Against coherence: truth, probability, and justification

Part I. Does coherence imply truth?

Coherence, truth, and testimony: Why coherence? ; Coherence: an elusive concept ; Pinning down the coherence theorist ; Truth and agreement ; A simple witness model ; Conditions for convergence ; Convergence parameters ; Challenges for the coherence theorist

C. I. Lewis's radical justification of memory: The problem of justifying memory ; Lewisian witness scenarios ; Lewis on the convergence conditions ; The individual credibility 'need not be assigned' ; A note on Lewis's definition of independence

Laurence BonJour's radical justification of belief. The problem of justifying beliefs ; BonJour on justification from scratch ; Lying and individual credibility ; Coordinated lying and independence ; Consequences for BonJour's anti-scepticism

C . A. J. Coady's radical justification of natural testimony: The problem of justifying natural testimony ; Hume's 'fatal ambiguity' ; The argument for individual credibility ; The invocation of cohesion and coherence ; Coady's fatal ambiguity ; Closing remarks on the anti-sceptical use of coherence

Part II. Does more coherence imply higher likelihood of truth?

Making the question precise: Degrees of coherence ; Coherence and logical closure ; Testimonial truth conduciveness ; Why the Klein-Warfield argument fails ; Testimonial vs. explanatory coherence

A negative answer: Independence and individual credibility ; The need for a ceteris paribus clause ; Should specificity (strength) be held fixed? ; Should size be held fixed? ; L. J. Cohen on the influence of the prior on the posterior ; The impossibility of coherence

Part III. Other views

How not to regain the truth connection: a reply to Bovens and Hartmann

Other coherence theories: Nicholas Rescher ; Donald Davidson ; Keith Lehrer ; Paul Thagard

Part IV. Scepticism and incoherence

Pragmatism, doubt, and the role of incoherence: Cartesian scepticism ; Jamesian wagering ; Peirce's reply to scepticism ; More on incoherence as a reason for doubt ; Three roads to scepticism ; Comparison with other contemporary responses ; Conclusion.