These considerations might commend acting as though one trusted others in some matters. However, these possibilities do not entail having the knowledge actually to trust—indeed, they are defined by the lack of such knowledge. To call these actions trust is to slip into making trust a behavioral term, so that the phrase “acting on a trust” would be redundant.

DEFINE: Distinguishes genuine trust (an epistemic state) from mere trust-like behavior, warning against collapsing trust into a purely behavioral term.

Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, loc. 377