Knowledge, Autonomy, and Exemplars

Abstract

This chapter explores the connection between epistemology and autonomy in representation and knowledge. To proceed from acceptance to justification and knowledge, what we accept must be more reasonable than the objections to it. The source of reasonableness is our trustworthiness in what we accept in pursuit of the goals of reason. The reasonableness of trustworthiness loops back to explain itself but depends on our choice and our freedom or autonomy in what we prefer to accept. The keystone in the life of reason is a pair of explanatory loops of trustworthiness and autonomy. Autonomy extends exemplar representation of experience to the world of qualities and objects we perceive and those we postulate in science. Our trustworthy and autonomous choice of how we represent the world in terms of exemplars of experience sustains itself in an explanatory loop that ties knowledge and autonomy up, down, and together in our world.