Bonjour’s Defense of Coherentism, Essay Example

Bonjour’s coherentism is an epistemological account that supports the possibility of human knowledge in terms of an epistemic justification based theory that emphasizes what may be termed a relational theory of truth access. As Bonjour stresses, “coherentism essentially can be viewed as a development of the failure of epistemological theories that rely on a foundationalist account of truth that emphasizes empirical justification.” (387) In this latter perspective, empirical beliefs have to refer to other empirical beliefs in order to be proven true. Accordingly, this creates an infinite regress of beliefs that results in an underlying absurdity that serves as the foundation of such foundationalism, as such beliefs must always refer to something else in order to be justified. Following this critique of foundationalism, Bonjour then establishes coherentism, that views justification in terms of a relation of propositions. In essence, coherentism becomes a legitimate epistemological thesis in the wake of foundationalism’s collapse.

Bonjour identifies the problems with empirical justification on two basic levels. The first is a particular level, in which “the epistemic issue on a particular occasion will usually be merely the justification of a single empirical belief or a small set of such beliefs.” (Bonjour, 391) Here epistemic justification does not extend beyond a very narrow paradigm. A simple empirical event is observed, and only a minimum number of beliefs are needed to justify this empirical event: for example the room is dark, because the light is turned off: this is what Bonjour terms “the local level of justification.” (391) Bonjour contrasts this local level with what he terms a “global level of justification”, in which what is at stake is “the overall justification of the entire system of empirical beliefs.” (391) Essentially, this questions the entire possibility of reliance on any empirical foundationalism. The crucial problems of epistemology are related, as Bonjour suggests, to the global level. In the last instance, Bonjour believes that the local and global levels are indistinguishable – the local level leaves open too many greater questions and is only viable in a purely mundane context. When the local level is pursued to a more radical extent, the global level of empirical justification comes into question. And this cannot be answered without developing an infinite regress: empiricism cannot justify its own principles. It is therefore that coherentism can be thought as an intervention that intrudes amidst this global level when the local level is postulated in a more rigorous manner. Coherentism accomplishes this intervention by breaking the linear sequence of regress, and positing relation betweens between different levels of truth. Accordingly, “the component beliefs of such a system will ideally be so related that each can be justified in terms of the others.” (393) Coherentism essentially understands the truth process not in terms of levels where the grouding level provides ultimate justification, but in terms of relations between these different levels. If the relations between such levels are coherent, then an epistemological justification can be achieved. A given belief therefore can be related to a certain phenomenon, for example, the room is dark because the lights are out – and the lights are out because, for example, John, who is no longer in the room, turned the lights off. Coherentism looks for the best possible justification for an epistemological event, instead of merely performing a reduction from one event to the other. Coherentism itself attempts to provide what may be termed a network of truths, and understand how such truths function in their ultimate relationality. Accordingly, there is no foundational reason for why something happens: rather all these events must rather be thought of in their relation.  As such, coherentism attempts to undermine the metaphysical prejudice that there is an ultimate ground for something, and rather looks at how justification reflects a series of inter-related propositions.

Works Cited

BonJour, Laurence. The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Epistemology: Contemporary Readings, ed. Michael Huemer, London: Routledge, 2002. pp. 387-401.