ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the types of epistemic evaluations and examines how our capacities to perform these evaluations develop, how they function at maturity, and how they are deployed in the vital task of sorting out when to believe what others say. Epistemic evaluations emerge in a great variety of contexts, from moments of deliberate private reflection on tough theoretical questions to casual social observations about what other people know and think. Extending the terminology of linguistics into epistemology, attitudes that can be held only to truths are called factive attitudes; some of these attitudes constitute states, where others constitute events or processes. Some judgments are careful, patient, and well considered; others are hasty and confused. Epistemologists’ stock examples of justified beliefs include perceptual judgments in favorable circumstances, sound inferences, and responsible learning from testimony; stock examples of unjustified belief include wishful-thinking and hasty generalization. Agents exhibit epistemic vigilance in relation to the information transmitted to them.
