Depth 1 · 34 s

The crossword

Name: The crossword
Uploaded: 2026-11-04T06:10:18.296864Z
Duration: 34 s
Description: Nadia isn't sure if 3 across is CAT or COT, until 2 down puts an A in the middle. No answer is the foundation; each is held up by the others. Could all our beliefs work like that?

Nadia isn't sure if 3 across is CAT or COT, until 2 down puts an A in the middle. No answer is the foundation; each is held up by the others. Could all our beliefs work like that?

About this video

Nadia is doing a crossword. She isn't sure about 3 across: is it CAT or COT? Then she solves 2 down, SEA, and its last letter lands in the middle square of 3 across: an A. Now 3 across must be CAT. Later, 4 down, TOP, fits neatly with the T at the end of CAT, and her confidence in CAT grows again. No single answer is the foundation. Each one is held up by the others that cross it.

This is the other main answer to the chain of reasons. It says there is no bottom layer: a belief is held up by fitting together with your other beliefs - they agree with each other, explain each other, and no two of them clash. The more they fit, the better the reason for each. The view is called coherentism. The American philosopher Susan Haack compared reasons to a crossword in 1993: an answer is good when its clue points to it and it fits the answers around it.

The Austrian philosopher Otto Neurath had another picture. We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship at sea. They can never take it into a dry dock and start from the bottom; they change one plank at a time, standing on all the others. When a new belief doesn't fit, we don't throw everything away; we change the belief that fits worst.

The hard question: a good novel fits together perfectly, and so can a well-planned lie. So fitting together can't be all there is; a story must also be connected to the world. Most philosophers today mix the two answers, and Haack's crossword already does: the clues come from outside, the crossing answers from inside. This video goes with the Beliefs That Fit Together lesson of Knowledge Level 2 on Knaph.

This video shows depth 1 of Beliefs that fit together.

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Transcript

0:00Nadia's crossword. Three across, cat or cot? She isn't sure.
0:05Two down is sea. Its A lands in the middle. So it's cat.
0:11Four down, top, fits too. Each answer is held up by the others.
0:17Like sailors rebuilding their ship at sea, one plank at a time.
0:23But a novel fits together, and so can a lie. Fit isn't enough.
0:29Beliefs hold each other up, and must touch the world.