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Full Idea
If coherentism is construed as involving the believer's entire body of beliefs, that would imply, most implausibly, that the justification of a belief in one area (physics) could be undermined by serious incoherence in another area (art history).
Gist of Idea
My incoherent beliefs about art should not undermine my very coherent beliefs about physics
Source
Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.1)
Book Ref
Bonjour,L/Sosa,E: 'Epistemic Justification' [Blackwells 2003], p.45
A Reaction
Bonjour suggests that a moderated coherentism is needed to avoid this rather serious problem. It is hard to see how a precise specification could be given of 'areas' and 'local coherence'. An idiot about art would inspire little confidence on physics.
| 8887 | It is hard to give the concept of 'self-evident' a clear and defensible characterization [Bonjour] |
| 8888 | The concept of knowledge is so confused that it is best avoided [Bonjour] |
| 8889 | Reliabilists disagree over whether some further requirement is needed to produce knowledge [Bonjour] |
| 8890 | If the reliable facts producing a belief are unknown to me, my belief is not rational or responsible [Bonjour] |
| 8891 | My incoherent beliefs about art should not undermine my very coherent beliefs about physics [Bonjour] |
| 8892 | Coherence seems to justify empirical beliefs about externals when there is no external input [Bonjour] |
| 8894 | Coherentists must give a reason why coherent justification is likely to lead to the truth [Bonjour] |
| 8893 | For any given area, there seem to be a huge number of possible coherent systems of beliefs [Bonjour] |
| 8895 | If neither the first-level nor the second-level is itself conscious, there seems to be no consciousness present [Bonjour] |
| 8896 | Conscious states have built-in awareness of content, so we know if a conceptual description of it is correct [Bonjour] |
| 8897 | The adverbial account will still be needed when a mind apprehends its sense-data [Bonjour] |