First-science concerns itself with the most fundamental questions and answers. First-science functions by subverting itself. What are the fundamental questions and answers that other questions and answers are built on? This is a question for first-science. Psychology seems like a first-science, because the mind is the source of first-science in the first place. Linguistic philosophy (in the broadest sense) seems like a first-science, for both psychology, first-science, and linguistic philosophy are made of sentences. But all of these develop over time, in human history. Are history and/or historicism first-science? A question for first-science.

Is first-science a bottomless pit?

Sounds like if first-science was a computer, it would blow itself up.

For me, one question breeds another. I am surprised that no one is engaging this notion.

Maybe the title scared them off.

So, you would be saying that questions are inherently "question begging"? Or that asking one question opens up an infinite regress, like a can of worms?

Yes, one good question leads to another. One questions the question, for one thing.
I think that any intellectual position is vulnerable to potent questioning. Do we stop questioning because our current position is emotionally satisfying? Are all intellectual positions based on a sort of faith? On the cessation of questioning?
Is the "pursuit of truth" a bluff, then? Is "truth" just adjustment? Is ultimate truth possible at all? What is my motive for asking these questions? If you have an answer to this question of my motive, what is the motive behind your answer?
Do we want truth or only the prestige associated with it?
If we propose a concept or model of the psyche, how do we know that this concept or model is not the result of wishful thinking, a rationalization?
Is all reason really rationalization? But then reason as rationalization would be a rationalization. Can the snake catch its tail?

You see what I mean?

I very much see what you mean. I wish more people would stop and consider the idea, because there are too many strawman "strongmen" out there pushing their view as the ultimate truth.

That's how I feel. So many define themselves as against "blind faith" and yet do not engage in questioning their assumptions. I'm not saying they are wrong to do so, but only that it strikes me as self-contradicting. Philosophical positions are often as unquestioned as religious faith. Do we make idol of famous philosophers? Do we huddle under their prestige, an intellectual prestige which has replaced the prestige of the saint or the conquerer?

Any "first science" must provide the grounds for both itself and for the other sciences, even though---when seen from special horizons---each science can be said to provide this ground. Hence we find conflicting claims for priority from anthropology, history, and many other specialised disciplines or ways of knowing; even religion and literature make such claims.

Yet, can any of these justify themselves from within their ways of understanding? Only by transcending their perspectives or special ways of looking at the world, only by appealing to another source that can establish the validity of their rules and procedures and perspectival processes can they do so, and that over-reaching "science" and source is philosophy, and all those "philosophies of" their disciplines to which each appeals when in doubt.

And alone of all these human endeavors of knowing (science), it seems that only philosophy can even begin to provide its own ground in the discipline of meta-philosophy.

For me, one question breeds another. I am surprised that no one is engaging this notion.

Its because (or so I believe) most of us already have, and we already know what is down there, and we already know what is down there leads nowhere =)

We always get down to "Nothing is certain, there is no truth" and there is no way out of that.

It is true, I think, that nothing is certain. But why should that mean that there is no truth? What have certainty and truth to do with one another?

Good point. Some believe that truth has to be above uncertainty, but that is a very dogmatic and impractical conception of truth. Truth is simply logical and parsimonious consistency with evidence.

Is first science meta-science?

I think admitting that one may be wrong about everything leaves one open to truly discuss ideas with other people. To truly open one's mind to the ideas of others, and sit in their shoes as it were.

And alone of all these human endeavors of knowing (science), it seems that only philosophy can even begin to provide its own ground in the discipline of meta-philosophy.

I agree. The term "first philosophy" might have been a better title for this thread, actually. But since I view science as founded on whatever you want to call the ground of world-view, it doesn't really matter.

I almost feel that the unnameable lurks nearby. Or the always-already-renaming-itself.

Its because (or so I believe) most of us already have, and we already know what is down there, and we already know what is down there leads nowhere =)

Is first philosophy perennial philosophy?

But why could not some statement be true that is inconsistent with the evidence. Many people think that the statement that there is a God is inconsistent with the evidence, but it may be true nonetheless.