Reflexive Trust. Reflecting on Trust concerning social Knowledge and Actions

Abstract

This paper suggests that situations in which we are confronted with the risks that we take when trusting, such as facing violence or ruptures of trust, can motivate a particular kind of trust in which the trusting person is interested in becoming aware of the beliefs, valuings and practical intentions involved in trusting. This kind of trust, which I call reflexive or rational trust, will be described from a Husserlian phenomenological perspective. It will be argued that rational trust is crucial in order to approach epistemological and ethical problems posed by the social character of our existence. In the final part, I suggest that a conceptual clarification of rational or reflective trust can be useful to understand problems related to post-truth and to discern different basic forms of domination and complicity with domination.