Epistemology

Before me is a grassy green field. A line of trees marks its far edge, which is punctuated by a spruce on its left side and a maple on its right. Birds are singing. A warm breeze brings the smell of roses from a nearby trellis. I reach for a glass of iced tea, still cold to the touch and flavored by fresh mint. I am alert, the air is clear, the scene is quiet. My perceptions are quite distinct.

It seems altogether natural to believe these things given my experience, and I think I justifiably believed them. I believed them, not in the way I would if I accepted the result of wishful thinking or of merely guessing, but with justification.

• beliefs from perception like this justified, not through some process of justification but inherent in the fact that they’re just considered that way.

Being justified in believing something is having justification for believing it. This, in turn, is roughly a matter of having ground for believing it…Our justification for believing is basic raw material for actual justified belief; and justified belief is commonly good raw material for knowledge.

Belief justification occurs when there is a certain kind of connection between what yields situational justification and the justified belief that benefits from it. Belief justification occurs when a belief is grounded in, and thus in a way supported by (or based on), something that gives one situational justification for that belief, such as seeing a field of green. Seeing is of course perceiving; and perceiving is a basic source of knowledge—perhaps our most elemental source, at least in childhood. This is largely why perception is so large a topic in epistemology

Induction

An appeal to the ‘uniformity of nature’ is required to extend knowledge beyond our personal experience.