Trichotomy (philosophy)

A trichotomy is a three-way classificatory division. Some philosophers pursued

trichotomies.
Important trichotomies discussed by Aquinas include the causal principles (agent, patient,
act), the potencies for the intellect (imagination, cogitative power, and memory and
reminiscence), and the acts of the intellect (concept, judgment, reasoning), with all of those
rooted in Aristotle; also the transcendentals of being (unity, truth, goodness) the requisites
of the beautiful (wholeness, harmony, radiance).
Kant expounded a table of judgments involving four three-way alternatives, in regard to (1)
Quantity, (2) Quality, (3) Relation, (4) Modality, and, based thereupon, a table of four
categories, named by the terms just listed, and each with three subcategories. Kant also
adapted the Thomistic acts of intellect in his trichotomy of higher cognition (a)
understanding, (b) judgment, (c) reason which he correlated with his adaptation in the
soul's capacities (a) cognitive faculties, (b) feeling of pleasure or displeasure, and (c)
faculty of desire[1] of Tetens's trichotomy of feeling, understanding, will.[2]
Hegel held that a thing's or idea's internal contradiction leads in a dialectical process to a
new synthesis that makes better sense of the contradiction. The process is sometimes
described as thesis, antithesis, synthesis. It is instanced across a pattern of trichotomies
(e.g. being-nothingness-becoming, immediate-mediate-concrete, abstract-negativeconcrete); such trichotomies are not just three-way classificatory divisions; they involve
trios of elements functionally interrelated in a process. They are often called triads (but
'triad' does not have that as a fixed sense in philosophy generally).
Charles Sanders Peirce built his philosophy on trichotomies and triadic relations and
processes, and framed the "Reduction Thesis" that every predicate is essentially either
monadic (quality), dyadic (relation of reaction or resistance), or triadic (representational
relation), and never genuinely and irreducibly tetradic or larger.

Examples of Philosophical Trichotomies

Plato's Tripartite Soul

Rational. Libidinous (desiring). Spirited (various animal qualities).

St. Augustine's 3 Laws[3]

Divine Law. Natural Law. Temporal, Positive, or Human Law.

St. Augustine's 3 features of the Intellect. Will. Memory. (St. John of the Cross, OCD follows this
soul[4]
also, but may erroneously identify them as 3 distinct powers.[5])

St. Thomas Aquinas, OP's 3

causal principles[6] (based in
Aristotle)

Agent. Patient. Act.

Aquinas's 3 potencies for

intellect[6] (based in Aristotle)

Imagination. Cogitative power (or, in animals, instinct). Memory

(and, in humans, reminiscence).

Aquinas's 3 acts of
intellect[6] (based in Aristotle)

Conception. Judgment. Reasoning.

Aquinas's 3 transcendentals of
being[6]

Unity. Truth. Goodness.

Aquinas's 3 requisites for the

beautiful[6]

Wholeness or perfection. Harmony or due proportion. Radiance.

St. Albertus Magnus's 3

Universals[7]

Ante rem (Idea in God's mind). In re (potential or actual in

things). Post rem (mentally abstracted).

Sir Francis Bacon's 3 Tables[8]

Presence. Absence. Degree.

Thomas Hobbes's 3 Fields

Physics. Moral Philosophy. Civil Philosophy.

Johannes Nikolaus Tetens's 3

powers of mind[2]

Feeling. Understanding. Will.

John Dryden's 3 ways of

transferring

Metaphrase. Paraphrase. Imitation.

Korzybski's 3 types of life.

Chemical-binder (i.e plants). Space-binder (i.e mammals). Timebinder (i.e humans). Each one up the scale requires the previous
one.

Kant's 3 faculties of soul[1]

Faculties of knowledge. Feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Faculty

of desire (which Kant regarded also as the will).

Kant's 3 higher faculties of

cognition[1]

Understanding. Judgment. Reason.

Kant's 3 judgments of quantity

Universal. Particular. Singular

Kant's 3 categories of quantity

Unity. Plurality. Totality

Kant's 3 judgments of quality

Affirmative. Negative. Infinite

Kant's 3 categories of quality

Reality. Negation. Limitation.

Kant's 3 judgments of relation

Categorical. Hypothetical. Disjunctive.

Kant's 3 categories of relation

Inherence and subsistence. Causality and dependence. Community.

In other words:
Substance and accident. Cause and effect. Reciprocity.

Kant's 3 judgments of modality Problematical. Assertoric. Apodictic

Kant's 3 categories of modality Possibility. Existence. Necessity

Hegel's 3 dialectical moments

Thesis. Antithesis. Synthesis.

Hegel's 3 Spirits[9]

Subjective Spirit. Objective Spirit. Absolute Spirit.

Charles Sanders Peirce's

3 categories

Quality of feeling. Reaction, resistance. Representation, mediation.

C. S. Peirce's 3 universes of
experience

Ideas. Brute fact. Habit (habit-taking).

C. S. Peirce's 3 orders of
philosophy

Phenomenology. Normative sciences. Metaphysics.

C. S. Peirce's 3 normatives

The good (esthetic). The right (ethical). The true (logical).

C. S. Peirce's 3 semiotic
elements

Sign (representamen). Object. Interpretant.

C. S. Peirce's 3 grades of
conceptual clearness

By familiarity. Of definition's parts. Of conceivable practical

implications.

C. S. Peirce's 3 active principles

Spontaneity, absolute chance. Mechanical necessity. Creative love.
in the cosmos

Gottlob Frege's 3 realms of

sense[10]

The external, public, physical. The internal, private, mental. The

Platonic, ideal but objective (to which sentences refer).

Karl Popper's 3 worlds[11]

Physical things and processes. Subjective human experience.

Culture and objective knowledge

James Joyce's 3 aesthetic

stages[12]

Arrest (by wholeness). Fascination (by harmony). Enchantment (by

radiance).

Louis Zukofsky's 3 aesthetic

elements[13]

Shape. Rhythm. Style.

Sren Kierkegaard's 3 Stages[14] Aesthetic. Ethical. Religious.

Edmund Husserl's 3 Reductions Phenomenological. Eidetic. Religious.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty's 3
fields[15]

Physical. Vital. Human.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty's 3
categories[15]

Quantity. Order. Meaning.

Alan Watts's 3 world views

Life as machine (Western). Life as organism (Chinese). Life as

drama (Indian).

Saint Paul's tripartite nature of

man (I Thes. 5:23)

Body, soul, and spirit.

Sigmund Freud

Id, Ego, and Superego.

Jacques Lacan

Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary.

Notes

a b c

1. ^ Jump up to:
Kant, Immanuel, The Critique of Judgment, 2007 edition, Cosimo
Classics, pp. 10-11.
a b
2. ^ Jump up to: Teo, Thomas (2005), The critique of psychology: from Kant to
postcolonial theory, p. 43.
3. Jump up^ Augustine through the Ages (1999), p. 582.
4. Jump up^ St. Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate, 10, 11; Encyclopedia of Christian
Theology, Volume 1 (2004), page 54. See St. Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate, 14. St.
Thomas Aquinas, OP explains that St. Augustine does not identify these 3 features as
"powers" of the soul. St. Thomas Aquinas, OP, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, Q. 79,
A. 7, ad 1.
5. Jump up^ St. John of the Cross, OCD, Doctor, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book 2,
Chapter 6, 1.
a b c d e
6. ^ Jump up to:
See The Pocket Aquinas (1991).
7. Jump up^ "St. Albertus Magnus" in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Eprint.
8. Jump up^ "Francis Bacon, Viscount Saint Alban", Britannica.com Eprint
9. Jump up^ Redding, Paul (1997, 2006), "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel" in
the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Eprint.
10. Jump up^ Klement, Kevin C. (2005), "Gottlob Frege (18481925)", Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
11. Jump up^ Popper, Karl (1982), The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism.
12. Jump up^ Joyce, James (1914-1915), A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,
see Chapter 5, especially (but not only) lines 8215-8221.
13. Jump up^ Zukofsky, Louis, "A" 12 (1966), and Prepositions (1967, 1981), p. 55.
14. Jump up^ McDonald, William (1996, 2009), "Sren Kierkegaard" in the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. See Section 6.
a b
15. ^ Jump up to: Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1942), La structure du comportement, and
published in English as The Structure of Behavior.