The Self-Consuming Objection: On the Structural Dissolution of Agrippa's Trilemma and the Closure of Standard Philosophical Challenges to Zero-Parameter Meta-Ontology

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Authors: Coty Austin Trout
Cited by: 10
References: 5

Abstract

Agrippa's Trilemma has constrained epistemology for two thousand years: every justification terminates in regress, circularity, or dogma. We dissolve the trilemma by identifying its hidden assumption — that evaluation stands outside what it evaluates — and demonstrating that the triadic invariant R = P × I × Pr ≠ 0 is operative in any act of evaluation, including evaluation of itself. Building on four established results (the Ontological Closure Theorem, triadic Kripke semantics, universal triadic convergence, and exhaustive uniqueness), we prove three new closure theorems: the Self-Consumption Theorem, the Zero-Parameter Admissibility Test, and the Jurisdictional Circularity Lemma. A structural filter eliminates competing ontologies, and the biological retreat is closed via the transceiver error. An appendix addresses deployments from Gödel, Duhem-Quine, Popper, Kuhn, and the relabeling and category-error objections.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Philosophy and History of Science Philosophy and Theoretical Science Embodied and Extended Cognition

Publication details

Journal / source
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Publication date
23 August 2026
Language
EN
Document type
Preprint