This book is a study in the methodology of philosophical inquiry. It expounds and defends the thesis that systematization is the proper instrument of philosophical inquiry and that the effective pursuit of philosophy's mission calls for constructing a doctrinal system that answers our questions in a coherent and comprehensive manner.

Nicholas Rescher is University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh where he served for many years as Director of the Center for Philosophy of Science. A Former president of the American Philosophical Association, he is an honorary member of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is the author of more than eighty works ranging over many areas of philosophy and was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984.