Cheap Theory of Knowledge (Book) (Keith Lehrer) Price

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Customer Reviews of Theory of Knowledge

Difficult but possibly worth it...
The theory of knowledge is a hard subject to begin learning; with terms like "justification," "acceptance," "foundationalism," and "externalism" flying around, the philosophical novice may easily get lost in the philosophical whirlwind. Because I read Lehrer's introductory effort painstakingly and carefully, it mitigated my difficulties with learning epistemology.

In a subject containing such obscure terminology, Lehrer starts the reader off on the right foot; if the reader puts enough work in to understand his first chapter, he will have a good understanding of the language of the subject. His remaining chapters do as good a job as can be expected of taking the reader through the various problems that the discussion of different theories of knowledge. Lehrer tries to make it interesting by arguing for his own pet theory (a coherence theory supported by the trustworthiness principle), and his ploy does help the reader pay attention, though in his partisanship he doesn't always present the opposing argument fairly (as in the counterexamples to undefeated justification in chapter 7). On the whole, however, a valient effort and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in epistemology.

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Fantastic Book!
Lehrer provides one of the best introductions to epistemology. The book is well suited to advanced undergraduates, graduates and professional philosophers alike. More importantly, it is an improvement on his first edition -- some areas of argument and explication have been cleaned up, and he has added material on recent developments in the field (e.g. contextualism and virtue epistemology). Great book.

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Not quite a textbook, not quite a treatise
The other Dimensions of Philosophy books I had seen and used - Van Imwagen's Metaphysics and Kim's Mind books - had been excellent for mid-to-upper level philosophy courses. Both had their axes to grind, but overviews of a wide range of opinions and positions was offered in a way I found balanced and reasonable. Lehrer's book is more Lehrer's pet project. The sections on foundationalism contain a little preamble and a lot of criticism (and I say this as someone who thinks the doctrine is false) and the rest contains a lot of arguments that I recognize as specifically taken from Lehrer's work rather than representing the field as a whole. And as an overview of Lehrer's work, this will not satisfy professional philosophers, for the deeper points and issues are only given a few allusions. This is not to say Lehrer is not an impressive philosopher, but those, like me, who were looking for something to use in a classroom may find this frustrating.