Abstract
The usual objection to the coherence theory of factual truth is that the linkage of coherence to truth is simply too loose for coherence to provide the definitive standard of truth. As Arthur Pap put it some years ago:
It is quite conceivable that the coherence theory is a description of how the truth or falsehood of statements comes to be known rather than an analysis of the meaning of “true”.... One might agree that a given statement is accepted as true in virtue of standing in certain logical relations to other statements; still it would not follow that in calling it true one means to ascribe to it those relations.1
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Notes to Essay Two
Arthur Pap, Elements of Analytic Philosophy, MacMillan, New York, 1949, p. 356.
Brand Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, 2 volumes, Allen & Unwin, London, 1939, Vol. 2, pp. 267–68.
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© 1987 D. Reidel Publishing Company
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Rescher, N. (1987). Truth as Ideal Coherence. In: Forbidden Knowledge. Episteme, vol 13. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3771-0_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3771-0_2
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