This is a chapter-by-chapter review of Thinking and Deciding by Jonathan Baron (UPenn, twitter). It won't be a detailed summary like badger's excellent summary of Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment, in part because this is a 600-page textbook and so a full summary would be far longer that I want to write here. I'll try to provide enough details that people can seek out the chapters that they find interesting, but this is by no means a replacement for reading the chapters that you find interesting. Every chapter is discussed below, with a brief "what should I read?" section if you know what you're interested in.

We already have a thread for textbook recommendations, but this book is central enough to Less Wrong's mission that it seems like it's worth an in-depth review. I'll state my basic impression of the whole book up front: I expect most readers of LW would gain quite a bit from reading the book, especially newer members, as it seems like a more focused and balanced introduction to the subject of rationality than the Sequences.

Baron splits the book into three sections: Thinking in General, Probability and Belief, and Decisions and Plans.

I may as well quote the first page in its entirety, as I feel it gives a good description of the book:

Beginning with its first edition and through three subsequent editions, Thinking and Deciding has established itself as the required text and important reference work for students and scholars of human cognition and rationality. In this, the fourth edition, Jonathan Baron retains the comprehensive attention to the key questions addressed in previous editions- How should we think? What, if anything, keeps us from thinking that way? How can we improve our thinking and decision making? - and his expanded treatment of topics such as risk, utilitarianism, Bayes's theorem, and moral thinking. With the student in mind, the fourth edition emphasizes the development of an understanding of the fundamental concepts in judgment and decision making. This book is essential reading for students and scholars in judgment and decision making and related fields, including psychology, economics, law, medicine, and business.

Jonathan Baron is Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author and editor of several other books, most recently Against Bioethics. Currently he is editor of the journal Judgmen

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