Explanatory Coherence and the Impossibility of Confirmation by Coherence

The coherence of independent reports provides a strong reason to believe that the are true. This plausible claim has come under attack from recent work in Bayesian epistemology. shows that, certain probabilistic conditions, cannot increase probability target claim. These theorems taken demonstrate epistemic coherentism is untenable. To date no one investigated how these results bear on different conceptions coherence. I investigate this situation using Thagard’s ECHO model explanatory natural representation evidential significance multiple reports.