Nicholas Rescher 
Risk Theory 
Rational Decision in the Face of Chance, Uncertainty, and Risk

Apart from its foray into technical issues of risk assessment and management,   this book has one principal aim. With situations of chancy outcomes certain key factors—including outcome possibilities, overall expectation, threat, and even luck—are measurable parameters. But risk is something different: it is not measurable a single parametric quantity, but a many-sided factor that has several different components, and constitutes a complex phenomenon that must be assessed judgmentally in a highly contextualized way. This book explains and analyzes how this works out in practice.





Topics in this  work include choice and risk, chance and likelihood, as well as outcome-yield evaluation and risk. It takes into account abnormal situations and eccentric measurements, situational evaluation and expectation and scrutinizes the social aspect of risk. The book is of interest to logicians, philosophers of mathematics, and researchers of risk assessment. The project is a companion piece to the author’s LUCK THEORY, also published by Springer.

Table of Content

1. Choice and Risk.- 2. Chance and Likelihood .- 3. Outcome-Yield Evaluation and Risk.- 4. Abnormal Situations and Eccentric Measurements.- 5. Situational Evaluation and Expectation.- 6. Uncertainty.- 7. Risk Assessment.- 8. Comparing Chancy Situations via Risk and Promise.- 9. Managing Risk and Uncertainty.- 10. The Social Aspect of Risk.- Appendix 1. Pearl Harbor in the Light of Rational Decision.- Appendix 2. Lessons of the Prisoner’s Dilemma.

About the author

Nicholas Rescher, a much published and widely respected philosopher, has been awarded the Aquinas Medal, the Helmholz Medal of the Berlin/Brandenburg Academy of Science, and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. Honorary degrees have been awarded to him by eight universities on three continents.