Coherentism

framework · philosophy · philosophical-tradition

Knowledge justified by mutual support among beliefs, with no privileged foundation.

Coherentism is the epistemological position that the structure of justified belief is holistic rather than hierarchical: a belief is justified by its coherence with other beliefs in a comprehensive system, rather than by support from privileged 'basic' beliefs (as foundationalism holds). The position descends from German idealism (Hegel, Bradley, Bosanquet) but is substantially developed in the analytic tradition through W.V.O. Quine's 1951 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' (with the metaphor of the web of belief, in which empirical findings affect any part of the web with adjustments propagating throughout), Wilfrid Sellars's critique of the myth of the given, and contemporary articulations by Laurence BonJour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge, 1985), Keith Lehrer, and others. Coherence has been variously specified — logical consistency is the minimum, with stronger requirements including mutual entailment, explanatory unity, probabilistic coherence, and absence of countervailing relations. Coherentism's central challenge is the isolation objection: a coherent belief system might still be entirely disconnected from reality, with no input from the world. BonJour and others addressed this through observational requirements, but BonJour himself later abandoned coherentism for foundationalism over this concern. Reflective equilibrium is the most influential contemporary methodology grounded in coherentist principles.

Originators

Hegelian idealist tradition; W.V.O. Quine (analytic articulation); Wilfrid Sellars (myth of the given critique); Laurence BonJour (foundational coherentist articulation, later abandoned); Keith Lehrer; Donald Davidson (related views) high

Year / Decade

Idealist tradition 19th century; Quine 1951; BonJour 1985 (and 1999 abandonment) high

Primary sources

Quine, W.V.O. (1951). 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism', Philosophical Review, BonJour, L. (1985). The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (foundational coherentist statement, subsequently abandoned), Bender, J.W. (ed.) (1989). The Current State of the Coherence Theory high

Core components

Coherence among beliefs as justification
No privileged foundation or basic beliefs
Web of belief metaphor (Quine)
Holistic confirmation
Logical consistency as minimum coherence
Stronger coherence: mutual support, explanatory unity, probabilistic coherence
Isolation objection (coherent system might be disconnected from reality)
BonJour's observational requirement
Distinction from foundationalism on structure question
Connection to reflective equilibrium

Primary use case

Foundational epistemological position in analytic philosophy; framework for thinking about justification structure; foundation for reflective equilibrium methodology in ethics; influence on philosophy of science (especially Quinean naturalized epistemology); resource for thinking about scientific theory evaluation; pedagogical framework in epistemology education.

Common criticisms

Isolation objection: a coherent belief system might still be entirely disconnected from reality, with no input from the world — BonJour himself abandoned coherentism over this concern
multiple incompatible coherent systems could each be perfectly internally coherent, raising the problem of choice between them
specifying what coherence amounts to precisely has proven difficult
Bayesian and probabilistic versions of coherence have been argued to face technical problems (the Bovens-Hartmann impossibility results)
coherence is often a virtue without being sufficient for justification — observation, reliable processes, or other inputs seem to matter
Quine-style holism's prediction that any belief can be saved by adjusting other beliefs may be true in principle but practically rare
tension with non-doxastic states (perceptions, intuitions) that seem epistemically relevant.

Lineage

Siblings: Foundationalism, Reliabilism, Reflective Equilibrium