Today I want to offer a categorical description of my philosophy, either to say more with fewer words or to obfuscate the matter. I'm a little bothered by this kind of denomination, because I feel like the words I'm about to use were devised with intent to describe what I believe to be proper methodology for acquiring answers, but they don't describe the answers themselves; whereas I think that the answers are only as correct as the methodology used to obtain them I do not like the way that discussion about philosophical denominations may tempt readers to limit themselves to a protracted study of methodology without ever learning the conclusions drawn thereby.

I suppose that strict, "strong" foundationalism accurately describes the situation we live in, epistemologically, and that the epistemic information comprising (what you might call) our basic "foundational" knowledge, must be indubitable, incorrigible, and infallible. However, I am not convinced that human language necessarily supports articulating the specific information contained in our basic knowledge at this time. Granting that we do have the information required to justify knowledge, I am convinced that some information about the mechanism by which we obtain and/or utilize that basic knowledge can be gained by applying a combination of strict deduction and empiricism, with a view to the universal coherence of all true information (where "coherence" means that an idea contradicts neither itself nor any other information known to be true). That same methodology, combining deduction and empiricism, I believe, is the method by which we can trace out relationships between our conclusions and our basic knowledge. That said, I'm not convinced that a detailed awareness of the contents of our basic knowledge is necessary for an epistemological system to be complete and fool-proof; only an acknowledgement that, whatever the contents are, they satisfy the basic conditions for epistemology and intelligibility.

That's not to say we shouldn't attempt to learn the contents of basic knowledge. I just think that there are more important parts of the system which should be fortified with stable articulation first, and I don't know if I will have enough time in my life to complete the project.

I think that it's common in modern society to simultaneously advocate empiricism while refusing to practice it, undermining the contents of whatever foundational knowledge we have (because the whole purpose of the foundational knowledge is to support our empirical abilities). Furthermore, it can be well-argued that this deluded rejection of empiricism is practiced by literally every person who propones an explanation for reality, because epistemological theories are naturally impossible to test. So it is unproductive to argue that a theory lacks empirical basis, or that a theory lacks consistency with interpretations of empirical data which depend on alternative theories. Therefore, an epistemological theory distinguishes itself only by being well-developed and coherent. The more thoroughly developed it is, the more complex it is, the greater its likelihood of being incoherent; thus a well-developed theory which does not sacrifice coherence is a good theory and may as well be held true by its advocates until demonstrated otherwise, or until a more well-developed while coherent theory is made known to them. I believe that incoherence is the distinguishing feature of falsehood, and there is only one set of information rightly called "true", so there is only one possible fully-developed and coherent theory.

Some people attempt to circumvent this by refusing to develop their theories; a theory which is underdeveloped can be simple and internally consistent, and so it may be difficult to demonstrate its failure to resolve the epistemological problem without first developing the theory. I recently had a discussion with one such person, who actually told me that justifying his ideas was unnecessary for him, "because I'm not a foundationalist" -- but then he didn't name any epistemological theory which he could actually advocate; he simply said "the answer is probably a combination of all theories", which was an effective refusal to develop his ideas. I might post more details of that conversation in a later blog, because he was a fascinating example of certain intellectual roadblocks, for which I am needful of constant reminders to avoid, and in which I am regularly fearful that I might also partake.

"The [...] forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at 145 million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been over-fulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than 145 millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small."