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Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is an observed axiom, rather than an "accepted" axiom, which the article implies is the only kind.
Why does observing something mean that something is true? If you keep asking questions, at some point you must get to either an accepted axiom, a circularity, or infinite regress.
To be clear this trilemma is only a problem for rationalists, like Hans Albert. This problem doesn't exist for German Idealists like Kant or Schelling or even the empiricists. You escape the problem of infinite regression through acknowledging that the only thing real is experience, which lends you to the haven of relative objectivity, which is that of which modern science has become. You would think that the conjure…
What does this mean?
> Karl Popper argued that a way to avoid the trilemma was to use an intermediate approach incorporating some dogmatism, some infinite regress, and some perceptual experience.
> One example of an alternative is the fallibilism of Karl Popper and Hans Albert, accepting that certainty is impossible, but that it is best to get as close as possible to truth, while remembering our uncertainty.
The only difference I see between "This is true to the best of my knowledge and experience" and "This is true because to the best of my knowledge and experience, therefore it is certainly true" (empiricism) or how conceited the thinker is about their own infallibility. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallibilism)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this taking the 'axiomatic' path? > through acknowledging that the only thing real is experience This seems like the key axiom for idealists/empiricists. Of course that leads you to many other details and questions (namely, which experiences?)
No, Experience is forced upon you, it is neither an assumption or something discovered through reason. Additionally, words like "real", "exists" or "reality" only have meaning in this way, otherwise it would be impossible to understand them since understanding is only through terms of experience. However, it's important to note that idealists aren't naive realists, they acknowledge that what they see is created by th…
Why? That claim must be justified by reference to other truths, or taken itself as an assumption. So doesn't the trilemma still apply, but at one more remove?
Note that 'assumption' does not necessarily mean an arbitrary statement, but includes statements that we consider self-evident, e.g. 'something exists'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, Experience is forced upon you, it is neither an assumption or something discovered through reason. Additionally, words like "real", "exists" or "reality" only have meaning in this way, otherwise it would be impossible to understand them since understanding is only through terms of experience. However, it's important to note that idealists aren't naive realists, they acknowledge that what they see is created by th…
> Experience is forced upon you, it is neither an assumption or something discovered through reason. Why? That claim must be justified by reference to other truths, or taken itself as an assumption. So doesn't the trilemma still apply, but at one more remove? Note that 'assumption' does not necessarily mean an arbitrary statement, but includes statements that we consider self-evident, e.g. 'something exists'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really good point on controversial issues. I think opposing sides of current hot topic issues (take your pick, gun control, abortion, pronouns) start with a different set of axioms. Axiomatic differences can lead of vastly different conclusions, both with sound logical reasoning. Eg. If you take as axioms that it is always wrong to end life, and life begins at conception, abortion is wrong is a sound logical conclusi…
> Eg. If you take as axioms that it is always wrong to end life, and life begins at conception, abortion is wrong is a sound logical conclusion. Do note that often in this kind of controversial topics, the axioms are not held consistently by a given side (or the actual axioms are hidden and differ from the stated ones). For example, "it's always wrong to end a life [except when bombing abortion clinics | except when…
This makes me imagine putting people through a trolley problem where you have a serial killer on one side and an 8 week old fetus [1] on the other. That said, many of the people I've known simply argue against the death penalty instead. This may be biased by knowing Catholics, though.
[1] https://www.babycenter.com/fetal-development-images-8-weeks
To be clear this trilemma is only a problem for rationalists, like Hans Albert. This problem doesn't exist for German Idealists like Kant or Schelling or even the empiricists. You escape the problem of infinite regression through acknowledging that the only thing real is experience, which lends you to the haven of relative objectivity, which is that of which modern science has become. You would think that the conjure…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does observing something mean that something is true? If you keep asking questions, at some point you must get to either an accepted axiom, a circularity, or infinite regress.
There is no possible reality in which the observation of anything can be explained by absolute nothingness. We know that existence exists, and that within that existence is consciousness capable of perceiving it. These are self-evident axioms upon observing anything at all. I think it's fair to say that we don't know why reality exists, but we know that it is true that something exists at all.
In the situations where Münchhausen trilemma is applicable, people tend to use a version of abductive reasoning, which is finding the simplest narrative or explanation that fits the known facts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning It's important to keep the Münchhausen trilemma and abductive reasoning in mind when discussion controversial issues where one side feels they have proof and the other side is…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor
tends to be a valid approach, generically speaking.
To me, this is a great illustration that there's no other coherent place to start any form of discussion, reasoning, or belief than with axioms (or assumptions). Regressive and circular arguments only shift the problem. I believe that if one is looking for truth in a big-picture sense (religious or philosophical), the best approach is to evaluate various existing systems of axioms/assumptions and apply a twofold test…
I heavily disagree; axioms are never a good place to start , nor, historically, they ever were a starting place. Working mathematicians do a lot of mathematics and constructions before stopping to look and say: "OK, we can distill this rich theory down to this small set of axioms ". Geometry has been quite developed before Euclid's axioms, and number theory took its sweet millenia before Peano's axioms were developed…
For example, any discussion between 2 people depends on mutually accepting basic assumptions such as:
- I and you are persons. We exist.
- The words we speak and hear have meaning.
- The words you hear are the words I spoke, and vice versa.
We also can't live a meaningful, coherent life without basic assumptions about origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. Everyone has them, and unless we're careful, they're easy to catch like the cold from folks we hang around.
A coherent, truthful worldview is essential. The test for truth (correspondence to reality and internal consistency) does provide us a way of comparing religions and philosophies (and ruling out the obviously false ones). Once we do arrive at a coherent worldview that best corresponds to reality and is internally consistent, we have to assume it and derive our beliefs and practices from it without proof (i.e. faith). (BTW, we all have a worldview, but we haven't all subjected our worldview to the truth test.)
Everyone has faith: it's required to accept the axioms of one's worldview.
Let the set M = {circular, regressive, axiomatic} to be the set of "unsatisfying" arguments that may be used to prove any truth. Let the mapping J: powerset(M) -> to map some subset of M to a theory of justification such that the believers in said theory only find usage of some combination of the said subset to be "acceptable". Then: J({}) is in {Skepticism} J({circular}) is in {Coherentism} J({axiomatic}) is in {Fou…
J({circular, regressive}) is twoyearoldism. Where they ask why incessantly and don't care if you lead them in a circle. J({regressive, axiomatic}) seems contradictory, so maybe that's {}.
Well, the regular formulation of "Infinitism" is that S is justified to believe P_1 on the basis of P_2 and P_n on the basis of P_n+1. J({regressive, axiomatic}) just defines a limit i.e. S is justified to believe P_1 on the basis of P_2 and P_n on the basis of P_n+1 such that lim_(k->infinity) P_k = P_x where x is not a natural number. You have to say x is not a natural number, because if it were, J's output would have been "foundationalism" and P_x then would be a "self-evident" belief - to use Chisolm's terminology.
P.S. If anyone thinks that this is an abuse of mathematics, I agree. But, its usage is compatible with that of philosophers e.g. Goldman's Causal theory of knowledge literally uses a recursive formulation of belief formation where the base case is "self-evident", I just unwrapped the tail call and wrote it as a loop!