Richard Lauer

Richard received his BA in Political Science with a minor in philosophy from Columbus State University in 2008, his MA in philosophy from the University of Missouri - St. Louis in 2011, and his PhD in philosophy from the University of Missouri - Columbia in 2016. He specializes in the philosophy of the social sciences, the philosophy of economics, and the philosophy of biology. He also has a strong background in ethical theory, particularly political philosophy and questions about egalitarian justice. 

Richard's work is focused on questions about the interpretation and justification of theories in the social sciences. He has published on philosophical questions about race and its use in social science, the use of  "social ontology" (a philosophical subdiscipline focused on trying to show whether groups, institutions, or other social things are real) as a way of improving the theoretical foundations of the social sciences, and the nature and structure of explanation in the social sciences. 

Richard’s teaching spans a range of topics related to the social sciences. He teaches an introductory course in philosophy called ‘Markets and Morality’ that introduces students to ethics and questions about the ethics of what we buy and sell. He also teaches a course called “Philosophy of Race” that has students learn about different positions concerning the nature and reality of race, and a course titled “Justice” in which students learn about different positions concerning how society ought to distribute wealth. Other courses he has taught include Reasoning, Symbolic Logic, among others. 
Publications 

"Naturalized Social Ontology and Cultural Evolution" Forthcoming in Cultural Evolution and Social Ontology (volume under contract with Routledge Press)

"Macrostructural Explanation in the Social Sciences" Synthese Vol. 204, August 2024

“Should Ordinary Race Talk be Ontologically Privileged? Moving Social Science into the Philosophical Mainstream” (with Kareem Khalifa) Synthese Vol. 202, October 2023

“Motivating a Pragmatic Approach to Naturalized Social Ontology” Journal for General Philosophy of Science Vol. 53, June 2022

“Do the Social Sciences Vindicate Race’s Reality?” (with Kareem Khalifa). Philosopher’s Imprint Vol. 21, August 2021

“Instrumentalizing and Naturalizing Social Ontology: Replies to Simon Lohse and Daniel Little” Philosophy of the Social Sciences Vol. 51 Issue 1, 2021  
Note: This article is a part of a symposium on my “Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology” 

“Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology?” Philosophy of the Social Sciences Vol. 49 issue 3, June 2019

“Predictive Success and Non-Individualist Models in Social Science” Philosophy of the Social Sciences Vol. 47 Issue 2, March 2017.