A Network Model

At the core of Rescher’s argument is a network model of epistemology in which the overall outcome of an inquiry process brings a level of coherence (compatible with the relevant data) that cannot necessarily be discerned from the sum of its individual components. Given the critical role of context in the shaping of the factors under consideration in any inquiry process, singular ones are seldom determinative. Crucial, rather is the “overall best fit” (p. 143) in how the various aspects of an inquiry project are related to each other. The similarity with Dewey’s concept of the “total qualitative situation” is striking even as Rescher stresses more the epistemological role of systematization as the basis to establish a “rational warrant” (p. 193) for truth claims.

Rescher’s argument is epistemological through and through in positing a sharp distinction between truth and what can be warranted through critical reason, which by definition “must be self-consistent if it is to merit serious consideration” even if it is “a coherent theory of an inconsistent reality” (p. 162). In this respect, Rescher has made a rhetorical claim in which “to systematize our knowledge into a coherent whole” (p. 163) is by definition what is meant by rationality. For Rescher, this “first principle” is ipso facto what is meant by philosophy. With that premise established, “the parameters of systematicity – coherence, consistency, uniformity”— serve as “methodological guides” (p. 163) or regulative ideals of inquiry.

Rejecting axiomatic truth claims, Rescher, as with Dewey and Popper, has taken “for a starting point…a relatively generous and undemanding quest for well-qualified candidates or prospects for truth” (p. 175). Searching for “plausibilities and “probabilities” rather than mere “possibilities” (p. 179), the critical rational work is in the winnowing process of honing in on the “best fit in terms of mutual accord and attunement” (p.178) based on a contextual analysis of the factors impacting on the research project at hand. Rather than depending upon “the implicative capacity of certain basic prior truths” (p. 178), a systemic approach starts with a wide span of information, theory, and data, which then evolves through “suitable reductive maneuvers” (p. 179). “For the coherentist knowledge is not a Baconian brick wall, with block supporting block upon a solid foundation; but rather a spider’s web in which each item of knowledge is a node linked to others by thin strands of evidential connection, each weak, but all together, collectively adequate to create a strong structure” (p. 173). Dispensing with claims of “foundational certainty” (p. 173), the coherentist theory espoused by Rescher “sees a cognitive system as an organized family of interrelated theses…linked with one another by an interlacing network [italics in original] of connections.” Its truth claims are of a “confirmatory” nature rather than “necessarily deductive” (italics in original) (p. 174).

In his 10 point description “of the parameters of systematicity,” Rescher highlighted the following characteristics: “unity and integrity as a genuine whole that embraces and integrates its constituent parts,” “comprehensiveness, the avoidance of gaps,” “connectedness, interrerlationship, interlinkage, coherence,” “absence of internal discord or dissonance,” and, among other factors, “a well-integrated structure of arrangement of duly ordered component parts” (p. 191). Not all the component parts are included in every inquiry, nor are they totally integrated. As a best fit option consistent with the drive toward rational coherence, the result “has the character of a profile rather than an average” (p. 192). Its claims are verifiable based on the overall convincingness of the supportive narration upon which it hangs and is susceptible to decomposition as additional evidence warrants.

In Rescher’s coherentist philosophy “datum” adheres as “a truth candidate, a proposition to be taken not as true, but as potentially or presumptively true” (italics in original) p. (186) in which there is substantial reason to accept it as a serious possibility. Such facts of the case need to prove their mettle in the overall fit of an inquiry process as determined by the contexts in which they are embedded. In this respect, the facts play a secondary, or what Dewey referred to as a propositional role, to the criteria of systematization itself in the attunement process of getting at a substantial warranted claim. By presenting datum as part of the context that needs to be factored in, Rescher has sought to answer critics of coherentist theory in their accusation that those espousing such views accept coherence in itself, as a basis of verifiability. Rescher’s counter-argument is that the very notion of coherence only makes sense as related to particular situations and contexts in which factual information, which may be as much of a construction as that of a logical articulation of what is evidently discernable, plays a critical role. This requires a rigorous delineation of the contexts that give shape to the inquiry, and all the relevant details that needs to be factored in. On Rescher’s argument, “we do not really have a coherence theory in hand at all, until the target domain [italics in original] of coherence is specified” (p. 190).

The broader point remains that in an intellectual climate in which foundational premises are viewed as increasingly dubious, another standard for the making of maximally warranted rational assertions is required, lest the grounds of critical rationality itself become suspect. For Rescher it is the coherence of the overall explanation on the grounds that even if reality cannot be subsumed within a systematic framework, the principle of rationality requires the highest resolution possible of contradictions and incompatibilities and maximum explanatory integration of the factors at hand giving shape to an inquiry project.

With Dewey and Popper, Rescher perceived the drive toward coherence as rooted in human biology in a need to overcome a problematic situation, which stimulates a search for its resolution. Nonetheless, it is in the nature of reality itself to exert pressure beyond current explanations or levels of satisfaction, and therefore to break down temporal syntheses that have been achieved in particular situations and settings, in turn, setting up the need for a more comprehensive resolution. There is nothing static or preconceived in Rescher’s theory of coherent systematization, which provides a regulative ideal in a world in which the reach of human aspiration perpetually exceeds its grasp. Rescher’s philosophy is praxeological rather than descriptive of ultimate reality in unleashing the instrumentalities of critical reasoned analysis in the provision of a vision of wholeness as a standard by which to assess and grapple with the many aporias of human experience. In its rejection of the certainties of indubitable truth for best-fit attunements in an uncertain world, it is a highly constructive philosophy in which there is little alternative other than to acknowledge the need to do the imperfect best we can” (p. 213) if one is to engage in philosophy at all. This is the essence of Rescher’s contingent-based argument that seeks maximum coherence consistent with the data.

Date: 2014-12-21; view: 861