Can Reason Criticize and Control Itself?

FAIN: FA-53244-07

Jonathan Eric Adler
CUNY Research Foundation, Brooklyn College (Brooklyn, NY 11210-2850)

Self-control normally refers to reason’s ability to resist desires contrary to one’s judgment. My project is to complete a book on reason’s ability to control itself—to anticipate weaknesses in itself and to find ways to avoid or to mitigate them. The basic conceptual question is this: Since self-control by reason is self-control of reason, how can it be the judgment of reason (i.e. a reasoned judgment) not to listen to, or to censor, reason? The study develops a notion of epistemic authority (or deference) in relation to self-knowledge and forms of self-correction, and a new conception of fallibility.