Two Coherence Principles

Abstract

The paper states two coherence principles (roughly: (i) for each proposition there is an inductive, i.e., nondeductive reason, or no proposition is inductively independent of all others; and, more strongly, (ii) the set of all propositions cannot be partitioned into two inductively independent parts), explains their epistemological importance (the second, in particular, gives a weak, but good explication of epistemic coherence), investigates their grounds, and finds them, not in Carnap's inductive logic, not in the individuation of propositions, not along the lines of the transcendental unity of apperception, but in a fundamental principle of rationality and an elementary theory of perception.