Three kinds of coherentism

Jaap Hage

pp. 1-32

in: Michał Araszkiewicz, Jaromír Šavelka (eds), Coherence, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

This paper aims to show what makes coherentism as an epistemological position attractive in comparison to its main competitor, foundationalism. It also aims to show that, from a general epistemological point of view, constraint satisfaction is not the most attractive way to give content to the notion of coherence. In order to achieve these purposes, the paper distinguishes between epistemic, constructive and integrated coherentism. Epistemic coherentism treats coherence as a test for knowledge about a world which exists independently (ontological realism). Constructive coherentism uses coherence as a standard to determine what the facts are in a particular domain. This is a form of ontological idealism.Usually, both epistemic and constructive coherentism apply the coherence test to only part of the positions (beliefs etc.) which a person accepts. The definition of, and standards for coherence, just as usually logic and standards for belief revision, are kept outside the process of making a position set coherent. Integrated coherentism differs by including everything in the coherence creating process. A set of positions is integratedly coherent if and only if it satisfies the standards included in the set of positions itself.The paper argues that integrated coherentism best fits with the ideas underlying coherentism and that, as a general epistemological theory, it is incompatible with coherence as constraint satisfaction in a strict sense.