You might like the work of Roderick Chisholm on this topic. He spent a good deal of effort on addressing the issue of epistemic circularity (the issue created by the problem of the criterion) and gives what is, in my opinion, one of the better and more technical treatments of the topic. His work also lets us make a distinction between particularism (making minimal leaps of faith) and pragmatism (making any leaps of faith), which I find useful because in practice most people seem to be pragmatists (they have other things to do than wrestle with epistemology) while thinking they are particularists because their particular leaps of faith (the facts they assume without justification) are intuitive to them and they can’t think of a way to make them smaller.
Actually, good thing you asked, because I gave wrong information in my original comment. Chisholm is an expert on the problem of the criterion, but I was actually thinking of William Alston in my comment. Here’s two papers, one by Alston and one by another author that I’ve referenced in the past and found useful:
William P. Alston. Epistemic Circularity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 47(1):1, sep 1986.
Jonathan Dancy. Ethical Particularism and Morally Relevant Properties. Mind, XCII(368):530– 547, 1983.
You might like the work of Roderick Chisholm on this topic. He spent a good deal of effort on addressing the issue of epistemic circularity (the issue created by the problem of the criterion) and gives what is, in my opinion, one of the better and more technical treatments of the topic. His work also lets us make a distinction between particularism (making minimal leaps of faith) and pragmatism (making any leaps of faith), which I find useful because in practice most people seem to be pragmatists (they have other things to do than wrestle with epistemology) while thinking they are particularists because their particular leaps of faith (the facts they assume without justification) are intuitive to them and they can’t think of a way to make them smaller.
Where would you start with his work?
Actually, good thing you asked, because I gave wrong information in my original comment. Chisholm is an expert on the problem of the criterion, but I was actually thinking of William Alston in my comment. Here’s two papers, one by Alston and one by another author that I’ve referenced in the past and found useful:
William P. Alston. Epistemic Circularity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 47(1):1, sep 1986.
Jonathan Dancy. Ethical Particularism and Morally Relevant Properties. Mind, XCII(368):530– 547, 1983.