Single Idea 2772

[catalogued under 13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 8. Social Justification]

Full Idea

An advantage of coherentism is that it directs attention away from the individual's struggle to achieve knowledge (the classical conception), and points to knowledge as a social phenomenon, shared, and increased by means of sharing.

Gist of Idea

Coherentism moves us towards a more social, shared view of knowledge

Source

Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3)

Book Reference

Dancy,Jonathan: 'Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology' [Blackwell 1985], p.119


A Reaction

This is exactly the view which I now embrace. Internal coherence is the basis, but that spills out into the community, and into books, and into the relativity of social acceptance.