Self-Trust: A Study of Reason, Knowledge, and Autonomy

by Keith Lehrer

The eminent philosopher Keith Lehrer offers an original and distinctively personal view of central aspects of the human condition, such as reason, knowledge, wisdom, autonomy, love, consensus, and consciousness. He argues that what is uniquely human is our capacity for evaluating our own mental states (such as beliefs and desires), and suggests that we have a system for such evaluation which allows the resolution of personal and interpersonal conflict. The keystone in this system is self-trust, on which reason, knowledge, and wisdom are grounded.

Genres: Philosophy

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jeremy]

This turns out to involve self-knowledge in a way that doesn't really matter much to my project. Lehrer was concerned about the reasonableness of trusting your beliefs. But, he was concerned with whether or not it was reasonable to trust your acceptance of P, assuming all the while that you could always tell when you accept P. This might be a little interesting for me because there's a distinction between belief and acceptance that might match up fairly well with a distinction I am making in my diss.