 The second of Shepherd’s books purports to show that causal reasoning is the source of common beliefs about the existence of the external world, the mind, and the self and to justify them. The threat of circular argument is acknowledged at the outset (EASP: xii). The earlier volume maintains that human beings naturally believe CP and CPI and apply them to things perceived to begin to exist. The later EASP uses these principles to generate and justify belief in the existence of objects external to the mind. The circle would be to use the causal principles to prove the existence of external objects and to take their existence to justify the assumption that CP has instances in the real world. Shepherd’s response to the threat is closely related to the justification for belief in the external world her system affords.  In this section and the next, the various beliefs produced by reasoning based on CP or CPI are discussed. We postpone discussion of the circle and the issue of justification to  section 5  because the origin of all beliefs discussed in EASP is said to be relevant to it. 