Experience and perceptual belief

Alan Musgrave

pp. 5-19

in: Zuzana Parusniková, Robert S. Cohen (eds), Rethinking Popper, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

Are perceptual experiences reasons for perceptual beliefs? The act/ content ambiguity of the term "belief" carries over to this question. I argue, following Popper, that experiences are reasons as well as causes for belief-acts, but not for belief-contents. This involves rejecting justificationism, the mistaken view that a reason for a belief-act must be a reason for its content. Popper's many critics presuppose justificationism, and so miss the main point of his solution to the problem of the empirical basis of science.

Cited authors

Popper Karl