Single Idea 6873

[catalogued under 13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / c. Coherentism critique]

Full Idea

The problem of Concurrent Retrieval is a problem for internalism, notably coherentism, because an agent could ascertain coherence of her entire corpus only by concurrently retrieving all of her stored beliefs.

Clarification

Her 'corpus' is the body of all her beliefs

Gist of Idea

Coherent justification seems to require retrieving all our beliefs simultaneously

Source

Alvin I. Goldman (Internalism Exposed [1999], §3)

Book Reference

Goldman,Alvin I.: 'Pathways to Knowledge' [OUP 2002], p.11


A Reaction

Sounds neat, but not very convincing. Goldman is relying on scepticism about short-term memory, but all belief and knowledge will collapse if we go down that road. We couldn't do simple arithmetic if Goldman's point were right.