Trilemma
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A trilemma is a difficult choice from three options, each of which is (or appears) unacceptable or unfavourable.
There are two logically equivalent ways in which to express a trilemma: it can be expressed as a choice among three unfavourable options, one of which must be chosen, or as a choice among three favourable options, only two of which are possible at the same time.
The term derives from the much older term dilemma, a choice between two or more difficult or unfavourable alternatives.
The earliest recorded use of the term was by the British preacher Philip Henry in 1672, and later, apparently independently, by the preacher Isaac Watts in 1725.
The Münchhausen trilemma
In the theory of knowledge the Münchhausen trilemma is a philosophical term coined to stress the impossibility to prove any certain truth even in the fields of logic and mathematics. Its name is going back to a logical proof of the German philosopher Hans Albert. This proof runs as follows: All of the only three 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 an 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 argument.
