[Revised entry by Sophie Horowitz on September 16, 2026.
Changes to: Main text, Bibliography]
Higher-order evidence is evidence which bears on a believer’s rational capacities, epistemic performance, or evidential situation. Many epistemologists hold that this kind of evidence can rationally affect our “first-order” beliefs as well: that is, those beliefs about the world that we form using the relevant rational capacities, or in the relevant evidential situation. It is easiest to get a grip on this phenomenon by looking at examples. Here is a paradigmatic case (paraphrased from Schoenfield 2018: 690, based on…

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