Common Sense Metaphysics:

This book celebrates the research career of Lynne Rudder Baker by presenting sixteen new and critical essays from admiring students, colleagues, interlocutors, and friends. Baker was a trenchant critic of physicalist conceptions of the universe. She was a staunch defender of a kind of practical realism, what she sometimes called a metaphysics of everyday life. It was this general “common sense” philosophical outlook that underwrote her famous constitution view of reality. Whereas most of her contemporaries were in general given to metaphysical reductionism and eliminativism, Baker was unapologetic and philosophically deft in her defense of ontological pluralism. The essays in this book engage with all aspects of her unique and influential work: practical realism about the mind; the constitution view of human persons; the first-person perspective; and God, Christianity, and naturalism. Common Sense Metaphysics will be of interest to scholars of Baker’s work, as well as scholars and advanced students engaged in research on various topics in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of religion.

Reviews

"Lynne Rudder Baker was one of the foremost metaphysicians of her time. Opposing the contemporary trend to explain aspects of our world in terms of posits of fundamental physics, Baker defended important nonreductive views about a range of phenomena including persons, minds, and ordinary material objects. In this new collection, eminent scholars in philosophy discuss various aspects of Baker’s thought—from her Constitution View of human persons to her positions on arguments about the existence of God. Whether or not one is persuaded by Baker’s common-sense approach, it is clear that her ideas warrant deep attention. This volume will be of interest to theorists and students of metaphysics for years to come." – Jacob Berger, Lycoming College, USA