The Epistemic Role of Perception

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 9 studies the roles that perceptual experiences play in providing epistemic justification and rational support for beliefs. In much of the chapter the focus is on the doctrine that epistemic justification is determined by the reliability of the processes that produce beliefs, where the reliability of a process is measured by the probability that the beliefs it produces are true. The chapter offers fresh motivation for this view. It then proceeds to develop an account of how perceptual experiences figure in reliable belief-forming processes. After presenting this proposal concerning epistemic justification, the chapter moves on to consider whether experience figures in other support or justification relations to beliefs, and, in particular, whether it contributes to rationality, where rationality is understood to be independent of truth. The answer is yes, but reflection shows that rationality is a weak virtue of beliefs, one that pales in importance in comparison with justification.