Abstract
This paper aspires to a general elucidation of the concept of ‘coherence’. The purpose is to reduce the concept into a set of criteria or rules of application with which we could distinguish the coherent conclusions from the incoherent ones in any legal reasoning. This old aspiration is clouded by the traditional ambiguity of the coherentist literature and its tendency to express their tenets through diverse images and metaphors. However, the paper suggests that all these metaphors can be explored to rescue an explicit message, because most of them share some common patterns, an underlying consensus respecting the demands and requirements of a right, justified or coherent reasoning. The first part of the paper traces the coherentist literature in legal philosophy and epistemology in order to select the most meaningful and widely known metaphors. The research picks six of them—the raft, the net, the puzzle, the crossword, the spiral and the chain novel—, and proceeds to translate their images into more explicit statements. The second part draws the general patterns that underlie these six metaphors, and suggests four conditions of coherence. The first three conditions are variations of the idea of consistency: ‘concordance’, ‘cohesion’ and ‘unity’. The fourth one or ‘comprehensivity’ brings coherence beyond consistency, and expresses the tendency to complexity and the disposition to learn of any system which we could judge as minimally successful.
From the beginning, the art of the jigsaw looks brief and simple […]: the object at stake… is not a list of elements which we should first isolate or analyze; it is an ensemble, one form, one structure: the knowledge of the whole set, of its laws, structure and composition, cannot be deduced from the knowledge of each of its separate pieces. It means that we can stay for days observing one piece of a jigsaw, believing that we know everything about its colour and configuration, and in fact having made no progress: only the fit of this piece with the others matter. There is a resemblance in this description between the art of the jigsaw and the game of go: only the combined pieces have an intelligible sense.
La vie mode d’emploi,.
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Notes
- 1.
In legal theory, the accusation of obscurity is frequent: ‘Although Dworkin and Sartorius rely on the concept of coherence, they do not explicate it’. Baum-Levenbook (1984, 355).
- 2.
The classical coherentists, e.g. Bradley, Bosanquet or Joachim, repeat expressions like hang together or fit well with one another. Their ambiguity deserved the classical criticism by Ewing (1934, 246). It is also denounced that, although the coherentist authors constantly remark that ‘coherence’ is more than mere ‘consistency’, they never explain the meaning of this addition. Bartleborth (1999, 210), Millgram (2000, 82), Bovens and Hartmann (2003, 602).
- 3.
For Putnam (1982, 133), ‘coherence’ is not explainable by algorithms: it is something we judge ‘by seat of the pants’ feel’.
- 4.
- 5.
Brink (2001, 123).
- 6.
Hoffmaster (1980), MacCormick (1993, 24), Sartorius (1968, 135). ‘Legal interpretation is inherently holist, even when the apparent target of interpretation is a single sentence or even a single clause rather than a document’. Dworkin (1996b, 80). I analyzed holistic theories’ problems in law in Pérez Bermejo (2007).
- 7.
Millgram (2000, 85–6). That is why he demands ‘sensitivity’ towards the internal structure of the analized system, its connections and incompatibilities.
- 8.
We leave aside many others. Dworkin (1996a, 119), e.g., resorts to the geodesic dome: our whole intellectual structure is not a pyramid, but a dome where all the elements support each other.
- 9.
See ‘The Raft and the Pyramid’ (Sosa 1980).
- 10.
‘There is no tabula rasa… The fate of being discarded may befall a protocol statement’. Neurath (1959, 203).
- 11.
- 12.
- 13.
A coherentist system is ‘a interconnected family of theses’. Rescher (1974, 699).
- 14.
- 15.
The chain’s resilience is marked by its weakest link; the net’s resilience is marked by the strongest one, because it can always be used. Viola (1987, 379).
- 16.
In neurological slang, the system must ‘reorganize its synapses’. Bar-Yar (2003).
- 17.
Bartelborth (1999, 223). For Rescher (1973, 42), a problem of our epistemic jigsaw is represented by a number of spare or superfluous pieces: the erroneous and contradictory ones. However, Bartelborth seems to remark the opposite: our knowledge depends upon some pieces coming from experience, but also upon ‘theories’ which are not already included in our box, but must be reconstructed by ourselves. In legal theory, the jigsaw has also been proposed as a metaphor for the judicial reasoning: Alexy and Peczenik (1990, 135). Finally, Aarnio (1997, 42) also remarks that the whole figure must be reconstructed again and again: “In legal reasoning the ‘figure’ is developing throughout the game, and no one knows in advance which is the entire set of arguments”.
- 18.
It must be noticed that S. Haack does not feel comfortable with the label ‘coherentism’, and sides with a peculiar eclectic theory coined by herself as ‘foundherentism’. Her reasons against pure coherentism are its denial of priorities and hierarchies, and the coherentist refusal to accept untouchable beliefs: in her view, it is obvious that our beliefs own a different degree of reliability and value. See Haack (1993, 78ff.). However, I profit from Haack’s arguments because, in my view, her departure from coherentism is not substantial: Haack does not either belief in unchangeable hierarchies, and accepts that the pedigree of the most valuable beliefs is revisable. She does not deny that her theory is closer to coherentism than to foundationalism. Haack (1993, 120).
- 19.
Haack (1993, 123). Haack’s intentions are clearly beyond this brief paraphrase. For example, she highlights the importance of definitions, because they represent the superior value she concedes to empirical evidence. Our portrait has underplayed the superior value she assigns to definitions respecting consistence. Nevertheless, we are faithful to her valuation of consistence as a necessary condition for any knowledge, and to the demand of interplay between consistence and respect to definitions.
- 20.
Reflective equilibrium is not free of unorthodox interpretations. For DePaul (1986, 60ff.), it is an example of foundationalism, the rival theory of coherentism.
- 21.
See e.g. Osborne (1991).
- 22.
Rawls (1971, 19–20), Daniels (1996, 60–1).
- 23.
Rawls (1980). The circle is complex because the theories we are referring to are also selected by some considered intuitive judgments. In order to avoid redundancies, the set of moral judgments which should match the principles and the set of judgments with which we select the theories must be disjoint sets. The complications reach the degree showed by Daniels’ diagram in Daniels (1996, 51).
- 24.
On social and individual coherence, see Sosa (1989, 263ff.).
- 25.
Concepts such as ‘legal tradition’ or ‘inherited legal wisdom’ are differently modulated in each community. The Spanish Constitutional Court, e.g., includes not only positive rules (statutes, judicial sentences, etc.) but also ‘the extended ideas and convictions generally admitted by lawyers, judges and specialists in law’. STC11/1981, 8th of February.
- 26.
- 27.
- 28.
- 29.
It means a preference for the conclusion exhibiting a ‘systematic import’: Hoffmaster (1980, 178ff.). In my view, this criterion matches Peczenik’s demands of ‘generality’ (Peczenik 1989, 172ff.), and the concern for connections ‘as tight as possible’ in (Aarnio et al. 1981, 268). McFall (1987, 6–7) remarks a link between the moral virtue of integrity and the meaning of coherence as ‘non division’ in our system of moral beliefs.
- 30.
These theories have been harshly criticized by the defenders of an ‘atomistic’ or ‘analytical’ view of the judicial probatory works. Critics sustain that holism allows the judge to stop the factual investigation as, in his view, he can construct a story which is consistent and able to answer all the debated questions of the case. Possibly, only part of the issues of the case has been corroborated by empirical evidence. However, this part can be sufficient to sustain the consistency of the story and, in this case, coherence allows the judge to safely unveil the rest of the factual issues and circumstances in the same way some secure letters in the crossword allow us to unveil the others. For the critics, this second group of factual issues and circumstances would simply be guessed, but not proven: the only way of proving a story is by dividing or analyzing it into all the relevant issues, and furnishing a separate empirical evidence for any single one (e.g. Taruffo 2008, 187ff., 2010, Chaps. 2 and 3). These accusations of probatory carelessness may be deserved by some radical versions of the so-called theories of narrative coherence. However, when we apply a correctly understood idea of coherence, these accusations become misleading. Coherence theories of evidence do not definitely disregard the scientific requirements of empirical evidence: any reasonable judge knows that they are an important element of the system of knowledge. It is true that the judge may accept new statements without practising new empirical tests, but according to some conditions. Firstly, the judge cannot suspect any incompatibility between the new statements and the elementary demands of scientific evidence. Secondly, the new statements must respect to a considerable degree the conditions of cohesion and unity we have described. It means that they must be connected with the rest of the statements—specially the empirically tested ones—by a dense network of logical inferences. This second condition clearly reveals what is problematic in the atomistic theories: it is difficult to understand why we cannot profit from these logical inferences. As we know, a system of beliefs is not anything we can divide into independent or isolated chains or branches, but a network whose elements are deeply interwoven. These connections compose a valuable set of accumulated wisdom, and it is a normal assumption in any investigation that a scientist can profit from it to enlarge the system.
- 31.
This criterion has been named ‘complexity’, ‘learning’, ‘soundness’, etc. I chose the term ‘comprehensivity’ following (Aarnio et al. 1981, 268).
- 32.
- 33.
Dworkin (1986, 219–224). ‘People are entitled that the injustice factor in any decision that deprives them of what they are entitled to have be taken into account’. Dworkin (1985, 100–1). The main shortcoming of Sartorius’ coherentism is precisely his identification of coherence and consistency, and his complete disregard for the role of justice. Sartorius (1968, 139).
- 34.
This agenda is called by Dworkin ‘pure integrity’: Dworkin (1986, 406–7).
- 35.
Dworkin (1977, 340–1). In 1986, Dworkin renamed this dimension as ‘justification’, which introduced some confusion: integrity now combines ‘fit’ and ‘justification’, as if ‘fit’ would not play any justifying role. See p.255. In Justice for Hedgehogs, when discussing theory of truth, he renames again this addition to fit, and terms it ‘conviction’ (2011, 120ff.).
- 36.
This paper reformulates the essay ‘Razones de coherencia’, printed in Estudios en homenaje al profesor Gregorio Peces-Barba (2008, Madrid: Dykinson). I am grateful to my colleagues of Salamanca and Alicante for all their comments and criticisms.
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Bermejo, J.M.P. (2013). Coherence: An Outline in Six Metaphors and Four Rules. In: Araszkiewicz, M., Šavelka, J. (eds) Coherence: Insights from Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Artificial Intelligence. Law and Philosophy Library, vol 107. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6110-0_4
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