Epistemic Principles

Nicholas Rescher is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh where he has also served as Chairman of the Philosophy Department and Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science. He is the recipient of eight honorary degrees from universities on three continents. He was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984, the Belgian Prix Mercier in 2005, the Aquinas Medal of the American Catholic Philosophical Association in 2007, the Founder’s Medal of the Metaphysical Society of America in 2016, and the Helmholtz Medal of the Germany Academy of Sciences (Berlin/Brandenburg) in 2016. In 2011 he received the premier cross of the Order of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz Erster Klasse) of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of contributions to philosophy. Fourteen books about Rescher’s philosophy have been published in five languages and ten doctoral dissertations have been dedicated to his work.

• Preface – Introduction – Principles – Questions – Ideas – Principles of Truth and Acceptance – Presumption as a Pathway to Plausibility – Conjecture and the Move from Mere Plausibility and Presumption to Acceptance – Plausibility Conflicts and Paradox – From Conjecture to Belief and from Belief to Knowledge – The Epistemic Gap and Grades of Acceptance – Cognitive Thresholds – Imprecision – Intuitive Knowledge – Experience and Induction – Distributive vs. Collective Explanation – Cognitive Importance – Problems of Prediction – Error and Cognitive Risk – Problems of Skepticism – Trust – Common Sense – How Science Works – Scientific Realism and Its Problems – The Anthomorphic Contextuality of Science – Ignorance and Limits of Knowledge – On Systemic "Best Fit" Reasoning – Inference from the Best Systematization – The Cyclic Unity of Reason – Fact, Fiction, and Functional Surrogacy – A Pragmatic Coda – Bibliography – Name Index.