BonJour 's Coherentism

Rejecting the Linear Model of Justification

BonJour starts out by rejecting the linear model of justification. He claims that inferential justification only appears linear if one considers attempts to justify a belief or small set of beliefs in isolation. Here, he claims, the issue of regress never arises, as the overall justification of the epistemic system is not in question. The issues of regress, claims BonJour , only emerge when one focuses upon the global justification of the entire system. At his level, however, the question is not one of linear support, but one of "mutual or reciprocal support." Without linearity, and its implied prioritization among beliefs, there is no question of a regress.

BonJour 's Model of Belief Justification

According to BonJour the full and explicit justification of a particular belief involves the following four distinct steps of argument.

1.) The inferability of that particular belief from other beliefs, and further inference relations among particular beliefs.

2.) The coherence of the overall system of beliefs.

Here BonJour offers no substantial notion of the coherence

relation. So in this way, it is really a schema for a theory.

BonJour does tell us that coherence is not mere consistency,

that is comes in degrees, and that it is closely connected to

the concept of explanation.

3.) The justification of the overall system of beliefs.

As near as I can tell, this involves ( i ) citing the system's

coherence, (ii) showing it is as coherent as any available

alternative, (iii) showing that it includes some beliefs about

sensory processes that are reliable.

4.) The justification of the particular belief in question, by virtue of its membership in the system.

Presumably 4 differs from 1 in that 1 shows that the belief is

inferentially permissible, while 4 shows that it was actually

(correctly) inferred and is part of the system.

The Three Objections

BonJour sees the major trouble for coherence theories to arise from the step from 2 to 3. It is here where the traditional objections to coherence theory emerge on BonJour 's scheme:

( P1 ) Coherence is cheap. There are many equally coherent, but incompatible systems.

( P2 ) Coherence is a relation between beliefs and/or a property of systems of beliefs, not the world. Hence, the theory of justification fails to tie the beliefs to the world.

( P3 ) There is demonstrated connection between coherence and reliability.

BonJour 's Responses ( P2 )

( P2 ) Coherence is a relation between beliefs and systems of beliefs, not the world. Hence, the theory of justification fails to tie the beliefs to the world.

BonJour begins by responding to (II): He articulates a theory of how perceptual beliefs are justified, which he distinguishes from the process whereby they originate. The schema for belief justification is inferential, based upon empirical premises which are known ("in a rough and ready way), and presupposes that the processes whereby the various sensory beliefs originate are reliable in two senses (in production and in being triggered). The fact that he requires that the processes be reliable in fact seems to invalidate his claim that all beliefs are justified in his system solely in virtue of their inferential relations. Later BonJour seems to state his requirement in terms of the system having beliefs about spontaneously generated beliefs. But, it is clear that without the reliability requirement, requiring beliefs in no way guarantees that the system will have any interesting relationship to the world. Specifically, BonJour claims that the outlined inferences must be, "...tacitly or implicitly involved in the cognitive state of the person who has observational knowledge,..." in a way BonJour never really articulates. He does tell us that "...a tacit grasp of the availability of the inference is the basis for the continuing acceptance of the belief and for the conviction that it is warranted." (p.233) I would suggest that this amounts, as we saw with the foundationalist, to a counterfactual claim about what inferences the knower could make in some specified circumstances. The schema goes as follows:

(i) I have a spontaneous [insert sensory modality] belief that [insert propositional content].

(ii) Spontaneous [insert sensory modality] beliefs about the [insert target belief-type] are, in [specify appropriate conditions] conditions, very likely to be true.

(iii) The conditions are as specified in (ii).

------------------------------------

Therefore, probably [insert propositional content].

BonJour's Responses (P2)

BonJour anticipates objections to the effect that the first premise seems unjustifiable by offering an account. According to this account the beliefs are generated by introspection and are justified inferentially in the same manner as sensory beliefs, but by the following argument schema:

(*) Introspective beliefs (of certain sorts) are very likely to be true.

_________

Hence, [insert propositional content of introspective belief] is probably true.

The idea here is that premise (i), a belief that one has an introspective belief with the specified content, is not needed for the argument. BonJour's reasoning is that "it is a fact about human perceivers that their beliefs about introspective matters accord with and reflect their spontaneous introspective beliefs." (p.234) Premise (iii) proves unnecessary since "...introspection,...,is almost impervious to conditions." (p.234)

It strikes me as far from clear that, in fact, (i) and (iii) are dispensable. As introspection is not entirely impervious to conditions, don't we still need (iii)? Second, BonJour claims that the purpose of (i) is to assert that the belief is spontaneous. This strikes me as false. Surely, part of the purpose is to identify the source of the belief. And this surely seems to be necessary. If we were to delete the term "spontaneous" from the premise it would still cause the trouble (another regress) to which BonJour's schema is addressed.

BonJour's Responses ( P1 )

( P1 ) Coherence is cheap. There are many equally coherent, but incompatible systems.

Here BonJour's response is to deny that (i) holds true in the long run, essentially without argument.

There is a long skeptical tradition in philosophy of science which holds that mere consistency with the evidence is an insufficient criteria for theory choice. Essentially the idea is that for any set of evidence, there are an infinite number of theories that can explain the evidence. An oft cited example is Ptolemaic astronomy.

BonJour's Responses (P3)

( P3 ) There is demonstrated connection between coherence and reliability.

Here BonJour's claim in that in the long run, such systems as he describes will either become incoherent or will have true beliefs--again because of their touchstone in observation. BonJour considers four possibilities for maintaining coherence in the face of observational challenges. First, one could consistently dismiss observational beliefs in favor of nonobservational beliefs. He claims that this option violates the observation requirement. Second, it could be that we are epistemically unlucky in that the potential conflicting observations never occur. He claims that such a possibility will decrease in probability as time elapses. Third, the problems are nonobservational in nature. Here the response seems to be that surely we can discover these problems. Fourth, suppose the system interacts with the world in a way which is isomorphic, so that interactions never result in observations that introduce observational beliefs that challenge the false beliefs in the system. Here BonJour merely claims that such situations are unlikely.

BonJour's Coherentism

Rejecting the Linear Model of Justification

-Belief Justification

-System Justification

BonJour's Model of Belief Justification

1.) The inferability of that particular belief from other beliefs, and further inference relations among particular beliefs.

2.) The coherence of the overall system of beliefs.

3.) The justification of the overall system of beliefs.

4.) The justification of the particular belief in question, by virtue of its membership in the system.

The Three Objections

( P1 ) Coherence is cheap. There are many equally coherent, but incompatible systems.

(P2) Coherence is a relation between beliefs and/or a property of systems of beliefs, not the world. Hence, the theory of justification fails to tie the beliefs to the world.

( P3 ) There is demonstrated connection between coherence and reliability.

BonJour's Responses (P2)

(P2) Coherence is a relation between beliefs and systems of beliefs, not the world. Hence, the theory of justification fails to tie the beliefs to the world.

-Origins vs Justification

-Justification

-Inferential

-Empirical Premises (known)

-Reliable Processes

-True Beliefs

-Triggering

The schema goes as follows:

(i) I have a spontaneous [insert sensory modality] belief that [insert propositional content].

(ii) Spontaneous [insert sensory modality] beliefs about the [insert target belief-type] are, in [specify appropriate conditions] conditions, very likely to be true.

(iii) The conditions are as specified in (ii).

------------------------------------

Therefore, probably [insert propositional content].

BonJour's Responses (P2)

The Schema For Introspective Beliefs

(*) Introspective beliefs (of certain sorts) are very likely to be true.

_________

Hence, [insert propositional content of introspective belief] is probably true.

BonJour's Responses ( P1 )

(P2) Coherence is cheap. There are many equally coherent, but incompatible systems.

BonJour: False in the long run

Poverty of Stimulus Arguments

BonJour's Responses ( P3 )

( P3 ) There is demonstrated connection between coherence and reliability.

Here BonJour's claim in that in the long run, such systems as he describes will either become incoherent or will have true beliefs.

-Favor Nonobservational Beliefs

-Epistemically Unlucky

-Nonobservables

-Radical Isomorphism