Background
Baker, Lynne Rudder was born on February 14, 1944 in Atlanta. Daughter of James Maclin and Virginia (Bennett) Rudder.
(Lynne Rudder Baker presents and defends a unique account ...)
Lynne Rudder Baker presents and defends a unique account of the material world: the Constitution View. In contrast to leading metaphysical views that take everyday things to be either non-existent or reducible to micro-objects, the Constitution View construes familiar things as irreducible parts of reality. Although they are ultimately constituted by microphysical particles, everyday objects are neither identical to, nor reducible to, the aggregates of microphysical particles that constitute them. The result is genuine ontological diversity: people, bacteria, donkeys, mountains and microscopes are fundamentally different kinds of things - all constituted by, but not identical to, aggregates of particles. Baker supports her account with discussions of non-reductive causation, vagueness, mereology, artefacts, three-dimensionalism, ontological novelty, ontological levels and emergence. The upshot is a unified ontological theory of the entire material world that irreducibly contains people, as well as non-human living things and inanimate objects.
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( This stimulating book critically examines a wide range ...)
This stimulating book critically examines a wide range of physicalistic conceptions of mind in the works of Jerry A. Fodor, Stephen P. Stich, Paul M. Churchland, Daniel C. Dennett, and others. Part I argues that intentional concepts cannot be reduced to nonintentional (and nonsemantic) concepts; Part II argues that intentional concepts are nevertheless indispensable to our cognitive enterprises and thus need no foundation in physicalism. As a sustained challenge to the prevailing interpretation of cognitive science, this timely book fills a large gap in the philosophical literature. It is sure to spark controversy, yet its clarity makes it attractive as a text in upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Saving Belief should be read by philosophers, psychologists, and others interested in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science.
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(What is a human person, and what is the relation between ...)
What is a human person, and what is the relation between a person and his or her body? In her third book on the philosophy of mind, Lynne Rudder Baker investigates what she terms the person/body problem and offers a detailed account of the relation between human persons and their bodies. Baker's argument is based on the "Constitution View" of persons and bodies, which aims to show what distinguishes persons from all other beings and to show how we can be fully material beings without being identical to our bodies. This book will be of interest to professional philosophers and graduate students, and will also appeal to psychologists and cognitive scientists interested in the philosophy of mind.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521597196/?tag=2022091-20
(Explaining Attitudes offers a timely and important challe...)
Explaining Attitudes offers a timely and important challenge to the dominant conception of belief found in the work of such philosophers as Dretske and Fodor. According to this dominant view, beliefs, if they exist at all, are constituted by states of the brain. Rudder Baker rejects this view and replaces it with a quite different approach: practical realism. Seen from the perspective of practical realism, any argument that tries to interpret beliefs as either brain states or immaterial souls is a false dichotomy. Practical realism takes beliefs to be states of whole persons, rather like states of health. What a person believes is determined by what a person would do, say, and think in various circumstances. Thus beliefs and other attitudes are interwoven into an integrated, commonsensical conception of reality.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/052142190X/?tag=2022091-20
philosopher university professor
Baker, Lynne Rudder was born on February 14, 1944 in Atlanta. Daughter of James Maclin and Virginia (Bennett) Rudder.
Bachelor, Vanderbilt University, 1966; Master of Arts, Vanderbilt University, 1971; Doctor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University, 1972; student, Johns Hopkins University, 1967-1968.
She is a native of Atlanta. She was a fellow of the National Humanities Center (1983–1984) and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1988–1989). She joined the faculty of UMass Amherst in 1989.
She is the author of several books, notably Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism (1987), Explaining Attitudes: A Practical Approach to the Mind (1995), Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View (2000), and The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism (2007).
Along with several other scholars, Baker delivered the 2001 Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow, published as The Nature and Limits of Human Understanding (ed Anthony Sanford, T & T Clark, 2003). Baker imputes to scientists generally the view that human beings are just another species rather than a special creation of God:
"Yet, the sciences are relentless in taking human beings to be just another part of nature: a little more complex than chimpanzees, but not essentially different—certainly not morally and ontologically special.
We are just one species among many.".
(What is a human person, and what is the relation between ...)
(Explaining Attitudes offers a timely and important challe...)
( This stimulating book critically examines a wide range ...)
(Lynne Rudder Baker presents and defends a unique account ...)
Trustee Vanderbilt University, Nashville, 1969-1970, member alumni board directors, 1985-1989. Member American Philosophical Association (program committee 1983, Executive Committee 1992-1995), Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Society Christian Philosophers (Executive Committee 1992-1995), Society Women in Philosophy, Phi Beta Kappa.
Married Thomas B. Baker III, February 1, 1969.