If we keep asking "why" are we guaranteed to end up in one of the three states of the Münchhausen Trilemma?

Question

Could you please explain your reasoning. I thought the whole point of this trilemma was that you can't know anything for certain, yet they propose with certainty that you end up in one of these states,

Thank you.

Answer 1

If we keep asking "why" are we guaranteed to end up in one of the three states of the Münchhausen Trilemma?

The ultimate why-question is why is reality what it is. Reality is by definition the whole of what exists. If something is outside reality, it just doesn't exist. So, why is reality what it is? To explain something, we need something else to explain it with. However, there is nothing outside reality, so there is nothing we could explain reality with. Thus, there is just no possible logical explanation as to why reality is what it is. We have to accept that our best answer is that reality is just what it is.

This isn't a problem. We don't need any explanation. Any explanation would make no sense. However, it does show that we cannot pursue why-questions ad libitum. Reality is the ultimate reason for everything. At this point, it is no longer reasonable to even ask a why-question.

The Münchhausen Trilemma is also not a problem. Humans possess an innate knowledge of some things. For example, I know pain whenever I am in pain. I know redness whenever I have the impression that I am looking at something red. Nobody even needs to justify knowledge. When we know something, we just do, and we make the best of it, including smart philosophers like the German philosopher Hans Albert, who in 1968 coined the phrase "the Münchhausen Trilemma".

Answer 2

Please read first my answer to the Muenchhausen question:

Has Münchhausen's trilemma been solved?

The Muenchhausen trilemma shows the aporia when one attempts to find by continued reasoning an ultimate justification for a general statement. According to the trilemma one ends up in one of the three dead ends (horns of the trilemma). None of the three horns is satisfying and provides an ultimate legitimation of the original general statement, i.e. a reason which can no longer be questioned.

Added: Please note that the Muenchhausen trilemma applies to general statements, which conver infinitely many cases. The problem of an ultimate legitimization does not arise for singular statements like "Today it rains in Manhattan". In particular, it does not say "you can't know anything for certain".

Concerning the question of applying the Muenchhausen trilemma to itself: I agree that the Muenchhausen trilemma applies to itself. Hence I consider it a hypothesis which - up to now - has not been falsified but always confirmed.

Answer 3

Who is "they" who say the three horns of the Munchausen Trilemma are "certain"?

The knowledge that we have to live with the Munchausen Trilemma is empirical. Some apparent logic problems end up being solved generations later. Maybe someday somebody will find a way out of the Munchausen Trilemma. but so far, nobody has, and in every case we have ended up in one of the three legs.

Until they do, we have to get by with pragmatism. Truth is only tentative, not certain, and is our best guess, including the limitations on our knowledge imposed by the Trilemma.

See this answer: Is the Münchhausen trilemma really a trilemma?

Answer 4

Munchausen's Trilemma is not a proof, but a disproof. It says if you seek an ultimate grounding of knowledge, it will be unsatisfying because it will rely on: dogmatic arguments, circular reasoning, or an infinite regress of justifications.

That is not at all the same as 'If we keep asking "Why?" '. You are sneaking in the assumption that the question must lead to pursuit of an ultimate grounding. But consider some of the things that militate agsinst that. The Problem of Induction. The Halting Problem. Godel Incompleteness.

All you have to do for your "Why?" sequence to not end up on one of the three tines of the trilemma, is to abandon the assumption an ultimate grounding is necessary. For instance science copes with the Priblem of Induction by accepting that all scientific knowledge is tentative, and in proportion to the evidence from which it is derived. The justifucation for this comes from practical utility not any ultimate grounding.

I see the problem as being the assumption that there is one single 'ultimate' external world. But such a place cannot be accessed except by a universal mind, ie 'the mind of god'. It's like the converse of the Homunculus fallacy. A perfectly viable solution is to accept the idea that reality is a peer-to-peer network, like the metaphor of Indra's Net.

We can shift from making assumptions about the 'ultimate nature' of what asking "Why?" means, to observing how we use it in practice, following ghis advice about it:

"In this sort of predicament, always ask yourself: How did we learn the meaning of this word ("good", for instance)? From what sort of examples? In what language-games? Then it will be easier for you to see that the word must have a family of meanings."

-Wittgenstein, in Philosophical Investigations

We can look at "Why?" as being not simply like "How?" which looks at the subject/s, but as about situating ourselves to the subject of investigation. That is, about constructing a tentative, for-now, cosmology that locates us and the subject of investigation, and forms a fabric justified by Coherentist qualities, such as utility. A human mind is not like a computer which can get stuck forever in logic-loops, we can simply choose to halt when we feel like it. This is the quality of a Strange Loop, and this building of Coherentist fabrics is the creating of Tangled Hierarchies. See further discussion here:

Does the snake bite its own tail: "Philosophy of philosophy"

Why does Man ask Why questions?