Basic Perceptual Reasons

Chapter 3 takes up the first obstacle to the idea that reasons come first among normative concepts in epistemology: the problem of unjustified belief. It does so by introducing the issues that arise in the epistemology of perception when we ask what reason or evidence you acquire for ordinary conclusions about the external world in virtue of having perceptual experiences. The resulting space of possible answers is explored, including the natural ways in which it leads to skepticism, rationalism, coherentism, dogmatism, pure externalism, and disjunctivism. These views are contrasted with answers that allow reasons to be false, and by doing so avoid all of the distinctive commitments of each of these alternatives.