trivialism

English

Etymology

From trivial +‎ -ism.

Noun

trivialism (countable and uncountable, plural trivialisms)

1. (logic) The theory that every proposition and its negation is true.
   • 2004, Graham Priest, J. C. Beall, Bradley Armour-Garb, The Law of Non-contradiction: New Philosophical Essays, page 252:

     If it is possible for trivialism to be true, it may be false as well as true that all humans are mammals […]

   • 2008, Peter Baofu, The future of post-human mathematical logic, page 97:

     This charge of trivialism is also called the principle of explosion […]

   • 2012, Koji Tanaka, Francesco Berto, Edwin Mares, Paraconsistency: Logic and Applications, page 296:

     Trivialism is pretty hopeless as a philosophy, although it is very easy to defend/maintain verbally!

2. A trivial matter or method; a triviality.
   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, (please specify |book=I or IV, or the page):

     When, across the hundredfold poor scepticisms, trivialisms and constitutional cobwebberies of Dryasdust, you catch any glimpse of a William the Conqueror, a Tancred of Hauteville or suchlike, — do you not discern veritably some rude outline of a true God-made King […] ?

Related terms

• trivialist
• trivialistic