Blackwell Reference Online

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E pistemology although epistemic justification may concern objective justification regarding what we should believe given what is in fact true, it mainly concerns subjective justification. This seeks to determine what we should believe or should not believe, given what we actually do believe, even though what we do believe may not be correct. If and only if one is justified in believing that a proposition is true, is one justified in believing that proposition. To believe what is true one needs to believe what is justified, and to avoid believing what is false one must not accept what is not justified. Justification of belief requires specification of the norms under which one may hold a belief. Determining what to believe is a fundamental problem for epistemology. “Acceptance,” “being beyond reasonable doubt,” “being evident,” “being certain,” “having some proposition in its favor,” etc. are all different senses of epistemic justification. “Epistemic justification, unlike truth, is capable of degrees of the things that we are justified in believing; some are more justified than others.” Chisholm, The Foundations of Knowing ... log in or subscribe to read full text