Keith Lehrer

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

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

His research interests include epistemology, free will, rational consensus, Thomas Reid and, recently, 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.

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 University of Miami, where he was a visiting professor.

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 in epistemology.

He is the originator of the widely discussed TrueTemp example.