Lynne Rudder Baker

Lynne Rudder Baker ( born February 14, 1944 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American philosopher and professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests are in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and philosophy of religion. She is known particularly for their contributions to anthropology and the material constitution of particular persons.

Baker earned a B. A. in 1966 in mathematics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, then a year studying philosophy at Johns Hopkins University with a grant from the National Defense Education Act and returned to Nashville back to get married. In Vanderbilt, she continued her studies and earned her MA in 1971 and 1972, and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy.

At Mary Baldwin College she taught from 1972 until 1976. During 1974-1975 she received an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. In 1976 she came to Middlebury College. She received scholarship from the National Humanities Center (1983-1984) and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars ( 1988-1989). Since 1989 she has also taught alternately at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, from 1994 only still there. In Amherst, she headed from 1994 to 2003 the graduate program. She is a member of the Grace Episcopal Church of Amherst. At the University of Glasgow, she held the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Arkansas 2002, Kraemer Lectures.

Baker represents general nonreductive views and demands our everyday vocabulary mentalistisches as ontologically serious as the vocabulary of our best scientific theories.

See also: realism (philosophy)

Publications

  • Saving Belief: A Critique of Physicalism, 1987
  • Explaining Attitudes: A Practical Approach to the Mind, 1995
  • Persons and Bodies: A Constitution View 2000
  • The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism 2007
Georgia (U.S. state) Ontology Name Authority File
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