Laurence BonJour | |
---|---|
Born | 31 August 1943 |
Era | Contemporary philosophy |
Region | Western philosophy |
School | Analytic Epistemic coherentism[1] |
Main interests | Epistemology |
Notable ideas | Coherentism, a priori justification |
Laurence BonJour (born August 31, 1943) is an American philosopher and Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Washington.[2]
He received his bachelor's degrees in Philosophy and Political Science from Macalester College 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.[3]
BonJour specializes in epistemology, Kant, and British empiricism, but is best-known for his contributions to epistemology. Initially defending coherentism in his anti-foundationalist critique The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (1985), BonJour subsequently moved to defend Cartesian foundationalism in later work such as 1998's 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).