Ian has a good post at FQI on the Problem of the Criterion. In epistemology we essentially ask two sorts of questions. As Ian puts them:
(1) What do we know? What is the extent of our knowledge?
(2) How do we decide whether we know? What are the criteria for knowledge?
A major issue in epistemology is which question has priority. Roughly: Do you find the answer to (2) by answering (1) first (this position can be called Particularism); or do you find the answer to (1) by answering (2) first (this position can be called Methodism)? Ian gives a vigorous defense of Methodism. I made a few comments defending the Particularist, expecting for some reason to be in the lonely minority (I usually am!), but there are several good comments defending Particularism in the thread, which I highly recommend reading. One of the arguments that I thought was very good, and which I hadn't quite considered before, was raised by Dmitry Chernikov: anyone who believes there are properly basic beliefs has good reason to be a Particularist rather than a Methodist. (Put roughly, properly basic beliefs are beliefs that are adequate for knowledge but not because of any dependence on any other belief's adequacy for knowledge.) In retrospect this isn't surprising; it has been long known that there are a great many analogies between an epistemology that speaks of properly basic beliefs and Scottish common sense philosophy (Reid, Beattie, etc.), and the Scottish common sense philosophers are, in the early modern period, at least, the Particularists par excellence, and are firm critics of Methodism (whose primary instance in the early modern period is Cartesianism).
