Laurence BonJour
Encyclopedia
Laurence BonJour is an American philosopher and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington
.
and his doctorate in 1969 from Princeton University
with a dissertation directed by Richard Rorty
. Before moving to UW he taught at the University of Texas at Austin
.
, and British empiricism.
BonJour's work, along with that of Roderick Chisholm
, Keith Lehrer
, and Michael Williams
, is at the center of current debates in epistemology. Initially defending coherentism
in his anti-foundationalist critique The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, BonJour has since moved to defend Cartesian foundationalism
in such works as Epistemology and In Defense of Pure Reason. The latter book is a sustained defense of a priori
justification, strongly criticizing empiricists and pragmatists who dismiss it (such as W. V. O. Quine and Richard Rorty
).
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
.
Life
He received his bachelor's degrees in Philosophy and Political Science from Macalester CollegeMacalester College
Macalester College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 as a Presbyterian-affiliated but nonsectarian college. Its first class entered September 15, 1885. The college is located on a campus in a historic residential neighborhood...
and his doctorate in 1969 from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
with a dissertation directed by Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
. Before moving to UW he taught at the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
.
Work
His areas of specialty include epistemology, KantKANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
, and British empiricism.
BonJour's work, along with that of Roderick Chisholm
Roderick Chisholm
Roderick M. Chisholm was an American philosopher known for his work on epistemology, metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of perception. He received his Ph.D. at Harvard University under Clarence Irving Lewis and Donald C. Williams, and taught at Brown University...
, Keith Lehrer
Keith Lehrer
Keith Lehrer is the Regent's Professor emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Arizona with an affiliation with the University of Miami in Florida. He previously taught at the University of Rochester....
, and Michael Williams
Michael Williams (philosopher)
Michael Williams is currently the Kreiger-Eisenhower Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University and chair of the department. Williams is a noted epistemologist, and has significant interest in the philosophy of language, Wittgenstein, and the history of modern philosophy. He is...
, is at the center of current debates in epistemology. Initially defending coherentism
Coherentism
There are two distinct types of coherentism. One refers to the coherence theory of truth. The other refers to the coherence theory of justification. The coherentist theory of justification characterizes epistemic justification as a property of a belief only if that belief is a member of a coherent...
in his anti-foundationalist critique The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, BonJour has since moved to defend Cartesian foundationalism
Foundationalism
Foundationalism is any theory in epistemology that holds that beliefs are justified based on what are called basic beliefs . This position is intended to resolve the infinite regress problem in epistemology...
in such works as Epistemology and In Defense of Pure Reason. The latter book is a sustained defense of a priori
A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)
The terms a priori and a posteriori are used in philosophy to distinguish two types of knowledge, justifications or arguments...
justification, strongly criticizing empiricists and pragmatists who dismiss it (such as W. V. O. Quine and Richard Rorty
Richard Rorty
Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...
).
Books
- The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. xiii, 258.
- In Defense of Pure Reason. (London: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. xiv, 232.
- Epistemology: Classic Problems and Contemporary Responses. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), pp. viii, 283.
- Epistemic Justification: Internalism vs. Externalism, Foundations vs. Virtues (jointly with Ernest SosaErnest SosaErnest Sosa is an American philosopher primarily interested in epistemology. He is currently Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He has been at Rutgers full-time since January, 2007; previously, he had been at Brown University since 1964...
). (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. vii, 240. - Philosophical Problems: An Annotated Anthology (jointly edited with Ann Baker). (New York: Longman, 2005), pp. xvi, 876.
Articles
- "Sellars on Truth and Picturing", International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 13 (1973), pp. 243–65.
- "Rescher's Idealistic Pragmatism", The Review of Metaphysics, vol. 29 (1976), pp. 702–26.
- "Determinism, Libertarianism, and Agent Causation", The Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 14 (1976), pp. 145–56.
- "The Coherence Theory of Empirical Knowledge", Philosophical Studies, vol. 30 (1976), pp. 281–312; reprinted in Paul Moser (ed.) Empirical Knowledge (Rowman & Littlefield, 1986), in Louis Pojman (ed.), The Theory of Knowledge (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1993), and in Michael Goodman and Robert A. Snyder (eds.) Contemporary Readings in Epistemology (Prentice-Hall, 1993).
- "Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?" American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 15 (1978), pp. 1–14; reprinted in Paul Moser (ed.), Empirical Knowledge (Totowa, N. J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1986) and in Louis Pojman (ed.), The Theory of Knowledge (Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1993).
- "Rescher's Philosophical System", in E. Sosa (ed.), The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher (Dordrecht, the Netherlands: D. Reidel, 1979), pp. 157–72.
- "Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 5 (1980), pp. 53–73.
- "Reply to Christlieb", The Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 24 (1986), pp. 415–29.
- "A Reconsideration of the Problem of Induction", Philosophical Topics, vol. 14 (1986), pp. 93–124.
- "Nozick, Externalism, and Skepticism", in S. Luper-Foy (ed.), The Possibility of Knowledge: Nozick and His Critics (Totowa, N. J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1987), pp. 297–313.
- "Reply to Steup", Philosophical Studies, vol.
- "Reply to Moser", Analysis, vol. 48 (1988), pp. 164–65.
- "Replies and Clarifications", in J. W. Bender (ed.), The Current State of the Coherence Theory: Essays on the Epistemic Theories of Keith Lehrer and Laurence BonJour (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer, 1989), pp. 276–92.
- "Reply to Solomon", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
- "Is Thought a Symbolic Process?" Synthese, vol. 89 (1991), pp. 331–52.
- "A Rationalist Manifesto", Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume 18 (1992), pp. 53–88.
- "Fumerton on Coherence Theories", Journal of Philosophical Research, vol. 19 (1994), pp. 104–108.
- "Against Naturalized Epistemology", Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 19 (1994), pp. 283–300.
- "Sosa on Knowledge, Justification, and 'Aptness'", Philosophical Studies, vol. 78 (1995), pp. 207–220.
- "Toward a Moderate Rationalism", Philosophical Topics, vol. 23 (1995), pp. 47–78.
- "Plantinga on Knowledge and Proper Function", in Jonathan KvanvigJonathan KvanvigJonathan Kvanvig is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University.Kvanvig is also an author, best known for his book The Problem of Hell which debates Hell in a modern theological and philosophical way....
(ed.), Warrant in Contemporary Epistemology ( Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), pp. 47–71. - "Haack on Justification and Experience", Synthese.
- "The Dialectic of Foundationalism and Coherentism", in the Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, ed. John Greco and Ernest Sosa, Blackwell.
- "Toward a Defense of Empirical Foundationalism", in Michael DePaul (ed.), Resurrecting Old-Fashioned Foundationalism (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000). With a reply to criticisms by John Pollock and Alvin PlantingaAlvin PlantingaAlvin Carl Plantinga is an American analytic philosopher and the emeritus John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, metaphysics, and Christian apologetics...
. - "Foundationalism and the External World", in James Tomberlin (ed.), Philosophical Perspectives, vol. 13 (2000).
- Critical study of Evan Fales, A Defense of the Given, Nous.
- "The Indispensability of Internalism", Philosophical Topics.
- "Internalism and Externalism", in the Oxford Handbook of Epistemology, ed. Paul Moser.
- Analytic Philosophy and the Nature of Thought (Unpublished)
- What is it Like to be a Human (Instead of a Bat)? (Unpublished)
Encyclopedia and Dictionary Articles
- "Externalism/Internalism" and "Problems of Induction", in E. Sosa & J. Dancy (eds.), A Companion To Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992).
- "A Priori/A Posteriori", "Coherence Theory of Truth" and "Broad, Charlie Dunbar" in The Cambridge Dictionary Of Philosophy, ed. Robert Audi, Cambridge University Press, 1995.
- "Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge", in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- "Epistemological Problems of Perception", in the on-line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Reviews
- Of Gilbert Harman, Thought, Philosophical Review, vol. 84 (1975), pp. 256–58.
- Of R. M. Dworkin (ed.), Philosophy of Law; and Kenneth Kipnis (ed.), Philosophical Issues in Law, Teaching Philosophy, vol. 2 (1977-78), pp. 325–28.
- Of James Cornman, Skepticism, Justification, and Explanation, Philosophical Review, vol. 91 (1982), pp. 612–15.
- Of D. J. O'Connor and Brian Carr, Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, Teaching Philosophy, vol. 7 (1984), pp. 64–66.
- Of Paul Ziff, Epistemic Analysis, Canadian Philosophical Reviews
- Of Lorraine Code, Epistemic Responsibility, Philosophical Review.
- Of Alan Goldman, Empirical Knowledge, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
- Of Robert Fogelin, Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification, Times Literary Supplement.
- Of Michael DePaul and William Ramsey (eds.), Rethinking Intuition, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
- Of Paul Boghossian and Christopher Peacocke (eds.), New Essays on the A Priori, forthcoming in Mind.