy: Economic Perspectives in the Theory of Knowledge''. UPP. *1989. ''A Useful Inheritance: Evolutionary Epistemology in Philosophical Perspective''. Rowman & Littlefield. *1990. ''Human Interests: Reflections on Philosophical Anthropology''. Stanford University Press. *1993. ''Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus''. OUP. *1993 "In Matters of Religion," in Kelly James Clark, ed., ''Philosophers Who Believe: The Spiritual Journeys of 11 Leading Thinkers'', pp. 127–136. InterVarsity Press. * ''A System of Pragmatic Idealism'' **1991. ''Volume I: Human Knowledge in Idealistic Perspective''. PUP. **1992. ''Volume II: The Validity of Values: Human Values in Pragmatic Perspective''. PUP. **1994. ''Volume III: Metaphilosophical Inquiries''. PUP. *1995. ''Luck''. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. *1995. ''Essays in the History of Philosophy''. UK: Aldershot. *1995. ''Process Metaphysics''. SUNY Press. *1996. ''Instructive Journey: An Autobiographical Essay''. UPA. *1997. ''Predicting The Future: An Introduction To The Theory Of Forecasting''. SUNY Press *1998. ''Complexity: A Philosophical Overview''. Transaction Publishers. *1999. ''Kant and the Reach of Reason''. Cambridge University Press. *1999. ''Realistic Pragmatism: An Introduction to Pragmatic Philosophy''. SUNY Press. *2000. ''Nature and Understanding: A Study of the Metaphysics of Science''. OUP. *2001. ''Paradoxes: Their Roots, Range, and Resolution''. Open Court Publishing. *2001. ''Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues''. UPP. *2003. ''Epistemology: On the Scope and Limits of Knowledge''. SUNY Press. *2003. ''On Leibniz''. UPP. *2005. ''Epistemic Logic''. UPP. *2005. ''Reason and Reality: Realism and Idealism in Pragmatic Perspective''. Rowman & Littlefield. *2005–2006. ''Collected Papers'' in 10 vols. Ontos. *2006. ''Metaphysics: The Key Issues from a Realist Perspective''. Prometheus Books. *2006. ''Epistemetrics''. Cambridge University Press. *2006. ''Error: On Our Predicament When Things Go Wrong''. UPP. *2007. ''Conditionals''. MIT Press. *2007. ''Dialectics: A Classical Approach to Inquiry''. Ontos. *2009. ''Aporetics''. UPP. *2009. ''Free Will''. Transaction Books. *2009. ''Ignorance: On the Wider Implications of Deficient Knowledge''. UPP. *2009. ''Unknowability''. Lexington Books. *2009. ''Wishful Thinking and Other Philosophical Reflections''. Ontos. *2009. ''Epistemological Studies''. Ontos. *2010. ''Ideas in Process: A Study of the Development of Philosophical Concepts''. Ontos. *2010. ''Studies in Quantitative Philosophy.'' Ontos. *2010. ''Reality and Its Appearance.'' Continuum. *2010. ''A Free Will Bibliography''. Ontos. With Estelle Burris *2010. ''Philosophical Inquiries''. UPP. *2010. ''Infinite Regress''. Transaction Books *2010. ''Axiogenesis: An Essay in Metaphysical Optimalism''. Lexington Books. *2010. ''Philosophical Textuality: Studies on Issues of Discourses in Philosophy''. Ontos. *2010. ''On Rules and Principles: A Philosophical Study of their Nature and Function''. Ontos. *2010. ''Finitude: A Study of Cognitive Limits and Limitations''. Ontos. *2010. ''Beyond Sets: A Venture in Collection-Theoretico Revisionism''. Ontos. With Patrick Grim. *2011. ''On Certainty: And Other Philosophical Essays''. Ontos. *2011. ''Philosophical Explorations''. Ontos. *2011. ''Philosophical Episodes''. Ontos. *2011. ''Productive Evolution''. Ontos. *2012. ''Pragmatism''. Transaction Books. *2012. ''Reflexivity''. (With Patrick Grim) Ontos. *2012. ''On Explaining Existence''. Ontos. *2012. ''Philosophische Vorsellungen''. Ontos. *2012. ''Philosophical Deliberations''. Ontos. *2012. ''On Leibniz''. UPP. econd, revised and expanded edition of the 2003 edition.*2012. ''Epistemic Merit: And Other Essays in Epistemology''. Ontos. *2013. ''On Leibniz: Expanded Edition''. University of Pittsburgh Press. *2013. ''Reason and Religion''. ONTOS. *2014. ''Philosophical Progress, And Other Philosophical Studies''. De Gruyter. *2014. ''The Pragmatic Vision: Themes in Philosophical Pragmatism''. Rowman & Littlefield. *2014. ''Logical Inquiries''. De Gruyter. *2014. ''The Vagaries of Value: Basic Issued in Value Theory''. Transaction. *2014. ''Metaphilosophy''. Lexington Books. *2015. ''A Journey through Philosophy in 101 Anecdotes''. University of Pittsburgh Press. *2015. ''Ethical Considerations: Basic Issues in Moral Philosophy''. Mellen Press. *2015. ''Cognitive Complications: Epistemology in Pragmatic Perspective''. Lexington Books. *2016. ''Pragmatism in Philosophical Inquiry''. Springer. *2016. ''Concept Audits: A Philosophical Method''. Lexington Books. *2018. ''Leibniz Essays.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. *2018. ''Philosophical Encounters.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. *2018. ''Family Matters.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. *2018. ''Kant Essays.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. *2018. ''A Philosopher's Story: The Autobiography of an American Philosopher.'' LAP Lambert Academic Publishing.


See also

* American philosophy *
List of American philosophers American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can neverthe ...
* Delphi method * Vagrant predicate


Notes


References

* * * * * * * * * * * Michel Weber has worked on the meaning and significance of Rescher's process works: Michel Weber (ed.),
After Whitehead: Rescher on Process Metaphysics
', Frankfurt / Paris / Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2004
"Rescher on Process"
in Robert Almeder (ed.), ''Rescher Studies. A Collection of Essays on the Philosophical Work of Nicholas Rescher. Presented to Him on the Occasion of His 80th Birthday'', Frankfurt / Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2008, 429–444
"Nicholas Rescher, Autobiography, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, Nicholas Rescher Collected Papers. Supplementary Volume, 2007. Critical review"
''Process Studies'' 37.2, 2008, pp. 211–213. *


Further reading

*Ernest Sosa (ed), ''The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher'' (Dordrecht, 1979). *Robert Almeder (ed.), ''Praxis and Reason: Studies in the Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher'' (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982). *Heinrich Coomann, ''Die Kohaerenztheorie der Wahrheit: Eine kritische Darstellung der Theorie Reschers von Ihrem historischen Hintergrund'' (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag, 1983). *Andrea Bottani, ''Veritá e Coerenza: Suggio su'll epistemologia coerentista di Nicholas Rescher'' (Milano: Franco Angeli Liberi, 1989). *Michele Marsonet, ''The Primacy of Practical Reason: An Essay on Nicholas Rescher's Philosophy'' (Lanham MD: University Press of America, 1995). *A. Wüstehube and M. Quante (ed's.), ''Pragmatic Idealism: Critical Essays on Nicholas Rescher's System of Pragmatic Idealism'' (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998). *Martin Carrier et al. (eds.), ''Science at the Century's End: Philosophical Questions on the Progress and Limits of Science'' (Pittsburgh and Konstanz: University of Pittsburgh Press and University of Konstanz Press, 2000). *Lotfallah Nabavi, ''Avicennan Logic Based on Nicholas Rescher's Point of View'' (Tehran: Scientific and Cultural Publication Co., 2003). *Michel Weber (ed.), ''After Whitehead: Rescher and Process Philosophy: Critiques and Replies'' (Frankfurt: ONTOS Verlag, 2004). *Robert Almeder (ed.), ''Rescher Studies: A Collection of Essays on the Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher'' (Frankfurt: ONTOS Verlag, 2008). *Wenceslao González, ''La predicción científica: concepciones filosófico-metodológicas desde H. Reichenbach a N. Rescher'' (Barcelona: Editorial-Montesinos, 2010). *Wulf Kellerwessel, ''Nicholas Rescher: Das philosophische System'' (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014). *Sami Piltsröm (ed.), ''Pragmatism and Objectivity: Essays Sparked by the Work of Nicholas Rescher'' (London: Routledge, 2017). *F. L. Giralido Gutiérrez, ''Racionalidad technológia en el uso y consumede technológia'' (Bogala: Institutio Technológico Metropolitano, 2017). *Amanda Guillán, ''Pragmatic Idealism and Scientific Predication'' (Berlin: Springer, 2017).


External links

*
Philosophical purpose and purposive philosophy: an interview with Nicholas Rescher by Jamie Morgan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rescher, Nicholas 1928 births 2024 deaths 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers Analytic philosophers American epistemologists Catholic philosophers Converts to Roman Catholicism German Roman Catholics German emigrants to the United States German people of Jewish descent People from the Province of Westphalia Lehigh University faculty University of Pittsburgh faculty Presidents of the Metaphysical Society of America Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Members of Academia Europaea Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Process philosophy People from Hagen