Epistemic justification in the context of pursuit: a coherentist approach

• Published in: Synthese (Dordrecht) 2014-09, Vol.191 (13), p.3111-3141
• Main Authors: Seselja, Dunja, Straßer, Christian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Atomic theory; Coherence theory; Coherentism; Context; Continental drift; Education; Empiricism; Epistemic justification; Epistemology; Heuristics; Logic; Metaphysics; Philosophy; Philosophy of Language; Philosophy of Science; Physical theory; Research methods; Theology
• ISSN: 0039-7857; 1573-0964
• DOI: 10.1007/s11229-014-0476-4

The aim of this paper is to offer an account of epistemic justification suitable for the context of theory pursuit, that is, for the context in which new scientific ideas, possibly incompatible with the already established theories, emerge and are pursued by scientists. We will frame our account paradigmatically on the basis of one of the influential systems of epistemic justification: Laurence Bonjour's coherence theory of justification. The idea underlying our approach is to develop a set of criteria which indicate that the pursued system is promising of contributing to the epistemic goal of robustness of scientific knowledge and of developing into a candidate for acceptance. In order to realize this we will (a) adjust the scope of Bonjour's standards—consistency, inferential density, and explanatory power, and (b) complement them by the requirement of a programmatic character. In this way we allow for the evaluation of the "potential coherence" of the given epistemic system.