The Foundationalism–Coherentism Opposition Revisited: The Case for Complementarism

In this paper, I show the complementarity of foundationalism and coherentism with respect to any efficient system of beliefs by means of a distinction between two types of proposition drawn from an analogy with an axiomatic system. This distinction is based on the way a given proposition is acknowledged as true, either by declaration (F-proposition) or by preservation (C-proposition). Within such a perspective, i.e., epistemological complementarism, not only can one see how the usual opposition between foundationalism and coherentism is irrelevant, but furthermore one can appreciate the reciprocal relation between these two theories as they refer to two separate epistemological functions involved in the dynamics of constituting and expanding an epistemic system.

How incoherent measurement succeeds: Coordination and success in the measurement of the earth's polar flattening

The development of nineteenth-century geodetic measurement challenges the dominant coherentist account of metric success. Coherentists argue that measurements of a parameter are successful if their numerical outcomes convergence across varying contextual constraints. Aiming at numerical convergence, in turn, offers an operational aim for scientists to solve problems of coordination. Geodesists faced such a problem of coordination between two indicators of the earth's polar flattening, which were both based on imperfect ellipsoid models. While not achieving numerical convergence, their measurements produced novel data that grounded valuable theoretical hypotheses. Consequently, they ought to be regarded as epistemically successful. This insight warrants a dynamic revision of coherentism, which allows to judge the success of a metric based on both its coherence and fruitfulness. On that view, scientific measurement aims to coordinate theoretical definitions and produce novel data and theoretical insights.     

Closing the door to cloud-cuckoo land: a reply to Šešelja and Straßer

Šešelja and Straßer’s critique fails to hit its target for two main reasons. First, the argument is not that Kuhn is a rationalist because he is a coherentist. Although Kuhn can be taken as a rationalist because of his commitment to epistemic values, coherence analysis provides a more comprehensive characterisation of cognitive process in scientific change than any of these values alone can offer. Further, we should understand Kuhn as characterising science as the best form of rationality we have outside logic, which rules out algorithmic rationality and allows non-cognitive factors to play a role in theory change. Second, Šešelja and Straßer overemphasise the importance of a priori reasoning in Kuhn, which was only an alternative to his earlier historical-empirical approach. My suggestion is that Kuhn’s neo-Kantian historical cognitivism integrates the earlier empirical and the later a-prioristic orientations. According to it, that any understanding of the world is preconditioned by some kind of mental module that is liable to change, detected as a discontinuity in the historical record of science.