This is pretty sweet. I discovered it in the comments section of The Atheist Experience blog. Basically it summarizes epistemological positions as circular, regressive, or axiomatic. The presuppositionalists I’ve discussed before are circular, the “turtles all the way down” types are regressive, and the “we’ve got to start somewhere so let’s agree on something” people are axiomatic. I favor axiomatic because I believe it is the most productive.

There’s a fourth category, which is fallibilist, but I think it’s a little different because it’s not mutually exclusive from the other three. It basically states that things can’t be proven true with certainty but they can be proven false. I’ll explain in another post why I like the concepts of fallibilism, but I think they have to be put in the context of axioms. Also I disagree that, in the epistemological context of the first three positions, anything can be proven conclusively false. But there’s lots of nuance and definitions that need to be teased out.

Anyway, for now just go check out the Munchhausen Trilemma. It’s pretty cool food for thought: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma

Go do it now!