A Probabilistic Theory of the Coherence of an Information Set

In Beckermann Ansgar (ed.), Argument & Analysis: Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Society for Analytical Philosophy. Bielefeld (2001)
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Abstract

Bonjour (1985: 101 and 1999: 124) and other coherence theorists of justification before him (e.g. Ewing, 1934: 246) have complained that we do not have a satisfactory analysis of the notion of coherence. The problem with existing accounts of coherence is that they try to bring precision to our intuitive notion of coherence independently of the particular role that it is meant to play within the coherence theory of justification (e.g Lewis, 1946: 338). This is a mistake: it does not make any sense to ask what precisely makes for a more coherent information set independently of the particular role that coherence is supposed to play within the context in question. What is this context and what is this role? The coherence theory of justification rides on a particular common sense intuition: when we gather information from less than fully reliable sources, then the more coherent the story that materializes is, the more confident we may be, ceteris paribus. Within the context of information gathering from certain types of sources, coherence is a property of stories which plays a confidence boosting role. But what features should the information sources have, so that the coherence of the information set is indeed a determinant of our degree of confidence in question? And what goes into the ceteris paribus clause? In other words, what other factors affect our confidence in the information set in question?

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Author Profiles

Luc Bovens
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Stephan Hartmann
Ludwig Maximilians Universität, München

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Kohärenter explanatorischer Pluralismus.Stephan Hartmann - 2002 - In Wolfram Hogrebe (ed.), Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen. Sinclair Press. pp. 141-150.

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