against coherence truth probability and justification jun 2005

[...]... radikaler Zweifel’, in Pragmatisch denken, a volume edited by Andre ´ Fuhrmann and myself which was published by Ontos Verlag in 2004 Contents 1 Introduction 1 Part I Does Coherence Imply Truth? 2 Coherence, Truth, and Testimony 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Why Coherence? Coherence an Elusive Concept Pinning down the Coherence Theorist Truth and Agreement A Simple Witness Model Conditions for Convergence... The Invocation of Cohesion and Coherence Coady’s Fatal Ambiguity Closing Remarks on the Anti-sceptical Use of Coherence Part II Does More Coherence Imply Higher Likelihood of Truth? 6 Making the Question Precise 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Degrees of Coherence Coherence and Logical Closure Testimonial Truth Conduciveness Why the Klein–Warfield Argument Fails Testimonial vs Explanatory Coherence 7 A Negative Answer... does coherence imply truth? evidence I will return to the role of incoherence and anomaly in Chapter 10.8 2.3 Pinning down the Coherence Theorist These problems notwithstanding, is there anything that coherence theorists should be able to agree on as to the nature of coherence, apart from the vague idea of coherence being determined by connections between beliefs? Take a case of two witnesses, Smith and. .. scepticism 2.2 Coherence an Elusive Concept Before we can get anywhere with the question whether coherence implies truth we must overcome a serious obstacle As Davidson observes, truth is ‘beautifully transparent’ in comparison to coherence (1986: 309), and so we must find some way of assigning definite meaning to the latter Unfortunately, the literature is surprisingly coherence, truth, and testimony... Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 are based on the first part of the Journal of Philosophy paper and on ‘Why Coherence is not Truth- Conducive’, Analysis, 61 (2001), 236–41 They also draw on my involvement in a debate with Luc Bovens and his associates Brandon Fitelson, Stephan Hartmann, and Josh Snyder about concurring testimonies My contributions to that debate appeared as ‘Corroborating Testimony, Probability and. .. maximally—coherent.11 2.4 Truth and Agreement If coherence theorists can agree on nothing else, they should at least grant that full agreement is a case of coherence, and perhaps of a high 11 On this rendering of BonJour’s criteria, it does not matter, as far as the degree of coherence is concerned, how many witnesses attest to the same thing For more on coherence and size, see sections 6.1 and 7.4 ... perspective on coherence or, rather, incoherence Following Peirce, I argue that genuine doubt is always preceded by some sort of incoherence The suggestion then is that whereas the lack of a substantial connection between coherence and truth makes it severely problematic to claim that coherence has a role to play in the process whereby beliefs are acquired or justified, it can still be maintained that incoherence... making here 6 Lewis prefers ‘congruence’ to coherence because he wants to mark his departure from British post-Kantian idealism and its coherence theory of truth (1946: 338) 14 does coherence imply truth? The set S consisting of A1, , An is congruent relative to a probability distribution P just in case P(Ai/Bi) > P(Ai) for i ¼ 1, ,n, where Bi is a conjunction of all elements of S except Ai But... Philosophy of Science, 53 (2002), 273–88; and, in the same issue (565–72), ‘Corroborating Testimony and Ignorance: A Reply to Bovens, Fitelson, Hartmann and Snyder’ The discussion of the Klein–Warfield argument in Chapter 6 and the proof in Appendix A draw upon a joint paper with Luc Bovens which appeared as ‘Believing More, Risking Less: On Coherence, Truth and Non-trivial Extensions’, Erkenntnis, 57... whereby beliefs are retracted On this proposal, which is here tentatively explored, the role of coherence in our enquiries is negative rather than positive This page intentionally left blank Part I Does Coherence Imply Truth? This page intentionally left blank 2 Coherence, Truth, and Testimony 2.1 Why Coherence? In ordinary life we usually rely on the information sources that we have at our disposal, . edited by Andre´ Fuhrmann and myself which was published by Ontos Verlag in 2004. Contents 1. Introduction 1 Part I Does Coherence Imply Truth? 2. Coherence, Truth, and Testimony 9 2.1 Why Coherence? . Erik J. Against coherence : truth, probability, and justification / Erik J. Olsson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-927999-3 (alk. paper) 1. Truth Coherence theory