ANALYSIS 54.

3 JULY 1994

What Price Coherence?

PETER KLEIN & TED A. WARFIELD

Coherence theories of knowledge and justification come in many varieties,

but what unites them all is the view that a more coherent set of beliefs is
epistemically preferable to a less coherent set of beliefs. We will not
question that central claim. What we wish to point out is that coherence,
per se, is not truth conducive; that is, we will argue that by increasing the
coherence of a set of beliefs, the new, more coherent set of beliefs is often
less likely to be true than the original, less coherent set.
This is an important result, if one of the desiderata of a theory of
epistemic justification is to reveal the connection between justification and
truth. Bonjour says:
... one crucial part of the task of an adequate epistemological theory
is to show that there is an appropriate connection between its
proposed account of epistemic justification and the cognitive goal of
truth. That is, it must somehow be shown that justification as
conceived by the theory is truth-conducive, that one who seeks justi-
fied beliefs is at least likely to find true ones. ([1], pp. 108-9)1
We will show that if epistemic justification is explicated as the coherentist
suggests, often the price of coherence is truth.
Bonjour explicitly recognizes the issue we wish to discuss. He says:
What is at issue here is the question of the connection between coher-
ence and epistemic justification: why, if a system of empirical beliefs is
1
Donald Davidson also seems concerned to establish this sort of connection between
coherence and truth:
What is needed to answer the skeptic is to show that someone with a (more or
less) coherent set of beliefs has a reason to suppose that his beliefs are not
mistaken in the main. What we have shown is that it is absurd to look for a
justifying ground for the totality of beliefs, something outside the totality which
we can use to test or compare with our beliefs. The answer to our problem must
then be to find a reason for supposing most of our beliefs are true that is not a
form of evidence. ([2], p. 314)
ANALYSIS 54.3, July 1994, pp. 129-32. © Peter Klein & Ted A. Warfield

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 130 PETER KLEIN & TED A. WARFIELD

coherent (and more coherent than any rival system), is it thereby justi-
fied in the epistemic sense, that is, why is it thereby likely to be true?

In order to show that a coherentist must prefer coherence to truth, only

two premisses are needed:
(PI) Any consistent set of beliefs, B, is more likely to be true than any
set, B*, which contains all members of B and at least one addi-
tional belief, so long as at least one additional belief in B* has
neither an objective probability of 1 nor is entailed by B.
(P2) One strategy for converting a less coherent set of beliefs into a
more coherent set of beliefs is to add a belief (to the less coherent
set) which has neither an objective probability of 1 nor is entailed
by the less coherent set of beliefs.
These two premisses jointly entail that a more coherent set of beliefs result-
ing from the addition of a belief to a less coherent set of beliefs is less likely
to be true than the less coherent set of beliefs.
(PI) requires no defence; but an illustration may clarify it. With the
restrictions mentioned in (PI) satisfied, the set of beliefs containing the
belief that p and the belief that q is more likely to contain only true beliefs
than the set of beliefs containing both of those beliefs and, additionally, the
belief that r.
(P2) requires only a minimal defence. Suffice it to say that whatever
coherence is (and it is not mere logical consistency2), a set of beliefs can be
rendered more coherent in two basic ways:
(a) the Subtraction Strategy in which a belief (and perhaps with it
many more) is subtracted from a less coherent set, thereby rend-
ing it more coherent;
(b) the Addition Strategy in which one or more beliefs are added to
a consistent set of beliefs to render the set more coherent.
There is, of course, a third strategy employing both of the basic strategies
in which some beliefs are subtracted and others are added.
We are primarily concerned with the Addition Strategy. Because some
reasoning is defeasible, a set of beliefs can be rendered more coherent by
adding one or more beliefs. Consider this example.
A detective has gathered a large body of evidence that provides a good
basis for pinning a murder on Mr. Dunnit. In particular, the detective
believes that Dunnit had a motive for the murder and that several
2
It is important, as Bonjour emphasizes, not to think that coherence is implied by mere
logical consistency. ([1], p. 95 and passim.)

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 WHAT PRICE COHERENCE? 131

credible witnesses claim to have seen Dunnit do it. However, because

the detective also believes that a credible witness claims that she saw
Dunnit two hundred miles away from the crime scene at the time the
murder was committed, her belief set is incoherent (or at least some-
what incoherent). Upon further checking, the detective discovers some
good evidence that Dunnit has an identical twin whom the witness
providing the alibi mistook for Dunnit.
In the absence of contravening considerations, the coherence theorist
would recommend that the detective add the belief about the twin and the
belief that Dunnit did it to her belief set because doing so would make her
beliefs more coherent. The 'old' set contained evidence both for and
against the claim that Dunnit did it, and presumably, the detective would
have withheld belief about the identity of the murderer. The belief that
Dunnit did it was defeated by the belief about the reliable witness's testi-
mony. But once the detective discovers the evidence for the existence and
whereabouts of the twin, the effect of the defeater is overridden. We agree
with the coherentist that the new set is in some sense epistemically preferable
to the old set, at least in part, because the new set is more coherent. But we
do not think that the new set is more likely to be true than the old set.
We take this to be a typical example in which the Addition Strategy would
be employed. All of the beliefs in the original set are included in the new set
and coherence is increased by adding the beliefs about the twin and the belief
that Dunnit is the murderer. But it is crucial to note that since the new set
contains more beliefs than the old set and the added beliefs neither have an
objective probability of 1 nor are they entailed by the old set, the more
coherent set is less likely to be true than is the original, less coherent set.
The moral we wish to draw is this: Coherence may have a positive epis-
temic value. But often its price is truth. Coherence, per se, is not truth-
conducive. We anticipate three objections.
First, the coherentist may wish to deny that the Addition Strategy is a
legitimate strategy for bringing a belief set to coherence (or more coher-
ence) because, as we have shown, that strategy commits the coherentist to
preferring coherence to truth. This reply is implausible. Consider the
Dunnit Example again. Surely the detective's acquiring overwhelming
evidence that Mr. Dunnit has a twin and that it was the twin that the
witness saw miles away from the crime scene warrants the detective in
employing the Addition Strategy in rendering her belief set coherent. This
particular case is but one instance of a very common type. Ruling out the
Addition Strategy by fiat is unacceptable.
The second objection we anticipate is this. Coherentists may wish to
point out that they are committed to defending only the thesis that
coherent belief sets are at least somewhat likely to contain only true

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 132. PETER KLEIN & TED A. WARFIELD

members. This thesis, the coherentists would point out, is consistent with
the fact that less coherent belief sets are, in the sort of case we have
described, more likely to contain only true beliefs than more coherent
belief sets. This reply misses the point. Coherentists themselves take more
coherent belief sets to be epistemically preferable to less coherent belief sets
just because they are more coherent and must recognize the Addition
Strategy as one way of rendering a less coherent belief set more coherent.
These commitments are enough to obligate the coherentist to sacrifice
truth for coherence.
Third, the coherentist may wish to point out that in the Dunnit Example,
the augmented, more coherent set and the original, less coherent set are not
genuine 'rivals'. (See the quotation from Bonjour above.) After all, the
objection continues, only the augmented set contains a belief about the
identity of the murderer. In other words, with a carefully crafted account
of 'rival' systems of beliefs, coherentists could point out that their claim is
only this: Among rival systems, the most coherent one is more likely to be
true. But this reply again misses the point. Granted, we have not shown
that among 'rival' sets of beliefs the more coherent set is often less likely to
be true than the less coherent sets. What we have shown is that coherence,
per se, is not truth conducive. The coherentist will, on occasion, be forced
to chose between the increased coherence of a set of beliefs and the reduced
likelihood of its truth.
To sum up: Increasing the coherence of a belief set often costs truth.
Thus, the coherentist is left with two alternatives: Either epistemic justifi-
cation cannot be explicated in terms of the coherence of a system of beliefs
or epistemic justification is not truth conducive.3

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

New Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA
klein@zodiac.rutgers.edu; warfield@zodiac.rutgers.edu

References
[1] Laurence Bonjour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1985).
[2] Donald Davidson, 'A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge', in Truth and
Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, edited by
Ernest Lepore (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 307-19.

3
We wish to thank The Editor, Richard Foley, Rudy Garns, Barry Loewer, Brian
Mclaughlin, Tom Senor, and Steve Stich for their comments on early drafts of this
paper.

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