Factive beliefs in epistemology

The purpose of this work is to identify factive beliefs and their use, give an explicit definition, and evaluate their use within epistemic systems. The methodology is to examine the use of factive beliefs across three different epistemic systems, two positive (Laurence BonJour and Earnest Sosa) and one negative (John McDowell). From them I derive the definition that factive beliefs are identified by the following features: veridicality, spontaneity, and epistemic neutrality, and conclude that while the use of factive beliefs is not inherently untenable, there are serious questions about their integrity that may be raised.