Abstract

This chapter develops a hinge-based account of trust, extending its epistemic relevance beyond testimonial contexts. While trustworthiness, in the epistemology of testimony, is commonly analyzed in terms of a trustee’s sincerity and competence, the following conceptual question deserves careful examination: What is the trust one is worthy of? Drawing on On Certainty, the chapter characterizes trust in its most fundamental form—termed “hinge trust”—as a basic stance of openness and reliance preceding the formation of justified beliefs, including beliefs about a trustee’s trustworthiness. Hinge trust is directed not only at people but also at perceptual and cognitive faculties, objects, artifacts, and environmental features, serving as a precondition for acquiring hinges essential to epistemic practices. Building on this framework, the chapter advocates a “trust-first” approach, treating trust as a primitive notion that grounds, rather than depends on, other relational properties such as goodwill or commitment. Finally, the chapter considers the relation between trust and distrust, and argues that trust should be treated as conceptually prior.