Coherence Systems

Abstract

Abstract In Chapter 5, we discussed the establishment of adequate causality, and the management of inadequate causality and accident. Moving up from this local level of the construction of causality, we will next examine the level of the coherence system, a more global cultural device for structuring experience into socially sharable narrative. A coherence system is a discursive practice that represents a system of beliefs and relations between beliefs; it provides the environment in which one statement may or may not be taken as a cause of another statement. More specifically, a coherence system of the type discussed here is a system of beliefs that occupies a position midway between common sense-the beliefs and relations between beliefs that any person in the culture may be assumed to know (if not to share) and that anyone may use-and expert systems, which are beliefs and relations between beliefs held, understood, and properly used by experts in a particular domain.1 A coherence system is a system of beliefs derived from some expert system, but used by someone with no corresponding expertise or credentials. The term coherence system represents an intermediate-level system that, to my knowledge, has not been previously noted or studied. As we shall see, the differences in social standing among the users of various kinds of systems imply a difference in the kinds of social practices in which these systems may participate.