Online research in philosophy

Bayesian Coherence Theory of Justification or, for short, Bayesian Coherentism, is characterized by two theses, viz. (i) that our degree of confidence in the content of a set of propositions is positively affected by the coherence of the set, and (ii) that coherence can be characterized in probabilistic terms. There has been a longstanding question of how to construct a measure of coherence. We will show that Bayesian Coherentism cannot rest on a single measure of coherence, but requires a vector whose components exhaustively characterize the coherence properties of the set. Our degree of confidence in the content of the information set is a function of the reliability of the sources and the components of the coherence vector. The components of this coherence vector are weakly but not strongly separable, which blocks the construction of a single coherence measure.

Bayesian Coherence Theory of Justification or, for short, Bayesian Coherentism, is characterized by two theses, viz. (i) that our degree of confidence in the content of a set of propositions is positively affected by the coherence of the set, and (ii) that coherence can be characterized in probabilistic terms. There has been a longstanding question of how to construct a measure of coherence. We will show that Bayesian Coherentism cannot rest on a single measure of coherence, but requires a vector whose components exhaustively characterize the coherence properties of the set. Our degree of confidence in the content of the information set is a function of the reliability of the sources and the components of the coherence vector. The components of this coherence vector are weakly but not strongly separable, which blocks the construction of a single coherence measure.

This paper argues that formal models of coherence are useful for constructing a legal epistemology. Two main formal approaches to coherence are examined: coherence-based models of belief revision and the theory of coherence as constraint satisfaction. It is shown that these approaches shed light on central aspects of a coherentist legal epistemology, such as the concept of coherence, the dynamics of coherentist justification in law, and the mechanisms whereby coherence may be built in the course of legal decision-making.

In this article, we resituate a long-standing duality of (Western) narrative tradition over living story emergence and more linear narrative. Narrative, with its focus on linear beginning, middle and end coherence, retrospection and monologic, is too easily appropriated into managerialist projects. We focus on the web of living stories as a Derridian deconstructive move, which allows us to say something important about their relation to narrative and to develop a storytelling ethics. Our thesis is that resituating the relationship between narrative and living story invites exploration of the plurality of narratives that treat living stories as supplementary. We claim that this deconstructive move allows us to rethink politics and ethics anew. Storytelling ethics opens new spaces for marginalized other(s) voices and creates an awareness of our complicity and responsibility for others. Further, storytelling ethics allows for a more nuanced and varied understanding of business ethics and its inherent exclusionary truth and morality claims and paves the way for a more reflexive ethics.

Our experience of narrative has an internal and an external aspect--the content of the narrative’s representations, and its intentional, communicative aetiology. The interaction of these two things is crucial to understanding how narrative works. I begin by laying out what I think we can reasonably expect from a narrative by way of causal information, and how causality interacts with other attributes we think of as central to narrative. At a certain point this discussion will strike a problem: our judgements about what is a relevant possibility within the narrative’s story depend on our judgements of probability; but these latter judgements depend, in turn, on factors external to the world of the story, and cannot be explained in terms of causal relations available within the story. We need the external, author-centred perspective at this point. These different perspectives, the internal and the external, correspond to different types of explanations we may give of events in a story; I call these internal and external explanations. I show how these different explanations are made use of in two contrasting arthistorical projects. I use these examples as the basis for a generalisation about the structure of the two explanatory forms. Finally, I suggest some ways in which explanations of these two kinds relate to one another, and to our thinking when we are engaged by a narrative.

In this article, we resituate a long-standing duality of (Western) narrative tradition over living story emergence and more linear narrative. Narrative, with its focus on linear beginning, middle and end coherence, retrospection and monologic, is too easily appropriated into managerialist projects. We focus on the web of living stories as a Derridian deconstructive move, which allows us to say something important about their relation to narrative and to develop a storytelling ethics. Our thesis is that resituating the relationship between narrative and living story invites exploration of the plurality of narratives that treat living stories as supplementary. We claim that this deconstructive move allows us to rethink politics and ethics anew. Storytelling ethics opens new spaces for marginalized other(s) voices and creates an awareness of our complicity and responsibility for others. Further, storytelling ethics allows for a more nuanced and varied understanding of business ethics and its inherent exclusionary truth and morality claims and paves the way for a more reflexive ethics.

This paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the notion of coherence by explicating in probabilistic terms, step by step, what seem to be our most basic intuitions about that notion, to wit, that coherence is a matter of hanging or fitting together, and that coherence is a matter of degree. A qualitative theory of coherence will serve as a stepping stone to formulate a set of quantitative measures of coherence, each of which seems to capture well the aforementioned intuitions. Subsequently it will be argued that one of those measures does better than the others in light of some more specific intuitions about coherence. This measure will be defended against two seemingly obvious objections.

Machine generated contents note: -- Miracles and Nasty Surprises -- The Failure of Models & Labels; the Success of Experience & Emergence -- Two Kinds of Coherence - Ascribed and Emergent -- Models, Homologies & Simulacra -- The Ascribed Coherence of Thagard and Weick -- Coherence and Business Success -- Emergence, Coherence & Narrative -- Affordances and Organization -- Homology: Sense-Making revisited -- But Experience is Different -- Complexity tools: the Semiotic Square & Homology -- Steps to Implementation.

This text offers a reflection on the nature and significance of narrative in human communication.

There is an objection to coherence theories of knowledge to the effect that coherence is not connected with truth, so that when coherence leads to truth this is just a matter of luck. Coherence theories embrace falliblism, to be sure, but that does not sustain the objection. Coherence is connected with truth by principles of justified acceptance that explain the connection between coherence and truth. Coherence is connected with truth by explanatory principle, not just luck.