Coherentism

There are three main papers in which I tried to develop my account of coherentism.

The first paper, Law and Coherence (Chapter 2 of my book Studies in Legal Logic 2005), contains my first serious steps on the path of coherentism. Important conclusions are that:

• coherence is a characteristic of a position set; where positions do not only include beliefs, but also rules (including inference rules), principles, goals, values etc.
• the coherence of a position set is determined by the standards for coherence contained in the set itself (integrated coherentism);
• making a position set coherent leads to expansion of the set, where the end point of this expansion is a theory of literally 'everything' (comprehensiveness);
• justification is relative to a person (who is justified in accepting a position set), or a social group (which shares the standards for evaluating the coherence of a position set).

The second paper, Three Kinds of Coherentism (2013), approaches coherentism from a more abstract and philosophical perspective. It discusses, amongst others, the following topics:

• the truth connection: why would a coherent position set correspond to the facts?
• the difference between coherentism as an epistemological theory (which deals with coherence as a mark of truthfulness) and coherentism as an otological theory (which addresses the role of coherence in constituting the facts).

The third paper, Anything goes. An apology for Parallel Distributed Legal Science (2016), brings two additions to the orginal idea of integrated coherentism:

1. an elaboration of the hunch that a practical version of coherentism works with a less demanding form of coherence; and
2. more emphasis on the idea that the construction of a coherent position set is a social enterprise.

In a series of papers I published in the 2020s, I distinguished two kinds of facts in social reality (social facts). One kind consists of facts that are not held for a special reason, but which are broadly accepted in a social group. I called them conventional facts. The other kind consists of facts that are held for reasons, and which exist because of these reasons. In other words: the role of the reasons is not epistemic but ontological. I called these facts constructivist facts, or reason-based facts. Reason-based facts exist in a social group it their existence should rationally be recognised by the group members. What is rational in this connection is determined by coherence. Those facts exist as reason-based facts whose existence coheres with the other social facts recognised in the group. In short: coherence determines what reason-based facts exist.

There is need for a (lengthy) paper that combines three ideas, namely

1. that (social) reality is a construction of minds;
2. that this mind-dependence of the facts explains necessary (some would say: 'logical' or ' constitutive') relations between facts;
3. the role of coherence in determining what the facts are.

I still hope to write that paper.