If coherence is to have justificatory status, as some analytical philosophers think it has, it must be truth-conducive, if perhaps only under certain specific conditions. This paper is a critical discussion of some recent arguments that seek to show that under no reasonable conditions can coherence be truth-conducive. More specifically, it considers Bovens and Hartmann's and Olsson's "impossibility results," which attempt to show that coherence cannot possibly be a truth-conducive property. We point to various ways in which the advocates of a coherence theory of justification may attempt to divert the threat of these results.

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doi.org/10.1007/s11229-006-9060-x, hdl.handle.net/1765/65012
Synthese
Erasmus School of Philosophy

Meijs, W., & Douven, I. (2007). On the alleged impossibility of coherence. Synthese, 157(3), 347–360. doi:10.1007/s11229-006-9060-x