Books

Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge offers scholarly analysis of key elements of Ayn Rand’s radically new approach to epistemology. The four essays, by contributors intimately familiar with this area of her work, discuss Rand’s theory of concepts—including its new account of abstraction and essence—and its central role in her epistemology; how that view leads to a distinctive conception of the justification of knowledge; her realist account of perceptual awareness and its role in the acquisition of knowledge; and finally, the implications of that theory for understanding the growth of scientific knowledge. The volume concludes with critical commentary on the essays by distinguished philosophers with differing philosophical viewpoints and the author’s responses to those commentaries.

Rescher develops a theory that accounts for philosophical disagreement and shows how conflicts root in divergent ‘cognitive values’-values regarding matters such as importance, centrality, and priority. He argues that given the nature of the enterprise, consensus is not a realistic goal, and failure to achieve it is not a defect.

“The work would be of great value to philosophers engaged in the conceptual analysis of coercion, to political scientists studying the state or other coercive institutions, and to advanced readers interested in the field of peace research.”—Choice

Nicholas Rescher accompanies the text of the Monadology section-by-section with relevant excerpts from some of Leibniz’s widely scattered discussions of the matters at issue. The result serves a dual purpose of providing a commentary of the Monadology by Leibniz himself, while at the same time supplying an exposition of his philosophy using the Monadology as an outline.

Process philosophy views temporality, activity, and change as the cardinal factors in our understanding of the real, and emphasizes process over product. In this work Nicholas Rescher provides an accessible survey of the basic issues and controversies surrounding this philosophical approach.

In this highly accesible work, Rescher offers a realistic view of the nature and operation of luck to help us come to terms with life in a chaotic world.

In this unique work Nicholas Rescher tackles the major questions of philosophical inquiry, pondering the nature of truth and existence.

Addresses the fundamental question of whether there are grounds for belief in experimental results. Allan Franklin demonstrates that experimental results are not mere social constructions, and can be used as a basis for scientific knowledge.

The Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation is a collection of essays that focuses on the identification and clarification of philosophical issues in experimental science, such as the link between science and technology, the role of theory in experimentation involving material and causal intervention, and the impact of modeling and computer simulation on experimentation.

The first anthology to offer a contemporary overview of the problem of laws—an area of study that has become increasingly central to the philosophy of science. The book covers a broad range of views, and consists exclusively of articles that have proven to be influential.

Epistemic Logic is part of an exciting new trilogy exploring the theory of knowledge by one of the world’s foremost philosophers. Together the books provide an integrated approach to the subject, but each also stands alone, and they can be read in any order.

Realism and Pragmatic Epistemology is part of an exciting new trilogy exploring the theory of knowledge by one of the world’s foremost philosophers. Together the books provide an integrated approach to the subject, but each also stands alone, and they can be read in any order.

Cognitive Harmony is part of an exciting new trilogy exploring the theory of knowledge by one of the world’s foremost philosophers. Together the books provide an integrated approach to the subject, but each also stands alone, and they can be read in any order.

By examining the interpretation of a wide variety of materials, such as works in translation and literary fiction, Pol Vandevelde presents a new approach to interpretation that reconciles the possibility of multiple interpretations with the need to consider an author’s intent.

First published in 1989, this book presents and analyzes the dramatic changes in philosophical conceptions of scientific explanation after the landmark 1948 essayStudies in the Logic of Explanation by Carl Hempel and Paul Oppenheim.