Coherence Theory of Truth

Classification

Position level

specific

Domains

Epistemology

Overview

Associated with the British idealists and defended in the twentieth century by Blanshard, the coherence theory denies that truth reaches past our beliefs to a bare fact. What makes a belief true is how completely it hangs together with the rest of an ideally comprehensive system. Critics press the plurality objection: more than one coherent system seems possible, yet they cannot all be true.

Position on

• The Nature of Truth

  On what truth is: truth is not correspondence to an external fact but membership in a maximally comprehensive, consistent system of beliefs — if coherence is the only test we can apply, truth itself must consist in coherence.

Incompatible positions

• Correspondence Theory of Truth

  Question scope: The Nature of Truth

References

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Coherence Theory of Truth
• Brand Blanshard, The Nature of Thought (1939)
• Brand Blanshard, The Nature of Thought (1939), vol. II, ch. 26
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Coherence Theory of Truth (Blanshard's argument: if coherence is the test of truth, truth cannot consist in correspondence)