Presents a synoptic, compact, and accessible exposition of this influential and interesting sector of twentieth-century American philosophy.

Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, where he also served as Chairman of the Department of Philosophy and as Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science. For over three decades, he has been editor of the American Philosophical Quarterly. He was elected to membership in both the Institut International de Philosophie and the Academie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences. Rescher is the author of more than 60 books in various areas of philosophy, and his works have been translated into German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Japanese. He has held fellowships from the J.S. Guggenheim Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society. He is a former president of the American Philosophical Association, the C.S. Peirce Society, and the G.W. Leibniz Society of America and has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies. He was elected an honorary member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford and in 1983 he received an Alexander von Humboldt Humanities Prize, awarded under the auspices of the Federal Republic of Germany, "in recognition of the research accomplishments of humanistic scholars of international distinction."