Infinite Regress: The Theory and History of Varieties of Change

by Rescher,Nicholas

• ISBN13: 9781412810968
• ISBN10: 1412810965
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-05-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Regression addresses what has come before; it is a matter of looking backwards�of retrospections. The motionless things of nature are generally forward-looking their problem is that of the question: Where do we go from here? It is primarily with intelligent beings that we ask: How did we get to where we now find ourselves? Regression and infinite regression in particular is thus a concept that has gained a greater prominence in the human sciences than in the sciences of nature.Argumentation to infinite regress has long been a favored instrument of philosophical dialectic. Philosophers have used it to disprove the positions they model to criticize. Infinite regresses, so they reason, are unrealizable: they cannot be completed so as to achieve some definitive result. And thereby anything that would engender an infinite regress is automatically made ineffective.Infinite Regress examines the theory of regression and includes information on the topics of vicious regress, innocuous regress, circularity regress, and propositional regress. Also discussed is the history of regression stemming from ancient times, to medieval times, to early modern history. Some of the other chapters in this book focus on world class philosophers including Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and Bertrand Russell. The book will play a significant role in theoretical philosophy as well as in social philosophy and the philosophy of mind. Nicholas Rescher is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of numerous philosophical works and holds eight honorary degrees from universities on three continents. He has served as a president of the American Philosophical Association, the American Metaphilosophical Society, and the American Catholic Philosophical Association. He was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984, the Belgium Prix Mercier in 2005, and the Aquinas Medal of the American Catholic Philosophical Association in 2007.

Author Biography

Ralph Izard is professor of communication at the Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University; and professor emeritus at the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University He has been editor of Newspaper Research Journal and is the author of numerous professional articles in ethics, the First Amendment, and journalistic writing.
Jay Perkins is associate professor of communication at the Manship School of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University. He served as a reporter, editor, and political analyst for The Associated Press. He specializes in investigative reporting, computer-assisted reporting and political consulting techniques.
Nicholas Rescher is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of numerous philosophical works and holds eight honorary degrees from universities on three continents. He has served as a president of the American Philosophical Association, the American Metaphilosophical Society, and the American Catholic Philosophical Association. He was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984, the Belgium Prix Mercier in 2005, and the Aquinas Medal of the American Catholic Philosophical Association in 2007.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Introduction: The Conception of Infinite Regress	p. 1
Systematic Considerations
Regress Theory	p. 7
Some Modes of Vicious Regress	p. 19
Some Modes of Innocuous Regress	p. 41
Circularity and Endless Regress	p. 65
Dispensing with ôThe Regress of Reasonsö	p. 73
Propositional Regresses	p. 85
Historical Considerations
The Ancients	p. 99
The Medievals	p. 117
The Early Moderns	p. 129
Kant	p. 139
From Hegel to Dewey	p. 147
Bertrand Russell	p. 153
Gilbert Ryle on Mind and the Free Will Perplex	p. 159
Bibliography	p. 165
Index	p. 177
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