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When Can What You Don’t Know Hurt You?

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The Current State of the Coherence Theory

Part of the book series: Philosophical Studies Series ((PSSP,volume 44))

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Abstract

There seem to be Gettier cases that do not involve any false beliefs that the coherentist must say involve knowledge. In order to avoid this result the coherentist must attribute false assumptions to the subject, but that forces him to say that knowledge is lacking in certain cases involving misleading, unpossessed evidence. I will argue that the coherentist cannot escape this dilemma. That is because knowledge requires reliable, non-negligent belief formation where, in addition, the subject does not hold a true belief by sheer luck, and coherentism cannot adequately account for any of these conditions.

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References

  • Bender, John W. “Knowledge, Justification, and Lehrer’s Theory of Coherence.” Philosophical Studies (1988), (forthcoming).

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  • Plantinga, Alvin. “Coherentism and the Evidentialist Objection to Belief in God,” in Rationality, Religious Belief, & Moral Commitment, Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright, eds., Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986: 109–38.

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John W. Bender

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© 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Russell, B. (1989). When Can What You Don’t Know Hurt You?. In: Bender, J.W. (eds) The Current State of the Coherence Theory. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 44. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2360-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2360-7_8

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7563-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2360-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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