Abstract

This dissertation undertakes a critical examination of contemporary epistemological coherentism. Chapter one explicates the notion of epistemological coherentism and contrasts it with its main alternative, foundationalism. The revival of interest in coherentism is traced to its roots in certain key developments in recent analytic epistemology: the critiques of the given and of the analytic/synthetic distinction, and the reaction against externalist responses to the Gettier problem. ;Chapters two, three, and four examine the coherence theories of Gilbert Harman, Keith Lehrer, and Laurence BonJour, respectively. Notwithstanding the difference among these theories, a pair of problems emerge which are evidently characteristic of contemporary coherentism. First, each theory makes justification and knowledge dependent upon matters that are not plausibly reflected in the epistemic agent's belief system. In each case this is fatal not only to internalist coherentism, but also to the notion of a properly doxastic coherence theory. Bonjour's effort to finesse this difficulty through a presumption is rejected as an ad hoc expedient. ;Second, each theory fails to forge the link between justification and truth. Such a link is epistemologically crucial, as the goal of epistemic justification is truth, and a theory of properly epistemic justification must show that a belief's being justified provides a ground for supposing the belief true. Harman's and Lehrer's bootstrapping strategies and Bonjour's a priori explanationist metajustification are each subjected to crippling objections. ;Chapter five examines Donald Davidson's argument for the intrinsic veridicality of belief, which, if sound, would forge the link between belief and truth. But Davidson's argument is seen to beg the question against skepticism by assuming the existence of systematic external causes of belief. None of the ways of establishing the existence of such causes considered is consistent with the basic metaphysical orientation of the new-wave coherentists with respect to belief and to truth. ;A conclusion follows, urging that a successful coherence theory of knowledge must be accompanied by suitable metaphysics of belief and of truth. In particular, as with classical idealist coherentism, Cartesian subjectivism about knowledge must be rejected and coherence must be linked to truth conceptually, but non-trivially