Robert Audi

Robert N. Audi (born November 1941) is an American philosopher whose major work has focused on epistemology, ethics (especially on ethical intuitionism), rationality and the theory of action.

He is O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and previously held a chair in the business school there.

In an interview for the Brooklyn Friends School of which he's an alumnus (year 1959), he revealed that his interest in philosophy came from his father, a businessman and Lebanese immigrant with an interest in philosophy and history.

His mother, a medical doctor and faculty at NYU Medical School, was also an influence.

He has served as General Editor of the First Edition (1995) and Second Edition (1999) of The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.

He has also served as the general editor for "Modern Readings in Epistemology", as well as for "Modern readings in Metaphysics".

His 2005 book, The Good in the Right, updates and strengthens Rossian intuitionism and develops the epistemology of ethics.

He has also written important works of political philosophy, particularly on the relationship between church and state.

He is a past president of the American Philosophical Association and the Society of Christian Philosophers.

Audi's contributions to epistemology include his defense of fallibilistic foundationalism.

Audi has expanded his theory of justification to non-doxastic states, e.g. desires and intentions, by developing a comprehensive account of rationality.

A mental state is rational if it is "well-grounded" in a source of justification.

Justification can come directly from experience (e.g. perception) or indirectly from other mental states that are themselves justified.

Rationality is relative to a person's experiences, so what is rational to believe for one person may be irrational to believe for another.

Audi has also developed an account of autonomy, which he characterizes as the self-governing power to bring reasons to bear in directing one's conduct and influencing one's propositional attitudes.

Self-legislation is necessary but not sufficient for autonomy since it lacks the power to govern by itself.

Autonomy involves responding to reasons in a principled way by endorsing commitments to projects and practical principles.

Audi earned his BA from Colgate University and his MA and PhD from the University of Michigan.

He taught initially at the University of Texas at Austin, and then for many years as the Charles J. Mach University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln before moving to University of Notre Dame as Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Management, and the David E. Gallo Chair in Ethics.

In 2009 he vacated the Gallo Chair and took a chair as John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy.

"'Both liked to explain and comment on things,' Robert mused, 'and they often entertained people from the diplomatic world and medicine who argued about politics, religion and ideas in general.'" Audi was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018.

Audi has defended a position he calls "fallibilistic foundationalism."

He thinks that the foundationalist response is the only tenable option of the epistemic regress argument.

This states that if every belief has to be justified by some other, then the only options are four: infinite regress, circularity, stopping at a belief that is not knowledge, and stopping at a basic belief that is itself justified.

If the only alternative is the fourth, then if one has knowledge, one has foundational knowledge.

Audi considers that foundationalism is usually taken to be infallible.

That is, it is normally associated with the view that knowledge is founded on basic beliefs that are axiomatic and necessarily true, and that the rest of knowledge is deduced from this set of beliefs.

Audi thinks that foundationalism may be fallible, in the sense that the suprastructure of beliefs may be derived inductively from the basic beliefs, and hence may be fallible.

He also thinks that basic beliefs need not be necessary truths, but merely have some structure which makes epistemic transition possible.

For example, the belief that one is in the presence of an object arises causally from visual perception.

The main account of Audi's theory of rationality is laid out in his book "The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality".

He develops a comprehensive account of rationality that covers both the theoretical and the practical side of rationality.

Theoretical rationality concerns beliefs and counts towards truth while practical rationality covers desires, intentions, and actions and counts towards goodness.

The notion of a ground plays a central role for rationality: a mental state is rational if it is "well-grounded" in a source of justification.

For example, the perceptual experience of a tree when looking outside the window can ground the belief that there is a tree outside.

A ground can psychologically support a mental state.

Mental states may be supported by several grounds at the same time.

Audi compares such a mental state to a porch that is supported by various pillars.

For a mental state to be rational, it has to be well-grounded, i.e. be supported by an adequate ground.

Irrational mental states, on the other hand, lack a sufficient ground.