Description: Nicholas Rescher offers his perspectives on many of the foundational concerns of philosophy. He sees the need to inquire as an evolutionary tool for adapting to a hostile environment and shows how philosophy has developed in an evolutionary fashion, building upon acquired knowledge and upon itself. In a historical thread that informs and enriches his overview, Rescher recalls Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, Kant, Hegel, Leibniz, Laplace, Bertrand Russell, and others. Overall, he argues for philosophy as an unavoidable instrument for rational, cogent responses to large questions.
Review Quotes: Past praise for Nicholas Rescher
"Nicholas Rescher continues to be an American philosophical treasure. His latest work, Ignorance, is a wide-ranging but thorough-indeed, exhaustive-analysis of the varieties of ignorance and the implications thereof. It will be required reading for everyone concerned with understanding the anatomy of knowledge."-- "George Gale, University of Missouri-Kansas City on Ignorance (On the Wider Implications of Deficient Knowledge)"