Home›Open Questions›Must what justifies a belief be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, or can a reliable process the believer is unaware of confer justification?Open QuestionsMust what justifies a belief be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, or can a reliable process the believer is unaware of confer justification?Citation FormatsGeneral ReferenceGeneral Reference Citation TextPhilosophy Atlas. "Must what justifies a belief be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, or can a reliable process the believer is unaware of confer justification?." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://philosophy.interactiveatlas.org/open-questions-index/internalism-versus-externalism.Copy General ReferenceAPA StyleAPA Style Citation TextPhilosophy Atlas. (n.d.). Must what justifies a belief be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, or can a reliable process the believer is unaware of confer justification?. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://philosophy.interactiveatlas.org/open-questions-index/internalism-versus-externalismCopy APA StyleBibTeXBibTeX Citation Text@misc{philosophyatlas-must-what-justifies-a-belief-be-accessib, author = {Philosophy Atlas}, title = {Must what justifies a belief be accessible from within the believer's own perspective, or can a reliable process the believer is unaware of confer justification?}, year = {2026}, url = {https://philosophy.interactiveatlas.org/open-questions-index/internalism-versus-externalism}, note = {Accessed August 30, 2026} }Copy BibTeXOpen QuestionCross-Tradition ConnectionsSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)Open QuestionInternalists argue that a justification a thinker cannot access from the inside cannot be doing any justifying work for that thinker; externalists reply that small children and animals plainly have justified perceptual beliefs despite being unable to reflect on their own reliability. Neither side has produced a case the other accepts as decisive.What would resolve this A shared account of what justification is FOR, whether it is about the thinker's own responsible believing or about tracking truth, would settle which condition is required; the two camps currently start from different accounts of that point.OpenEpistemologyStanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyCross-Tradition ConnectionsQuestion OnEpistemology, Branches of Philosophy Well-attested Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophytier 1SourcesStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophytier 1Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Informations.v. Internalist vs. Externalist Conceptions of Epistemic JustificationView the SourceComments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.View At A Past YearThe atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.Show This Year