Nicholas Rescher
University Professor Metaphysics, Epistemology, Pragmatism, Philosophy of Science, History of Philosophy, Ethics
Nicholas Rescher (PhD, Princeton, 1951) is University Professor of Philosophy. He came to the University in 1961, has served as chairman of the department, and is vice chairman of the Center for Philosophy of Science. Born in Germany in 1928, he is the author of more than 90 books on a wide variety of philosophical subjects, and has pioneered in the revival and refurbishing of the idealistic tradition in epistemology and metaphysics in the light of ideas drawn from American pragmatism. Having served as president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (1989-90) and of the Leibniz Society of North America, he is currently president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association and is president-elect for 2004-2005 of the Metaphysical Society of America. From 1969 to 1993 he edited the American Philosophical Quarterly. Honorary degrees have been awarded to Professor Rescher by Loyola University of Chicago, Lehigh University, the Argentine National University of Cordoba, and the University of Konstanz, as well as his alma mater, Queens College of the City University of New York and the FernUniversität Hagen in his native city. In 1983 he received an Alexander von Humboldt Prize awarded under the auspices of the German Federal Republic for distinguished scholarship in the humanities.
Select Publications
On Leibniz, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. Epistemology: On the Scope and Limits of Knowledge, SUNY Press, 2003. Paradoxes: Their Roots, Range, and Resolution, Open Court, 2001. Philosophical Reasoning, Blackwell, 2001. Nature and Understanding: A Study of the Metaphysics of Science, Clarendon Press, 2000. Kant and the Reach of Reason, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
