Talk (Work in Progress): Borut Trpin (MCMP)

Title:

The Indeterminacies of Coherence

Abstract:

According to a common view, a set of propositions is justified if it is coherent. Similarly, a new proposition should be accepted if it is coherent with the accepted set of beliefs. But what is coherence? And what in turn justifies the above claims? To answer these questions, various Bayesian coherence measures have been proposed. Most of these measures are based on a ''static'' conceptualization of coherence and use the prior probability distribution in question. We criticize this conceptualization and replace it with a ''dynamic'' one based on the posterior probability distribution. This results in a challenge to a position we call ''scientific coherentism''. We conclude with a discussion of possible answers to this challenge.