View source for Biography:Keith Lehrer

{{Short description|American philosopher (born 1936)}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region           = [[Philosophy:Western philosophy|Western philosophy]]
| era              = [[Philosophy:Contemporary philosophy|Contemporary philosophy]]
| image            = 
| caption          = 
| name             = Keith Lehrer
| birth_date       = {{birth date and age|1936|01|10}}
| birth_place      =
| school_tradition = [[Philosophy:Analytic philosophy|Analytic]]<br>[[Philosophy:Epistemic coherentism|Epistemic coherentism]]<ref>[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-coherence/ Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)]</ref>
| main_interests   = [[Philosophy:Epistemology|Epistemology]], philosophy of action
| influences       = [[Biography:Roderick Chisholm|Roderick Chisholm]]
| influenced       = 
| notable_ideas    = 
}}

'''Keith Lehrer''' (born January 10, 1936) is Emeritus Regent's Professor of [[Philosophy:Philosophy|philosophy]] at the [[Organization:University of Arizona|University of Arizona]] and a research professor of philosophy at the [[Organization:University of Miami|University of Miami]], where he spends half of each academic year.

==Education and career==

Lehrer received his [[Social:Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]] in [[Philosophy:Philosophy|philosophy]] from [[Organization:Brown University|Brown University]] where he studied under [[Biography:Richard Taylor (philosopher)|Richard Taylor]] and [[Biography:Roderick Chisholm|Roderick Chisholm]].  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 [[Organization:University of Rochester|University of Rochester]].

His research interests include [[Philosophy:Epistemology|epistemology]],<ref name="Olsson2003">{{cite book|last=Olsson|first=Erik J.|title=The epistemology of Keith Lehrer|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5qdfk_zVTWwC&pg=PP11|accessdate=7 September 2010|year=2003|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-4020-1605-9}}</ref> [[Philosophy:Free will|free will]], rational consensus, [[Biography:Thomas Reid|Thomas Reid]] and, recently, [[Social:Aesthetics|aesthetics]].

Lehrer is a former president of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association (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.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://uanews.org/story/ua-philosopher-honored|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150617193756/http://uanews.org/story/ua-philosopher-honored|url-status=usurped|archive-date=June 17, 2015|title = UA Philosopher Honored|date = 10 October 2005}}</ref>

Lehrer, and his wife Adrienne Lehrer, are also artists. Their work has been on display at the Vincent Gallery in Coconut Grove, Florida, concurrent with his stay at the [[Organization:University of Miami|University of Miami]], 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."<ref>{{Cite book|chapter-url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-coherence/#OthAccCoh|title = The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|chapter = Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification|year = 2021|publisher = Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref>

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 [[Philosophy:Coherentism|coherence]] [[Theory of justification|theory of justification]] in epistemology. He is the originator of the widely discussed [http://faculty.fordham.edu/nballantyne/truetemp.html TrueTemp example].

==Selected publications==
; Books
* ''Exemplars of Truth'' ([[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford]], 2019)
* ''Art, Self, and Knowledge'' ([[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford]], 2011)
* ''Self Trust: A Study of Reason, Knowledge and Autonomy'' ([[Organization:Oxford University Press|Oxford]], 1997)
* ''Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction'' (Hackett, 1992, 4th ed.), with James Cornman and George Pappas
* ''Metamind'' (Oxford, 1990)
* ''Theory of Knowledge'' ([[Organization:Westview Press|Westview]], 1990)
* ''Thomas Reid'' ([[Company:Routledge|Routledge]], 1989)
* ''Rational Consensus in Science and Society: A Philosophical and Mathematical Study'' (D. Reidel, 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 [[Biography:Wilfrid Sellars|Wilfrid Sellars]]
* ''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 ==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20100706161148/http://philosophy.arizona.edu/people/view/?id=129 Lehrer's faculty page at the University of Arizona]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130105051437/http://www.as.miami.edu/phi/v1/lehrer/index.htm Lehrer's faculty page at the University of Miami]
*[http://www.keithlehrer.com/ Lehrer's Painting] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150610200352/http://www.keithlehrer.com/ |date=2015-06-10 }}


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[[Category:Epistemologists]]

{{Sourceattribution|Keith Lehrer}}