The justification of trust in our senses, in our fellow inquirers, and in our cognitive mechanisms ultimately rests on considerations of economic rationality.

We know that various highly convenient principles of knowledge production are simply false:

• What seems to be, is.

• What people say is true.

• The simplest patterns that fit the data are actually correct,

• The most adequate currently available theory will work out.

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We realize full well that such generalizations do not hold, however nice it would be if they did. Nevertheless we accept the theses at issue as principles of presumption. We follow the metarule: In the absence of concrete indications to the contrary, proceed as though such principles were true. 

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Such principles of presumption characterize the way in which rational agents transact their cognitive business. Yet we adopt such practices not because we can somehow establish their validity, but because the cost-benefit advantage of adopting them is so substantial. 

- Nicholas Rescher

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Trust and Cooperation in Pragmatic Perspective