This paper sets out to demonstrate that a contrast can be drawn between coherentism as an account of the structure of justification, and coherentism as a method of inquiry. Whereas the former position aims to offer an answer to the ‘regress of justification’ problem, the latter position claims that coherence plays a vital and indispensable role as a criterion of truth, given the fallibility of cognitive methods such as perception and memory. It is argued that ‘early’ coherentists like Bradley and (...) Blanshard were coherentists of the latter kind, and that this sort of coherentism is not open to certain sorts of standard objection that can be raised against justificatory coherentism. (shrink)

This paper aims to renew the “deflationary” interpretation of Ramsey’s theory of truth, with respect to his declared “pragmatist tendency,” which was not completely developed due to his premature death. This aim is not only historical-philosophical, but also exquisitely theoretical, since the mediation of pragmatism allowed Ramsey to achieve an original synthesis among different philosophical instances. In order to show this, I pay attention to the debate between Ramsey and some spokespeople of the leading British philosophical traditions at the beginning (...) of the twentieth century (especially Neo-idealism, Neo-empiricism, and Oxford Realism), through which it will stand out how Ramsey’s logical analysis of the truth predicate was embedded within a wider theoretical context, involving a pragmatic theory of knowledge and even a “general psychological theory.” Indeed, the truth of a belief will be defined in relation to mental factors, in so far as they involve a successful disposition to behave. (shrink)