NORMAN — Linda Zagzebski, Kingfisher College Chair of the Philosophy of Religion and Ethics and George Lynn Cross Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oklahoma, recently was awarded a fellowship from The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for her project “Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief.”
The project is a development of Zagzebski’s eight Wilde Lectures in Natural Religion, delivered in April and May 2010 at Oxford University.
Zagzebski was one of 180 chosen by The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation out of nearly 3,000 applicants. This year’s applicants represent 65 disciplines and 74 different academic institutions.
Zagzebski argues that emotional trust in the self is rational and inescapable, that consistent self-trust commits us to trust in others. She believes that others satisfy conditions for epistemic authority modeled on well-known general principles of political authority and that authority in communities can be justified by principles of trust endorsed by the self-reflective person.
Moral and religious authority can be defended in this way, Zagzebski said, adding that the ideal of epistemic self-reliance is incoherent.
“To me, the most significant thing about the Foundation may be the continuity of our mission, a commitment to funding individuals at the highest level to do the work they were meant to do,” says Foundation President Edward Hirsch in a release. “We don’t support groups or organizations ... we have always bet everything on the individual, which seems to me increasingly rare in a corporatized America.”
