· B1 is a belief with observational status within Coherent System A.
· According to Bonjour, “the observational status of a belief [B1] can be recognized in a justified way from within the person’s system of beliefs, for only then could this status be used as a partial basis for the justification of such a belief, which then would allow such observational beliefs to appealed to for these various further purposes.” (p. 195)
· B1 is justified by belief B2—“But for a coherentist, the basis for such a recognition can only be the further belief, itself supposedly justified by coherence, that a given belief has this status.” (p. 195)
· But another coherent system with differing beliefs could also have beliefs within it which justify beliefs with observational status. Think of Coherent System B with B1* which is justified by B2*.
· “As long as it only beliefs and the relations among them that can be appealed to for justification, the beliefs that a specific observation has occurred is all that matters, and whether such a belief was really caused in the right way becomes entirely irrelevant.” (p. 195)
· Thus, one cannot, on coherentism, “distinguish genuine observational input from this counterfeit variety.” (p. 195)
This appears, to me, to be a powerful critique. The initial plausibility of coherentism being able to accommodate perceptual inputs which create beliefs is only rendered plausible if a foundationalist understanding is smuggled in. Once the inner consistency of the coherentism view is made clear—only other beliefs within one noetic structure can serve to justify other beliefs—then the problems as outlined by Bonjour are manifest.
