Books by Richard Baron
Accounts and Reality, 2021
This book proposes a way to view the results that are obtained in academic disciplines. It is to ... more This book proposes a way to view the results that are obtained in academic disciplines. It is to see them as disclosing not how the world is, but what may and what must be said about the world. The aim is to avoid the question of realism, while keeping the evident epistemic value of disciplines explicable.
The approach is intended to apply across a full range of disciplines, from physics to history, even though the question of realism has traditionally been thought of as one kind of problem in the philosophy of the natural sciences and a different kind in the philosophy of the social sciences and the humanities.
Epistemic Respectability in History, 2019
This book investigates the epistemology of claims that are made within historical accounts. It p... more This book investigates the epistemology of claims that are made within historical accounts. It proposes an epistemic standard for historical claims that offer to make sense of events, states of affairs or ways of life. Claims may for example state that certain events led to other events or that in certain circumstances, certain developments were not surprising.
Claims such as these need a special standard because they are sometimes contestable. Historians can easily disagree over how to explain what happened. Such disagreement would make it very difficult to say that the claims were justified in the traditional epistemological sense that is in play when justification is linked to knowledge. So a rule that only justified claims should be made would lead to the dismissal of important historical claims, merely because they were not universally accepted. On the other hand, it would be wrong to allow just any claim to be recognized as sensible. There is therefore a case for a different standard of epistemic respectability, less demanding than the standard of justification but not too relaxed.
The book discusses the nature of historical work and reasons why claims are contestable, formulates a standard, and then makes connections with established traditions in epistemology.
This book is about claims that experts make in various academic disciplines, and about how featur... more This book is about claims that experts make in various academic disciplines, and about how features of disciplines should affect our confidence in the correctness of those claims. Our field of study is work in the full range of disciplines, covering mathematics, the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities.
Disciplines differ from one another in several ways. Quantification and mathematical argument are the norm in some disciplines, but are rare in others. Some disciplines use experiments, while others rely on sources. And so on. But disciplines also have things in common. These include both the aspiration to get things right, and fundamental principles like respect for evidence and a requirement to argue rationally. We seek to lay out the differences and the commonalities in detail, and to assess the effects on our confidence. We also explore reasons why disciplines have their features.
This is the first edition with minor amendments, published in October 2015.
This book puts forward an ethic, a foundation for our values. The ethic goes beyond what can be d... more This book puts forward an ethic, a foundation for our values. The ethic goes beyond what can be derived from the facts of nature, without being supernatural. It is an ethic that we can accept in our scientific age. It makes our values as strong as our science, but it does not reduce our values to scientific facts.
The ethic is that the serious pursuit of our chosen projects is a central good. It is easy, as well as right, to believe that we should set ourselves goals and strive to achieve them. But this simple starting-point can bring extensive benefits. It supports individualistic values. It throws light on the value of knowledge and of beauty. Finally, it deepens our understanding of the concept of the person.
The book is about the thinking in which we engage when we reflectively decide what to do, and whe... more The book is about the thinking in which we engage when we reflectively decide what to do, and when we reflectively reach conclusions as to the correct answers to questions. Some philosophers rigorously separate our choices of action from our adoptions of belief, on the ground that we have choices as to what to do, but no choice as to what to believe. I treat the two together when considering processes of deliberation, but separately when considering the rationality of conclusions.
The main objective is to identify a way of looking at ourselves and at our deliberations that is adequate to our lives. It must accommodate both our conception of ourselves as free, rational and self-directed subjects, and the phenomenology of deliberation. It must also identify a place for us that will feel like home, doing justice to our status as subjects, within the world as we relate to it when we practise the natural sciences. The central claims are not about how we are, but about how we should look at ourselves.
A key task is to show that this limited ambition, which is forced on us by the need to avoid metaphysical implausibility, nonetheless allows us to develop a position that has sufficient strength to do its work. The aim is to show something that is all too easily taken for granted. This is that we can limit ourselves to a strictly naturalistic ontology, while still having access to a generous idiom that allows us to speak of ourselves as free in the exercise of our rationality.
Book Reviews by Richard Baron
Teaching Documents by Richard Baron
An explanation of Gödel's incompleteness theorems, primarily intended for students.
A summary of the argument which sticks closely to the sequence in the book and is primarily inten... more A summary of the argument which sticks closely to the sequence in the book and is primarily intended for students.
This document is available at www.rbphilo.com/coursenotes
Uploads
Books by Richard Baron
The approach is intended to apply across a full range of disciplines, from physics to history, even though the question of realism has traditionally been thought of as one kind of problem in the philosophy of the natural sciences and a different kind in the philosophy of the social sciences and the humanities.
Claims such as these need a special standard because they are sometimes contestable. Historians can easily disagree over how to explain what happened. Such disagreement would make it very difficult to say that the claims were justified in the traditional epistemological sense that is in play when justification is linked to knowledge. So a rule that only justified claims should be made would lead to the dismissal of important historical claims, merely because they were not universally accepted. On the other hand, it would be wrong to allow just any claim to be recognized as sensible. There is therefore a case for a different standard of epistemic respectability, less demanding than the standard of justification but not too relaxed.
The book discusses the nature of historical work and reasons why claims are contestable, formulates a standard, and then makes connections with established traditions in epistemology.
Disciplines differ from one another in several ways. Quantification and mathematical argument are the norm in some disciplines, but are rare in others. Some disciplines use experiments, while others rely on sources. And so on. But disciplines also have things in common. These include both the aspiration to get things right, and fundamental principles like respect for evidence and a requirement to argue rationally. We seek to lay out the differences and the commonalities in detail, and to assess the effects on our confidence. We also explore reasons why disciplines have their features.
This is the first edition with minor amendments, published in October 2015.
The ethic is that the serious pursuit of our chosen projects is a central good. It is easy, as well as right, to believe that we should set ourselves goals and strive to achieve them. But this simple starting-point can bring extensive benefits. It supports individualistic values. It throws light on the value of knowledge and of beauty. Finally, it deepens our understanding of the concept of the person.
The main objective is to identify a way of looking at ourselves and at our deliberations that is adequate to our lives. It must accommodate both our conception of ourselves as free, rational and self-directed subjects, and the phenomenology of deliberation. It must also identify a place for us that will feel like home, doing justice to our status as subjects, within the world as we relate to it when we practise the natural sciences. The central claims are not about how we are, but about how we should look at ourselves.
A key task is to show that this limited ambition, which is forced on us by the need to avoid metaphysical implausibility, nonetheless allows us to develop a position that has sufficient strength to do its work. The aim is to show something that is all too easily taken for granted. This is that we can limit ourselves to a strictly naturalistic ontology, while still having access to a generous idiom that allows us to speak of ourselves as free in the exercise of our rationality.
Book Reviews by Richard Baron
Teaching Documents by Richard Baron
The approach is intended to apply across a full range of disciplines, from physics to history, even though the question of realism has traditionally been thought of as one kind of problem in the philosophy of the natural sciences and a different kind in the philosophy of the social sciences and the humanities.
Claims such as these need a special standard because they are sometimes contestable. Historians can easily disagree over how to explain what happened. Such disagreement would make it very difficult to say that the claims were justified in the traditional epistemological sense that is in play when justification is linked to knowledge. So a rule that only justified claims should be made would lead to the dismissal of important historical claims, merely because they were not universally accepted. On the other hand, it would be wrong to allow just any claim to be recognized as sensible. There is therefore a case for a different standard of epistemic respectability, less demanding than the standard of justification but not too relaxed.
The book discusses the nature of historical work and reasons why claims are contestable, formulates a standard, and then makes connections with established traditions in epistemology.
Disciplines differ from one another in several ways. Quantification and mathematical argument are the norm in some disciplines, but are rare in others. Some disciplines use experiments, while others rely on sources. And so on. But disciplines also have things in common. These include both the aspiration to get things right, and fundamental principles like respect for evidence and a requirement to argue rationally. We seek to lay out the differences and the commonalities in detail, and to assess the effects on our confidence. We also explore reasons why disciplines have their features.
This is the first edition with minor amendments, published in October 2015.
The ethic is that the serious pursuit of our chosen projects is a central good. It is easy, as well as right, to believe that we should set ourselves goals and strive to achieve them. But this simple starting-point can bring extensive benefits. It supports individualistic values. It throws light on the value of knowledge and of beauty. Finally, it deepens our understanding of the concept of the person.
The main objective is to identify a way of looking at ourselves and at our deliberations that is adequate to our lives. It must accommodate both our conception of ourselves as free, rational and self-directed subjects, and the phenomenology of deliberation. It must also identify a place for us that will feel like home, doing justice to our status as subjects, within the world as we relate to it when we practise the natural sciences. The central claims are not about how we are, but about how we should look at ourselves.
A key task is to show that this limited ambition, which is forced on us by the need to avoid metaphysical implausibility, nonetheless allows us to develop a position that has sufficient strength to do its work. The aim is to show something that is all too easily taken for granted. This is that we can limit ourselves to a strictly naturalistic ontology, while still having access to a generous idiom that allows us to speak of ourselves as free in the exercise of our rationality.