Keith Lehrer (born January 10, 1936) is Emeritus Regent's Professor of philosophy at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

and a research professor of philosophy at the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, i ...

, where he spends half of each academic year.

Education and career

Lehrer received his PhD in philosophy from Brown University where he studied under Richard Taylor and

Roderick Chisholm Roderick Milton Chisholm (; November 27, 1916 – January 19, 1999) was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, value theory, and the philosophy of perception. The '' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philoso ...

. He joined the faculty at the University of Arizona in 1973, where he helped build a major graduate program. Prior to that, he taught at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...

. His research interests include

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epis ...

free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...

, rational consensus,

Thomas Reid Thomas Reid (; 7 May ( O.S. 26 April) 1710 – 7 October 1796) was a religiously trained Scottish philosopher. He was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1783 he wa ...

and, recently,

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

. Lehrer is a former president of the Pacific Division of the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

(APA) and also served as the APA executive director for a number of years. He is an elected Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. Lehrer, and his wife Adrienne Lehrer, are also artists. Their work has been on display at the Vincent Gallery in

Coconut Grove Coconut Grove, also known colloquially as The Grove, is the oldest continuously inhabited neighborhood of Miami in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The neighborhood is roughly bound by North Prospect Drive to the south, LeJeune Road to the west, S ...

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, concurrent with his stay at the

, where he was a visiting professor.

Philosophical work

Lehrer is best known for his defense of a coherentist theory of knowledge. According to Lehrer, "a person is justified in accepting a proposition just in case that proposition coheres with the relevant part of her cognitive system." Lehrer's work, "Why Not Skepticism?" is used in many introductory philosophy courses as a coherent and readable introduction to the subject. He has authored seven books on philosophical subjects, and over 170 scholarly articles. Lehrer is perhaps best known for his defense of the coherence

theory of justification Justification (also called epistemic justification) is the property of belief that qualifies it as knowledge rather than mere opinion. Epistemology is the study of reasons that someone holds a rationally admissible belief (although the term is a ...

in epistemology. He is the originator of the widely discusse
TrueTemp example

Selected publications

; Books * ''Art, Self, and Knowledge'' (

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, 2011) * ''Self Trust: A Study of Reason, Knowledge and Autonomy'' (

, 1997) * ''Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction'' ( Hackett, 1992, 4th ed.), with James Cornman and George Pappas * ''Metamind'' (Oxford, 1990) * ''Theory of Knowledge'' ( Westview, 1990) * ''Thomas Reid'' (

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, 1989) * ''Rational Consensus in Science and Society: A Philosophical and Mathematical Study'' (

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, 1981), with Carl Wagner * ''Knowledge'' (Oxford, 1974) ; Recent articles * "Love and Autonomy," in a volume ''Love Analyzed'', ed. R. Lamb, Westview Press, 1997. * "Semantic Fields and Vectors of Meaning," with Adrienne Lehrer, In ''Lexical Semantics, Cognition and Philosophy'', B. Lewandowska-Tomaszcyzyk, Lødz University Press, 1998. * "Meaning, Exemplarization and MEtarepresentation," written for ''Metarepresentation'', Dan Sperber ed., a volume of ''Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science''. * "Acceptance and Belief Reconsidered," in a volume edited by P. Engel, ''Belief and Acceptance'', to be published by Kluwer in ''Philosophical Studies Series''. * "Justification, Knowledge and Coherence," to be published in ''Erkenntnis''. * "Rationality," to be published in ''Guidebook to Epistemology'', Blackwell's, edited by J. Greco and E. Sosa. * "Individualism versus Communitarianism: A Consensual Compromise," written for a symposium at the World Congress of Philosophy, Boston, August, 1998, and to published in the proceedings. * "Reid, Hume and Common Sense," to be published in ''Reid Studies''. ; Books edited * ''Knowledge, Teaching and Wisdom'' (Kluwer, forthcoming), with Jeannie Lum, Beverly Slichta and Nicholas Smith * ''Austrian Philosophy, Past & Present'' (Kluwer, in process), with Johann Marek. * ''An Opened Curtain: A U.S.-Soviet Philosophical Summit'' (Westview, 199), with Ernest Sosa * ''Knowledge and Skepticism'' (Westview, 1989), with Marjorie Clay * ''Science and Ethics'' (Rodopi, 1988) Thomas Reid's Inquiry and Essays (Hackett, 1983), with Ronald Beanblossom * ''Analysis and Metaphysics: Essays in Honor of R.M. Chisholm'' (D. Reidel, 1975) * ''New Readings in Philosophical Analysis'' (Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1972), with Herbert Feigl and

Wilfrid Sellars Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (May 20, 1912 – July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher and prominent developer of critical realism, who "revolutionized both the content and the method of philosophy in the United States". Life and career His father ...

* ''Theory of Meaning'' (Prentice Hall, 1970) with Adrienne Lehrer * ''Freedom and Determinism'' (Random House, 1966). ; Books about Keith Lehrer * ''Keith Lehrer'', edited by Radu Bogdan, Reidel, 1980. * ''The Current State of the Coherence Theory: Critical Essays on the Epistemic Theories of Keith Lehrer and Laurence Bonjour'', edited by John W. Bender, Kluwer, 1989. * ''Metamind, Knowledge, and Coherence: Essays on the Philosophy of Keith Lehrer'', edited by Johannes Brandl, Wolfgang Gombocz, and Christian Piller, Rodopi, 1991. * ''The Epistemology of Keith Lehrer'' (Series: Philosophical Studies Series, Vol. 95), edited by Erik J.Olsson, 2003, 364 p., Hardcover.

References

External links

Lehrer's faculty page at the University of ArizonaLehrer's Painting
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lehrer, Keith 1936 births Living people American artists American philosophers American philosophy academics Brown University alumni Epistemologists Philosophy teachers University of Arizona faculty University of Miami faculty University of Rochester faculty