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.