Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T20:59:20.797Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Explanatory Coherence and the Impossibility of Confirmation by Coherence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Ted Poston
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The coherence of independent reports provides a strong reason to believe that the reports are true. This plausible claim has come under attack from recent work in Bayesian epistemology. This work shows that, under certain probabilistic conditions, coherence cannot increase the probability of the target claim. These theorems are taken to demonstrate that epistemic coherentism is untenable. To date no one has investigated how these results bear on different conceptions of coherence. I investigate this situation using Thagard’s ECHO model of explanatory coherence. Thagard’s ECHO model provides a natural representation of the evidential significance of multiple independent reports.

Type
Explanation
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 88 , Issue 5 , December 2021 , pp. 835 - 848
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BonJour, L. 1985. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Empiricus, S. 2005. Against the Logicians. Trans. and ed. Richard Bett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ewing, A. 1934. Idealism: A Critical Survey. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huemer, M. 1997. “Probability and Coherence Justification.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 35:463–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huemer, M.. 2011. “Does Probability Theory Refute Coherentism?” Journal of Philosophy 108:463–72.10.5840/jphil201110812CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, C. 1946. An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Maher, P. 2006. “The Concept of Inductive Probability.” Erkenntnis 65:185–206.10.1007/s10670-005-5087-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maher, P.. 2010. “Bayesian Probability.” Synthese 172:119–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meinong, A. 1915. Über Möglichkeit Und Wahrscheinlichkeit. Leipzig: Barth.Google Scholar
Olsson, E. 2002. “What Is the Problem of Coherence and Truth?” Journal of Philosophy 94 (5): 246–72.Google Scholar
Olsson, E.. 2005. Against Coherence: Truth, Probability, and Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olsson, E.. 2017. “Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Zalta, Edward N.. Stanford, CA: Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justep-coherence/.Google Scholar
Roche, W. 2013. “Coherence and Probability: A Probabilistic Account of Coherence.” In Coherence: Insights from Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Artificial Intelligence, ed. Araszkiewicz, M. and Savelka, J., 59–91. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P. 1989. “Explanatory Coherence.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (3): 435–67.Google Scholar
Thagard, P.. 2000. Coherence in Thought and Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/1900.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thagard, P., and Verbeurgt, K.. 1998. “Coherence as Constraint Satisfication.” Cognitive Science 22 (1): 1–24.10.1207/s15516709cog2201_1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisberg, J. 2009. “Commutativity or Holism? A Dilemma for Conditionalizers.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 60 (4): 793–812.10.1093/bjps/axp007CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisberg, J.. 2015. “Updating, Undermining, and Independence.” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 66:121–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar