Epistemic Analysis

THIS ESSAY was begun a long time ago, in 1962, when I spent a year in Rome on a Guggenheim Fellowship. That twenty one years were required to complete it is owing both to the character of the theory presented and to my peculiar habits of mind. The theory presented is a coherence theory of knowledge: the con­ ception of coherence is here dominant and pervasive. But considera­ tions of coherence dic...