Coherentism

1. A Holistic Conception of Justification

The foundationalism of the previous chapter was offered as a response to a

threatened regress of justification. This regress is the result of a linear conception
of justification: belief A is justified by belief B (and belief C); belief B is in turn
justified by belief D, and so on. The problem is that there always seems to be a
further question concerning how the last belief in the clain is justified.
Foundationalists solve this problem by claiming that a certain set of basic beliefs
are non-inferentially justified. Coherentists, however, have a different strategy:
they reject the underlying linear conception of justification. In its place they
propose a non-linear or holistic account. A particular belief is justified if it
increases the coherence of your belief system. Linear justification involves local
relations: beliefs are justified by their inferential relations with a small number of
related beliefs. Belief As justification is wholly provided by belief B and C.
Holistic justification, however, involves global relations: a particular belief is
justified if it fits in well or coheres with the whole of your belief system. What
we mean by coherence will be explained in more detail in the next section.

Foundationalists claim that our belief system has the architecture of a

building, with the bricks of the building analogous to our beliefs. Any particular
brick is supported by the bricks immediately below it. Layers of bricks provide
structural underpinning until, that is, we reach the foundation stones of the
building. Analogously, the non-basic beliefs of the foundationalist are locally
justified by other beliefs. The belief that my dinner is cooked is justified by my
belief that I set the timer to ring when it is done, and the belief that I can hear a
ringing from the kitchen. These beliefs themselves need justificatory support, and
thus my belief that I set the timer is justified by my memory of doing so.
Questions concerning justification are only halted when we arrive at certain
foundational basic belief. It is ultimately upon such foundations that our belief
systems rest. Coherentists, however, reject the architectural metaphor: they see a
belief system as more akin to a raft floating at sea. The structure remains afloat,
not through the action of certain key foundational planks, but as a result of the
way that all the planks are meshed together.

It should be made clear that coherentists do not avoid the regress of

justification by allowing that a chain of justification can circle back on itself. Such
a chain cannot do the justificatory work required of it. Consider a very small
circle of justification. If Edson is asked why he believes that Brazil are the best
football team in the world, he might reply that its because they will win the next
World Cup. Still intrigued, I ask him for his reasons for believing they will win;
he replies that its because they are the best team. We can see, then, that Edson has
not provided an independent reason for thinking Brazil are the best team, and thus
he has not actually provided any justification for believing this claim. This is also
the case if a circle of justification is made larger; it just takes more work to show
that we do not have an independent reason to take the belief in question as
justified. Coherentists, however, do not rely on circular reasoning. Such circles
depend on there being chains of inferentially related beliefs that can circle back on
themselves (figure 7.1). For this to be so, you must accept a linear conception of
justification, but this has been rejected by the coherentist. For him, justification
does not involve chains of inferentially related beliefs, with justification conferred
locally by adjacent members of the chain. Justification is holistic: it is the overal
coherence of a belief system that determines whether a particular belief is justified
see figure 7.2.

2. The Concept of Coherence

A coherent belief system must be logically consistent, that is, it must not
contain beliefs that are contradictory. It would not be coherent to believe that its
raining and that its not raining. Futhermore a coherent belief system has a
minimal number of cases where the truth of a particular belief makes it unlikely
that some of your other belief are true. For example, the coherence of your belief
system is threatened if you believe that you have just seen a Lamborghini Diablo
on the High Setreet, and that there is only one of these cars in the country. Such