ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the hypothesis is that a true belief needs to be justified if it is to be knowledge. Most epistemologists reject TB, saying that having a true belief is only part of what it takes to have knowledge. Although anything that is knowledge is a true belief, not all true beliefs are knowledge. Epistemic justification, in contrast, bears only on such matters as gaining truth and avoiding falsity—that is, only on well-being as an inquirer. Unlike pragmatic justification, epistemic justification is meant to have some close connection with truth. Epistemic justification for a belief is justification for the belief's truth, not its usefulness or its social respectability, say. Its connection with truth supposedly makes justification an objective quality. For most epistemologists, truth is objective. Evidence, in order to be justification, is supposed to objectively support one proposition or belief over another.
