Nature and Understanding The Metaphysics and Methods of Science [Hardcover]

Exploring the central ideas of traditional metaphysics--such as the simplicity of nature, its comprehensibility, or its systematic integrity--this book analyzes looking at such notions from a scientific point of view. It seeks to describe in a clear, accessible manner the metaphysical situation that characterizes the process of inquiry in natural science, aiming to shed light on reality by examining the modus operandi of natural science itself and focusing as much on its findings as on its conceptual and methodological presuppositions. Written by an eminent scholar of philosophy, this book is the culmination of many years of penetrating work. It is the definitive presentation of some of Nicholas Rescher's most fascinating ideas and is an engaging source for philosophers and non-philosophers alike.

Introduction: Metaphysical Principles in Erotetic Perspective
1. The Systematicity of Nature
2. The Complexity of Nature and the Cognitive Inexhaustibility of Things
3. Order in Nature, Multifaceted Reality, and Contextualistic Realism
4. The Price of an Ultimate Theory
5. Ramifications of Realism
6. Intimations of Idealism
7. The Intelligibility of Nature
8. Optimalism and Axiological Metaphysics
Bibliography, Index

Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Author of more than eighty works ranging over many areas of philosophy, he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984.