The Story of PIE: Escaping Agrippa and Redefining Knowledge
During the month of October 2025, I accidentally encountered and learned about the Agrippa Trilemma after asking Grok if we could obtain knowledge without free will. Once learning about its claims, I wondered if there could be a way to defeat it. I quickly realized, like others before me, that it cannot be beaten on its own terms. However, once I realized that the definition of knowledge as Justified True Belief (JTB) is just arbitrary, I asked myself, “Why are philosophers chasing this arbitrary ghost?” JTB as the definition of knowledge cannot be justified without presupposing the very standards it attempts to define.
Once I abandoned JTB, I began to develop what I called PIE—a mnemonic for Perception–Inquiry–Experimentation—which are the three steps I told Grok I would take in order to avoid Agrippa without free will. I put these steps into premises and experimented with their soundness, eventually finding the correct verbiage for them which allowed me to avoid all three horns.
How Is JTB Arbitrary?
JTB’s arbitrariness becomes clear when we ask: by what non-circular standard was JTB selected as the correct analysis of knowledge? Any defense of JTB must either (1) appeal to intuitions about knowledge (which already assume some prior understanding of what counts as knowledge), (2) appeal to truth-correspondence (which presupposes access to the very truth condition under dispute), or (3) stipulate it as conceptually primitive. Each route collapses into circularity, regress, or arbitrary stipulation—precisely Agrippa’s horns.
Despite its arbitrariness, philosophers have been using JTB to define knowledge, doing so in a confusing way, since JTB is used to define both a priori and a posteriori knowledge. But once I realized that JTB does not have the “right” to be the definition of knowledge, I abandoned it and started thinking of ways to avoid Agrippa without it. I discovered a structure that escapes it entirely.
Refining PIE
From October of last year until just a few days ago, I have been refining the PIE Sequence, which describes the steps we take in order to achieve warrant for any belief. “Warrant” here means epistemic justification sufficient for rational endorsement.
At first, PIE was just a meta-epistemological framework describing how we humans acquire and justify our beliefs. But after extensive feedback from critics, I realized I could transform it into a deductive argument, the PIE Syllogism, that avoids Agrippa’s Trilemma while also proving what I discovered: that JTB cannot be considered knowledge for finite agents whose limited cognition constrains their epistemic access.
Finite agents, by definition, lack exhaustive access to the totality of reality. Therefore, any claim that knowledge requires full truth-correspondence must explain how limited agents can verify mind-independent correspondence without either infinite regress, circular appeal to perception, or arbitrary stopping points. If such verification is structurally inaccessible, then JTB defines knowledge in terms unavailable to the beings it is meant to describe.
Importantly, this does not deny that mind-independent truth may exist. It argues only that correspondence cannot function as a non-circular condition of warrant for finite agents.
The Problem with JTB
The JTB definition continues to cause confusion in the world of epistemology. Why are we using it to define two different and totally separate kinds of knowledge?
2+2=4 is true, but that is not a truth about physical reality itself; it is true by definition, following a rule set inside mathematics. Thus, the “T” component in JTB is inappropriate when applied uniformly, because the “truth” represents correspondence with reality under a classical correspondence model.
Under a correspondence theory, a proposition is true if it matches or corresponds to mind-independent reality. But mathematical propositions do not correspond to physical states of affairs; they are internally valid within formal systems. Their warrant arises from coherence within axiomatic structures, not from empirical comparison to reality. Therefore, labeling both empirical and formal knowledge under a single truth-correspondence condition conflates two distinct warrant-generating procedures.
When we say “2+2=4 is true,” are we saying 2+2=4 is part of physical reality? No. It is an equation that can help us describe things in reality, but it is not itself a physical object or state of affairs. Those who claim otherwise are mistaking the map for the territory.
Calling a priori knowledge a JTB is a misnomer, because it is not “true” in the correspondence sense, but coherent within a defined system. Coherence warrants the stamp of “truth” within that system of internally consistent propositions.
Truth-correspondence may obtain ontologically, but for finite agents, verification of correspondence requires a standard of comparison between belief and reality. Since finite agents never step outside their point of view to compare belief with reality-in-itself, correspondence cannot be non-circularly verified without invoking one of Agrippa’s horns. Thus, defining knowledge in terms of verified correspondence sets a condition that finite agents cannot access.
Technically, JTB on the ontological level could be considered knowledge for an omniscient God, because omniscience entails unrestricted access to reality as it is. But to define knowledge for finite agents in terms that only an omniscient being could satisfy is absurb. Calling something we can’t know “knowledge,” is like calling something we can’t eat “food.”
What Does PIE Even Do?
The PIE Syllogism I developed (shown below) argues that warrant-generation is not granted by propositions alone but structurally by procedure. What emerges non-arbitrarily from this structure are the only two attainable warrants for finite agents:
Justified Coherent Belief (JCB), for a priori claims warranted through internal coherence.
Justified Reliable Belief (JRB), for extrinsic claims warranted through consistent reliability across interaction and intersubjective convergence.
These are not merely renamed versions of coherentism and reliabilism. Rather, they are structurally derived as the only two possible resolution mechanisms available once truth-correspondence verification is removed as an accessible warrant condition. One applies internally (coherence within a system), the other externally (reliability across experiential interaction). No third procedural category remains without reintroducing regress, circularity, or arbitrariness.
Each premise is epistemically necessary, meaning that denying any premise results in performative contradiction or renders inquiry unintelligible.
PIE escapes Agrippa because it is not justified by appeal to further beliefs but by the impossibility of its denial. Any denial must operate from subjective awareness, assume discrepancy matters, engage inquiry aimed at resolution, and rely either on coherence or reliability to justify itself. Thus, the framework applies even to its critics.
The PIE Syllogism
P1. Finite agents operate from subjective awareness.
Denial = performative contradiction.
P2. Epistemic discrepancies within awareness undermine warrant.
Denial = Warrant is never undermined.
P3. Warrant-seeking inquiry requires resolution.
Denial = Warrant-seeking inquiry can remain unresolved forever.
P4. Intrinsic claims resolve only through internal coherence, yielding Justified Coherent Belief (JCB).
Denial = Intrinsic claims can be resolved without coherence.
P5. Truth-correspondence verification produces regress, circularity, or arbitrary stipulation; Justified True Belief is inaccessible as a non-circular warrant condition for finite agents.
Denial = Truth-correspondence verification is possible without any of Agrippa’s horns.
P6. Extrinsic claims must therefore resolve through reliability across interaction and intersubjective convergence, yielding Justified Reliable Belief (JRB) as the only remaining non-arbitrary warrant.
Denial = Extrinsic claims can be warranted by something other than reliability.
Conclusion: JCB and JRB exhaust non-arbitrary warrant for finite agents.
Denial = There exists at least one other non-arbitrary form of warrant beyond JCB and JRB that escapes Agrippa and the structural limits of finite agency.
PIE Remains Unrefuted
Since I first introduced PIE to the public in November 2025, even its primitive form has yet to be refuted. My paper on it has been downloaded by roughly 2000 philosophers across Academia and PhilPapers. So far, I have not received any formal responses.
Recently, I did receive pushback from some Theists (namely Orthodox Christians) whom I challenged to show which premise of PIE is false and how it falls on Agrippa. Instead of refuting a premise, which they know they can’t, they argued that PIE “smuggles metaphysics.” But PIE makes no ontological claims about what exists; it identifies structural limits on what finite agents can non-circularly justify.
PIE does not argue against God. In fact, one could argue that if finite agents cannot achieve unrestricted truth-correspondence, then a being capable of such access would occupy a fundamentally different epistemic category.
Finally, PIE does not claim absolute truth-correspondence for itself. Its warrant arises through coherence (internal consistency) and reliability (its explanatory stability across inquiry and debate). It operates within its own dual-warrant framework rather than exempting itself from it.
Why Share This?
I share this because I want PIE posted in as many places as possible. I have submitted a full paper for peer review, which is a long process. If accepted and published, it could significantly shift contemporary epistemological discussion.
Such claims have brought ridicule from some debatebro philosophers. But no one has yet identified a false premise. Until that happens, PIE stands structurally intact.
If PIE Is Right
Dissolves Long-Standing Problems:
✓ Agrippa’s Trilemma is a false trichotomy
✓ The Gettier problem is structurally eliminated
✓ Foundationalism vs. Coherentism vs. Infinitism becomes obsolete
Replaces Classical Epistemology:
✓ JTB is structurally inaccessible for finite agents
✓ JCB + JRB exhaust attainable warrant
✓ Truth-correspondence is epistemically inaccessible (not metaphysically denied)
Explains Why Science & Math Work:
✓ Math succeeds through coherence
✓ Science succeeds through reliability
✓ Both succeed structurally, not arbitrarily
Meta-Epistemological Shift:
✓ From propositional definitions to procedural warrant
✓ Structural limits on finite epistemic agency
✓ Non-arbitrary framework without dogmatism
So this is serious work, and I must focus my time and energy on it.
Not many people yet understand what this means—and that’s fine. But if correct, it represents a structural correction to epistemology that hasn’t happened in 2300 years.
I think that’s a pretty important accomplishment.
If you’re interested in my academic work, here’s my PhilPapers account.