Logic, Coherence and Psychology

Abstract

Whether or not one abandons a foundationalist theory of epistemic justification in favor of a coherence theory of justification, it is still tempting to think that considerations of coherence do play, and ought to play, an important role in determining what it is reasonable for us to believe. Even as thoroughgoing a foundationalist as Roderick Chisholm explains how important kinds of statements about the external world come to be beyond a reasonable doubt by appealing to the fact that they fit together in sets of propositions that exhibit the property he calls “concurrence” (Chisholm 1977, pp. 82–84).¹