A deep dive into one of philosophy's underrated problem

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Pure rationality

Agrippa’s trilemma, also known as the Münchhausentrilemma (a term coined by Hans Albert), has only three solutions. It is because we do not have a truth criterion. We simply cannot know by thinking problems through how the world works. In pure rationalism, or pure reasoning, you run into the following problems:

Pure reasoning claims that everything has a cause, a reason, or an origin. We do not know if that is true; in quantum mechanics, it appears that we have events without a cause. But maybe we just don't know the cause. So we cannot claim that it is true that everything has a reason.

The claim automatically leads to an infinite regress of causes or reasons. That is the case because:

Say we have an argument, and we can break down every chain of arguments into the most simple form of:

Any argument that you can make

If (A) is true and (B) is true, logically (C) must be true.

(A), (B), and (C) are claims. (A) and (B) are the premises, and (C) is the conclusion. (A) and (B) are the reason (C) is true. Now, according to reasoning in pure rationalism, (A) and (B) must have a reason, too, or a cause, if we speak about causation. And we still don't know if (C) is true. Because we are not certain if (A) is true or (B) is true. If one or both of our premises are false, the conclusion (C) does not follow. We are not sure whether (C) is true or not.

So we need reasons why (A) is true and (B) is true. So we construct two new arguments:

(D) & (E) -> (A)

Or, (A) is true because (D) and (E) are true. But we do not know, for the same reason, if (D) is true and (E) is true. And we have to make additional arguments to establish the truth of (D) and (E). But we can't, since we run into the same problem again. With every step, our chain of arguments to establish the truth requires at least one additional premise. And no premise that we add will make our conclusion (C) true. We have created an infinite regress of reasons, and in this regress, we have an infinite number of premises that we don't know to be true.

First problem: infinite chain of reasons

If everything existing has a cause, we have an infinite regress of causes. We can't handle such an infinite regress, so we cannot know if (C) is true. This is the first horn of the trilemma.

Second problem: circular reasoning

The second way to apparently solve the problem is to create a logical circular argument. (A) is the reason for (B), and (B) is the reason for (A). That leads to nothing, because it means that Not-(A) is the reason for Not-(B).

Not-(A) means the logical opposite of (A).

If (A) and (B) lead to the conclusion (C), Not-(A) and Not-(B) will result in Not-(C). So we do not know if (C) or Not-(C) is true. We have failed again.

Not-(A), the logical opposite of claim (A), is constructed this way:

If (A) is a claim or premise, and we write before our claim, It is not the case that …, we get the logical opposite claim Not-(A).

Claim: The cat is in the house.

Logical opposite claim: It is not the case that the cat is in the house. Or, shorter: The cat is not in the house.

Pure reasoning and its relationship to the world

Pure reasoning or pure rationalism cannot establish any factual claim about the world. We cannot sit in our armchair, think about the world, and find out what is true. But that is the base claim of rationalism, that it can find out the truth by thinking alone, and that claim is definitively not true.

The third solution to the problem is to stop reasoning at an arbitrary point in our infinite chain of arguments. That does not solve the problem, because we cannot provide a single reason to stop at this point, because that leads to another infinite chain of reasoning. We just started another infinite regress!

Notice that this is independent of the logic we use, the type of arguments, and our way of reasoning and is even true for moral issues. That is something that most people don't understand.

Why you can prove anything (and therefore, nothing)

This is the reason Gödel claimed that with pure logic, you can prove anything and its opposite. This has been proven to be true; change the axioms, and the result may change. You can make anything apparently true by changing the axioms (base claims) that you started with, and you cannot find a reason why any of these axioms are true, because that starts another infinite regress—you ran into the Münchhausentrilemma again. And again and again, infinitely.

Any proof in pure rationalism proves nothing but a lack of imagination and not thinking through alternative solutions (or conclusions).

We do not know whether there is an infinite regress of causes or not. To summarize, every claim we can make and any logical argument based on any logic will result in one of three solutions (and there is no fourth way):

The three core problems

1. An infinite regress, and we can't handle that.
2. A circular argument that argues for nothing.
3. Arbitrarily and without a reason, we stop the infinite regress at some random point. That is called "dogmatism." Dogmatism means to declare something to be true without having a reason for that.

This is true for all explanations of any kind, too.

Dogmatism means that you declare something to be true, though you cannot know if that is true. That is the reason God is just a lame excuse for not thinking further. God is a stop sign: stop thinking here for no reason! People are fooled into thinking that you found a true base claim (or dogma). But stopping to think is merely a bad reason, not a real reason at all, and can therefore explain nothing. God as an explanation is completely overrated by bad thinkers. It shows an unwillingness or inability to think further.

What can we do?

How can we handle this?

The first step is to abandon rationalism, or any form of pure reasoning. The dogma that everything has a cause may be true or not; nobody knows, and nobody can know.

The second step is not to make bold claims about truth but to know that we don't know. Dogmatism is lazy and will lead ultimately to false assumptions.

The third step is to acknowledge that we can't be sure of anything. Certainty in knowledge is a dangerous illusion. If someone claims to be certain of any truth claim, he is either a charlatan, a liar, a cheater, a scumbag, or a lazy thinker or shows an inability to reason correctly. Why believe such a person in anything?

It is hard for us to acknowledge that we do not know something, I know, but don't lie to yourself and claim that you are sure of something. Every so often it is appropriate to say, I do not know, and you do not know, and nobody knows. You cannot introduce God as an explanation or a cause at any point; all you do by saying so is to point out that you are a lazy thinker who knows next to nothing about reasonable thinking or someone who is constantly lying to himself. This is called illusory thinking. It creates the illusion of knowing what you can't know. It is based on wishful thinking: something appears to be true because you wish it to be true.

Faith is not a solution

Faith is the lamest excuse of all, because if you analyze it logically, it means to pretend something is true when you don't know if it is true. This is for a thinker: the worst solution to these problems you can think of is dogmatism (pretending to know without a reason).

The fourth step, after abandoning rationalism (pure reasoning), is to go the way of science instead. Science is the only way so far established that can handle the Münchhausen trilemma. Science still does not provide a truth criterion; that is logically impossible. But we can establish what is false if we find facts that contradict one or more of our claims. In science, this is called the falsification principle.

How science solves the problem

Science uses the third way of the Münchhausen trilemma (Agrippina's trilemma). But the base claims are only temporarily assumed to be true. The principle of pure reasoning is superseded by permanent criticism. Yes, we have to arbitrarily assume something to be true, our base claims, but we can use the facts of the world to criticize even our base assumptions.

Some people claim that it is a disadvantage of science that it can only establish temporary truths that may turn out to be false at any time when new facts are discovered. But in fact, that is the strength of science; it can correct its errors, depending on newly known facts that contradict a claim.

Any unfalsifiable claim, therefore, must be discarded. Any claim that is immunized against criticism is not even false; the claim is worse than that—it is meaningless. If you cannot prove that God is real (and you can't), you simply cannot base any claim whatsoever on God.

Immunization against criticism

Science is a way to discard bullshit on the spot. That is the reason science isn't concerned with God. God, heavily immunized against criticism, is the lazy path of ignorant, illusionary thinkers who submitted reasoning for believing bullshit and therefore abandoned truth to substitute it with illusions. Theists are unable and unwilling to give up their illusions (wishful thinking).

Now we can answer the question:

To apply the Münchhausentrilemma (or Agrippina's trilemma) to the infinite chain of causes is simply to say, We don't know if the chain of causes is infinite or not. Maybe, or possibly not; we might find out one day, but today is not the day. We cannot handle an infinite regress of causes. We can temporarily assign a start of causes, but we are not certain whether this is the first cause or not. Everyone claiming that he knows what the first cause might be is a lazy thinker or a liar; he might have lied to himself and claims that his illusions are true. We should not believe such a person more than an inmate of a mental hospital who claims to be Napoleon.

Footnotes