Suppose we wonder whether we should trust the deliverances of our basic epistemic competences. If those are indeed our basic competences, then in order properly to satisfy our curiosity we will inevitably rely on one or more of them. So, either we squelch our curiosity or we will have to fall into the circularity or regress to which the skeptic objects.

One does not avoid incompetence if one makes an attempt whose likelihood of success is too low. This seems little more than analytic: when the performance is in a domain that imposes standards of risk, attempts may or may not meet such standards. And the relevant competence of agents then includes reliably enough meeting those standards.

Any defense of common sense must allow that it is revisable.

The correctness of much testimonially based belief is no more than minimally creditable to the believer.

In order to qualify as a judgment, an affirmation must aim at getting it right aptly, through competence, and not just through a lucky guess.

When you dream, your perceptual (and other) competence is affected. You are then unable to get it right competently with the beliefs in your dream.

Judgment is affirmation with the intention to thereby affirm competently enough, and indeed aptly. That distinguishes judgments from mere guesses.