Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. Jason Stanley's avatar
  2. Daniel Greco's avatar
  3. Nobody's avatar
  4. Roger of Invisible America's avatar
  5. Santa Monica's avatar
  6. Optimistic about LLM's avatar
  7. Ben M-Y's avatar

In Memoriam: Nicholas Rescher (1928-2024)

Brian Leiter

Professor Rescher, a longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, was an extraordinarily prolific and wide-ranging philosopher, publishing, inter alia, on Leibniz, Peirce, logic, philosophy of science, metaphysics, epistemology, and many other topics.  (See, e.g., his Google Scholar page.)  There is a memorial notice from the Center for Philosophy of Science at Pittsburgh here.   Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Rescher, or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to David Gordon for the pointer.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

15 responses to “In Memoriam: Nicholas Rescher (1928-2024)”

  1. Stephen Menn

    (1) Rescher also did pioneering work, including editorial work, on Arabic philosophical texts. He was apparently the first Western scholar to notice that Arabic philosophers developed modal syllogistic in sometimes startlingly original ways beyond Aristotle, and that they incorporated time in their accounts of the truth-conditions of both modal and non-modal sentences; and that there were important technical developments of these ideas in post-Avicennian philosophers of the eastern Islamic world (as opposed to Spain), who were at that time ignored by almost all Western scholars except those interested in mysticism. This history is now a major field of study.

    (2) I heard Rescher give a talk at the Humboldt-Universität Berlin in spring 2016. He started by saying that his father had been a student at the University of Berlin (as it was before the split into the East Berlin and West Berlin universities), but had had to abandon his studies because of the outbreak of World War I. His father, not his grandfather. World War I, not World War II.

    Reply
  2. Stephen Menn

    PS I had once thought, wrongly, that Nick Rescher was a Sephardic Jew, because I thought that he was related to the Turkish orientalist (i.e. scholar of Arabic literature) Osman Reşer = Oskar Rescher, and I thought that background might help explain Nick's study of Arabic. But, as I learned maybe a decade ago, Osman Reşer was not a Turkish Jew who westernized his name and perhaps emigrated to Germany. On the contrary, he was a German (a German Jew according to German wikipedia), born Oskar Rescher, who converted to Islam, emigrated to Turkey, and took a Turkish form of his name. Nick was indeed related to Osman, and cited Osman as an inspiration in studying Arabic.

    Reply
  3. Larry McCullough

    At the 1976 Eastern Division meetings, I presented a colloquium paper on Leibniz on relations, in which I criticized Rescher's account. We had not yet met but I recognized him when he came in the room and sat right in the front row. Needless to say, I was keenly aware of his presence. He listened but asked no questions. Afterwards he came up to me and said that he was sure that I knew we disagreed and looked forward to many conversations about Leibniz's philosophy. He became my role model for exactly how one philosopher should respond to criticism by another philosopher, especially when the latter is very junior (I was but a year out of my degree.). Many years later he included me on the program of a conference on Leibniz at Pitt.

    Reply
  4. Kyle Winkler

    I was a Ph.D. student in Rhetoric at Pitt almost 10 years ago when I decided to take a Leibniz course with him. Mostly because I had the opportunity to take graduate courses with these stellar philosophers, so why not? I struggled to get on board with Leibniz, though I enjoyed the creativity of the philosophical ideas, esp. the monads. As a rhetorician, and one that was heavily indebted to Nietzsche at the time, I have tendency to the see the metaphoricity in everything. I tried to bring this up in class and was roundly dismissed by my fellow students. Whereas Prof. Rescher was open to all of it. Even though I may've had "no business" taking the course, he still listened and entertained my outside ideas. And when I wrote a seminar paper over language and Leibniz (the search for a universal language), he wrote in the grading response that it was an enjoyable and "competent" paper. Hah! Coming from an old guard prof. like that, I felt that was a win. Whereas we'd tend to see that comment as an insult, maybe. In any case, he was a joy to sit and listen to. We also heard lots about Kant along with Leibniz.

    Incidentally, I lived about a five minute walk from Dr. Rescher, who lived in Regent Square. He was an inveterate walker, surely what kept him so healthy in later years. He was an incredibly tall man, gentle, and impeccably dressed in all weather. Homburg hat, greatcoat, large well-shined leather shoes. When I picture the idea of a "professor" in my head, he is the Platonic ideal of that from the 20th century. He will be missed. RIP.

    Reply
  5. Aaron Preston

    I have long been inspired by Prof. Rescher’s commitment to “systematic philosophy” in this age of hyper-specialization. I had the pleasure of meeting him at a conference in 2002, where he attended my talk on “Husserl's Ontology of Immediate Experience.” I don’t remember him saying anything during the Q&A, but during a break later in the day he walked up to me, gave me some very positive feedback, and encouraged me to publish something on the topic. My scholarship ended up going in a different direction, but this positive encounter with a “living legend” in my first year out of graduate school meant a great deal to me. His essay on “The Rise and Fall of Analytical Philosophy” (ch. 3 of his 2005 book _Studies in 20th Century Philosophy_) is an important but under-appreciated contribution to scholarship on the history of analytic philosophy.

    Reply
  6. Ernest Sosa

    Nicholas Rescher

    A consummate scholar *and* human being. And my dear teacher from his earliest days at Pitt, whose support meant everything to me personally and academically. I am so sad to know he is no longer with us. But I focus on the amazing life that he lived fully to the very end, still active across a broad span of academic activity. Good bye, dear Nick!

    Reply
  7. Brian Skyrms

    Nick Rescher and Adolf Grunbaum inspired me to switch to Philosophy as an undergrad and took a gamble in bringing me to graduate school at Pitt. As an undergrad I took logic from Nick, and a wonderful wide-ranging course on intellectual history, where I first met Ibn Khaldun. I think Nick translated it himself. Readings were distributed in mimeographed form. At Pitt he taught a course on Leibniz's logic from Couturat, and a course on Aristotle where he defended a new reading of de Interpretation Ch. 9. He always encouraged me, and was generous with his time. He helped me polish papers, and advised my dissertation. I was lucky to have known him.

    Reply
  8. Howard Sankey

    I was a visiting fellow at the Pitt Center on two occasions in 1995 and 1998. Nick (who needed no introduction) introduced himself to me very early on in my first visit. He was kind, generous with his time and always ready to speak about philosophical matters. He would usually show up about mid-morning to get hot water from the coffee machine in the common room, stopping to talk with whoever might be around. I was thinking about topics relating to scientific methodology while at the Center, and had discussions with Nick about his methodological pragmatism, and whether methods should be thought of as means to ends or in some other way. On one occasion, a brief informal conversation was inspirational, indeed, one of the most inspirational conversations of my career. I had just completed a paper that I described to him as being primarily exegetical. Nick said it was time for me to have ideas of my own. Just work out the problem you want to solve and solve it. Put the references and footnotes in after you're done. I went back to my office, wrote "problem" at the top of the whiteboard, wrote "solution" below. Ten days later, I had written "The Problem of Rational Theory-Choice". I have often found the advice to concentrate on your problem and work out the solution to it to be helpful, especially when advising research students.

    Reply
  9. Balazs

    One of the giants of Pittsburgh philosophical life. Nick opened the Center lunch time series every single year while I was a grad student at Pitt. He had a penchant for reading out his talks, and, for me, he was the only person to be able to do so in a way that was not a detriment to the intelligibility of the content. He did not shy away from attending HPS parties and I had many delightful discussions with him on these occasions; he would always handle with grace and good humor my incredulous picking on his religious faith. He was always kind, good mannered, light-hearted, and interested in the ideas of his students and colleagues. Although we did not have a closer intellectual connection, he was definitely one of the many Pitt professors who made this particular foreigner feel being welcomed. His passing is a big loss for the community.

    Reply
  10. Edouard Machery

    As Balazs mentioned, until recently, well in his 90s, Nick gave the first lunch time talk at the Center for Philosophy of Science for the Spring and Fall semesters. We all looked forward to this ritual, and always enjoyed listening to him. A true force of nature in addition to an incredible philosopher. We will miss him.

    Reply
  11. Stephen Hetherington

    I would like to add a small memory or two of appreciation — and to express my sadness at this loss. When I was a B.Phil. student at Oxford, during my first year I saw that Professor Rescher was to be visiting for a term. I knew that I wanted to apply to Pitt, and so I sent him a note, presumably brief and respectful, asking if I could meet with him to find out more about Pittsburgh and Pitt. (This was in the early 1980s, pre-internet!) He could not have been nicer, in reply and in person. I was just another student, but I felt respected and welcomed by Professor Rescher. He was gracious and helpful. Later, when at Pitt, I took a Kant course from him, during which we read the entire first Critique. That course was great. Clear and substantial; focused yet wide-ranging; scholarly but not-only-so; and always encouraging an atmosphere of enjoyable inquiry. Later still, when I had returned to Australia, I spent a summer month re-reading that Critique, always with much gratitude for that course at Pitt. I have always been in awe of Rescher's breadth of learning and thought, along with his philosophical liveliness and open-mindedness. An impressive person in many ways.

    Reply
  12. Paul

    I never met Nicholas Rescher or read much of his work other than a few excerpts in my Philosophy of Mind and Theory of Knowledge classes. He is, however, the subject of one of my favorite jokes.

    A philosopher calls the Pitt philosophy department and asks to speak to Rescher.

    “I’m sorry,” says the secretary. “But Professor Rescher is busy writing his new book.”

    “That’s okay,” says the philosopher. “I’ll hold.”

    (I note that I’ve heard a variation of this joke about the New Testament scholar N. T. Wright. I wonder which version came first, or if there’s a third prolific scholar who’s the subject of the original version of this joke.)

    Reply
  13. Alex Rosenberg

    Nick Rescher was for a long time a role model of energy and industry to so many younger philosophers, and just behind that formidable exterior there was a friend, one eager to advance the careers of so many people in the profession, not just his protégés. No one was as wide ranging as Nick, who thus touched many lives, and all i think for the better.

    Reply
  14. smarty pants

    Alex
    Just as an aside, it takes one to know one – you have certainly set a great example of energy and industry to many young philosophers. As well, I think you have done your share of helping younger scholars along. Wait until you are 90 years old … 😉

    Reply
  15. John Haldane

    Remembering a Gentle Giant

    https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/01/remembering-nicholas-rescher-a-gentle-giant

    —–
    KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog

    Reply

Designed with WordPress