Metaphysics: The Key Issues from a Realistic Perspective

Product Description ""A satisfying and highly accessible exposition of major topics in contemporary metaphysics. Rescher achieves a remarkable synthesis that sensitively integrates Aristotelian realism with a Kantian justification of presuppositions about the existence of a common external world. Rigorously argued with detailed excursions into vital concepts concerning our knowledge of reality, its complexity, lawfulness, and modality, this new book will be profitably read by students and professionals for its valuable insights and new directions in scientific ontology and epistemology.”Dale JacquetteProfessor of PhilosophyThe Pennsylvania State University“Others have proclaimed the end of metaphysics as well as the end of history, but Nicholas Rescher in his usual magisterial form is here to remind us of the importance of both metaphysics and the lessons to be learned from history. In chapter after chapter, Rescher insists that nature is intelligible and that the intellect is powerful enough to ferret out the secrets of nature. Explanation, even ultimate explanation, is possible and indeed a necessary pursuit.”Prof. Jude Dougherty, Dean Emeritus,School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America,and editor of The Review of Metaphysics Review "A satisfying and highly accessible exposition of major topics in contemporary metaphysics. Rescher achieves a remarkable synthesis that sensitively integrates Aristotelian realism with a Kantian justification of presuppositions about the existence of a common external world. Rigorously argued with detailed excursions into vital concepts concerning our knowledge of reality, its complexity, lawfulness, and modality, this new book will be profitably read by students and professionals for its valuable insights and new directions in scientific ontology and epistemology."Dale JacquetteProfessor of PhilosophyThe Pennsylvania State University"Others have proclaimed the end of metaphysics as well as the end of history, but Nicholas Rescher in his usual magisterial form is here to remind us of the importance of both metaphysics and the lessons to be learned from history. In chapter after chapter, Rescher insists that nature is intelligible and that the intellect is powerful enough to ferret out the secrets of nature. Explanation, even ultimate explanation, is possible and indeed a necessary pursuit."Prof. Jude Dougherty, Dean Emeritus,School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America,and editor of The Review of Metaphysics About the Author Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh where he also serves as chair of the Center for Philosophy of Science. During a career spanning fifty years, he has authored more than a hundred books ranging over many areas of philosophy.