Munchhausen-Trilemma
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The Munchhausen-Trilemma, also called Agrippa's Trilemma, is a philosophical term coined to stress the impossibility to prove any certain truth even in the fields of logic and mathematics. It is the name of a logical proof in the theory of knowledge going back to the German philosopher Hans Albert. The term is ironically named after Baron Munchhausen, who allegedly pulled himself out of the quagmire by seizing himself at the shock of his hair. This argument runs as follows: All of the only three ("tri"-lemma) possible attempts to get a certain justification must fail:
- All justifications in pursuit of certain knowledge have also to justify the means of their justification and doing so they have to justify anew the means of their justification. Therefore there can be no end. We are faced with the hopeless situation of 'infinite regression'.
- One can stop at self-evidence or common sense or fundamental principles or speaking 'ex cathedra' or at any other evidence, but in doing so the intention to install certain justification is abandoned.
- The third horn of the trilemma is the application of a circular and therefore invalid argument.
The text itself runs as follows:
“Here, one has a mere choice between: 1. an infinite regression, which appears because of the necessity to go ever further back, but isn’t practically feasible and doesn’t, therefore, provide a certain foundation; 2. a logical circle in the deduction, which is caused by the fact that one, in the need to found, falls back on statements which had already appeared before as requiring a foundation, and which circle does not lead to any certain foundation either; and finally: 3. a break of searching at a certain point, which indeed appears principally feasible, but would mean a random suspension of the principle of sufficient reason.” (This is a translation of the original (German) text: Albert, H., Traktat über kritische Vernunft, p. 15 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1991.)
Albert stressed repeatedly that there is no limitation of the Munchhausen-Trilemma to deductive conclusions. The verdict concerns also inductive, causal, transcendental, and all otherwise structured justifications. They all will be in vain.
Therefore certain justification is impossible at all. Once having given up the classical idea of certain knowledge one can stop the process of justification where one wants to stop, presupposed one is ready to start critical thinking at this point always anew if necessary.
This trilemma rounds off the classical problem of justification in the theory of knowledge, which was expressed most concisely by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his Monadology, § 32.
The failure of proving exactly any truth as expressed by the Munchhausen-Trilemma does not have to lead to dismissal of objectivity, as with relativism or scepticism. One example of an altnernative is the fallibilism of Karl Popper and Hans Albert, accepting that certainty is impossible, but that it's best to get as close as we can, while remembering our uncertainty.
In Albert's view the impossibility to prove any certain truth is not in itself a certain truth. After all, you need to assume some basic rules of logical inferrence in order to derive his result, and in doing so must either abandon the pursuit of "certain" justification, as above, or attempt to justiy these rules, etc. He suggests that it has to be taken as true as long as nobody has come forward with a truth which is scrupulously justified as a certain truth. Several philosophers defied Albert's challenge. Until now he refuted them all in his long addendum to his Treatise on Critical Reason (see below) and later articles (see publication list).
[edit] Further information
- Hans Albert, Treatise on Critical Reason, Princeton University Press, 1985, chap. I, sect. 2.
- For Hans Albert's scientific articles see List of Publications in [1]
