Talk:Nicholas Rescher

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's quality scale. [FAQ] Please rate the article and, if you wish, leave comments here regarding your assessment or the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

	Philosophy Portal This article is within the scope of the WikiProject Philosophy, which collaborates on articles related to philosophy. To participate, you can edit this article or visit the project page for more details.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.
Additional information: Related task forces (core areas): Epistemology Related task forces (major fields): Philosophers

[edit] COI?

What's the problem here? All I could see that is somebody named Rescher provided a copyright-free image of Nicholas Rescher. It's hard to see much of a conflict there. Lou Sander 13:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible additions to list of accomplishments & pubs

APQ Some mention should be made of NR's lengthy service as editor of the Amer. Phil Qty. It's arguably one of the top-rank journals in the field, and in his capacity as editor, NR surely had a greater than average influence on the directions that academic philosophy took. He was also unique among editors in his introducing each issue of that journal with a brief commentary, usually on the state of the discipline, under-reported topics, and so on (NR would usually write these with a sense of humor also not common to journal editors, much less scholars who've published 100s of articles).

Eclectism Also worth mentioning would be NR's long-standing interest in ethics, or social issues. That interest sets him apart from many who are generally known as philosophers of science or epistemology. E.g., one might list Rescher's book, Ethical Idealism, or his early essay on the allocation of exotic medical technology. The latter gives a sense of just how engaged NR has been, since it was written well before there was a great deal of interest in what is now regarded as a mainstream issue in medical ethics. Whether or not one agrees with what NR has to say in such works, he is notable for apparently never being afraid to "stray" from his primary interests of science, logic, etc. into more practical concerns. And one would have trouble trying to come up with one or two other names of scholars who have written on both counter-factuals (A Theory of Possibility 1975, Univ of Pittsburgh Press) and the need to ration medical supplies.

C d h (talk) 03:16, 19 November 2007 (UTC)