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.
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Musgrave, A. (2009). Experience and Perceptual Belief. In: Parusniková, Z., Cohen, R.S. (eds) Rethinking Popper. Boston Studies in The Philosophy of Science, vol 272. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9338-8_1
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