The Principle of Sufficient Reason

William Lane Craig's influential kalam cosmological argument concludes that the universe has a cause of its beginning (the "first cause"). Craig provides some supplementary reasoning to suggest that the first cause is God-a God that exists timelessly without the universe and temporally with the universe. I argue that Craig's hypothesis about the nature of the first cause is impossible. In particular, it cannot be the case that God timelessly wills to create the universe and the universe begins to exist.

Contents ▲ Nature of philosophy of science ▲ Some central figures in the development of philosophy of science ▲ Falsification and verification hypothesis ▲ Popper's submission on pseudo-science ▲ Meaning of verifiability of hypothesis ▲ Verification and falsification: similarity and difference ▲ Models in science ▲ Scientific procedures-Hypothesis, theories and laws ▲ The problem of induction ▲ Confirmation theory.

1813 yılında doktora tezi olarak hazırlanmasının ardından, Schopenhauer felsefesinin temeli haline gelen Yeter Sebep İlkesinin Dört Katlı Kökü Üzerine (Über die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde) başlıklı çalışma, var olan her şeyin bir açıklamasının yapılabileceği varsayımından hareket eder. Yeter sebep ilkesinin bütün bilgi ve bilimin temelini teşkil ettiğini düşünen Schopenhauer, bir bütün olarak deneyimin doğasının aydınlatılması amacını taşır. Dört katlı kök altında sunulan ilke temelde tek bir ilkeye irca edilebilir: “Hiçbir şey, neden başka türlü değil de tam olarak olduğu gibi olmasına ilişkin bir sebep (reason) ya da temel (ground) olmaksızın meydana gelmez.” Schopenhauer, a priori geçerliliğe sahip olduğunu kabul ettiği ilkenin fiziksel (nedensel), mantıksal (önermesel), geometrik ya da matematiksel ve ahlâkî (moral) olmak üzere dört farklı açıklama tarzında karşılık bulduğunu belirtir. Fiziksel, bir diğer adıyla nedensellik adını alan ilk açıklama, yalnızca fizik dünyada gerçekleşen olaylar ya da durumlara uygulanır ve oluşun yeter sebep ilkesi adını taşır. Mantıksal kök, yargıya dayanmakla birlikte öncüllerin takip ettiği sonuca işaret eder ve bilginin yeter sebebidir. Matematiksel kök varlığın yeter sebep ilkesine karşılık gelirken, dördüncü kök ahlâk yasasına işaret eder ve bir bütün olarak eylemlerimizde açığa çıkarak eylemin yeter sebep ilkesi adını alır. İlkeyi dört düzeyde ele almakla Schopenhauer; varlık, bilgi, oluş ve eylemin yeter sebebini birbirinden ayırt etmiş olur. Bilimin açıklamalarını dayandırdığı yeter sebep ilkesi, işleyiş ve geçerlilik açısından daima duyusal alanla, eş deyişle fenomenal düzlemle sınırlı kalmak durumundadır. Buradan hareketle, zorunluluğu temin eden ilke olarak yeter sebep ilkesinin tasavvurun sınırlarını aşan kendinde şey (ding an sich) ile herhangi bir ilişkiye sokulabilmesi mümkün değildir. Yeter-sebep ilkesinin yegâne uygulama alanı olan, özne için nesneler sınıfını teşkil eden tasavvurlarımız bu ilke tarafından koşullanmıştır ve zorunlu yasalara sahiptir. Bu çalışma, Schopenhauer’in kendisinden önce kimsenin açık bir şekilde ayırmaya muktedir olamadığını söylediği ilkenin, dört farklı köke nasıl ve hangi amaç dahilinde ayrıldığının yanı sıra tasavvur dünyası ile olan irtibatına yer vermeyi hedeflemektedir.

Consider an infinite series whose items are each explained by their immediate successor. Does such an infinite explanation explain the whole series or does it leave something to be explained? Hume arguably claimed that it does fully explain the whole series. Leibniz, however, designed a very telling objection against this claim, an objection involving an infinite series of book copies. In this paper, I argue that the Humean claim can, in certain cases, be saved from the Leibnizian "infinite book copies" objection, and that this provides an interesting way to defuse some cosmological arguments for the existence of God and to give a non-theistic but complete explanation of the Universe. In the course of my argumentation, I also show that circular explanations can be "self-explanatory" as well: explaining two items by each other can explain the couple of items tout court.

یکی از مهم ترین براهین اثبات وجود خداوند، استدلال جهان شناختی ست. تقریر های سنتی استدلال جهان شناختی، که مبتنی بر اصل علیّت و اصل جهت کافی است، همواره چالش های فراوانی را پیش روی خود داشته است. از این رو، این برهان در طول تاریخ خود، همواره در حال تطوّر و بازنگری بوده است. یکی از تقریرهای معاصر از این استدلال، که برای رهایی از این چالش ها صورت بندی شده است، «استدلال جهان شناختی جدید» است. این تقریر تلاش دارد با بهره از نظریه های جهان های ممکن، مفاهیم وجهی و اصل جهت کافی حداقلی، تقریری متفاوت و منطقی از استدلال جهان شناختی ارائه دهد. بر اساس این تقریر جدید از استدلال جهانشناختی، بدون نیاز به اصل جهت کافی حداکثری و بدون نیاز به اصل علیّت، وجود خداوند برای جهان هستی اثبات می شود، در نتیجه بسیاری از نقدهای سنتی، بر این استدلال وارد نخواهد بود. در این مقاله ابتدا به تبیین اصطلاحات فنی این استدلال خواهیم پرداخت و سپس صورت بندی استدلال را توضیح داده و در انتها برخی از مهم ترین نقدها به این استدلال را مطرح خواهیم کرد.



One of the most important arguments for the existence of god is the cosmological argument. Traditional developments of cosmological argument, which are based on the casual principle and principle of sufficient reason, have always faced many challenges. Hence, this argument has been constantly evolving throughout its history. "a new cosmological argument" is one of the contemporary versions of this argument, which is formulated to get rid of these challenges. This version attempts to provide a different and logical version of the cosmological argument, and this do by using the theories of possible worlds, modal notions and the theory of weak version of principle of sufficient reason. According to this new version of the cosmological argument, the necessity of God's existence for the universe is proved without the need for the strong version of principle of sufficient reason and without the need to prove the casual principle. Consequently, many of the traditional criticisms will be no objection to this argument. In this article, we will first explain the technical terms of this argument, then describe its formulation, and in the end we will discuss some of the most important critiques of this argument.

When reflecting on the causal antecedents of human action in the right manner and context, it is easy to get the impression that morally relevant freedom is impossible. I call this the “non-existence impression.” The objective of this paper is not to determine whether this impression is correct, but to understand which features of an action’s causal history generate it. According to the most familiar answers, the impression results from the observation that every human action is either (i) caused, or fully determined, by factors beyond the agent’s control or (ii) the outcome of a chance process, combined with the assumption that that is inconsistent with freedom. I argue that this cannot be the full explanation, since there are possible cases of human action in which neither (i) nor (ii) is true, but which nevertheless give rise to the non-existence impression. On my alternative account, the impression rests on the implicit assumption that freedom requires involvement in the ultimate explanation of one’s action (in a novel sense that I explain), and on the observation that agents do not meet this condition. It follows from plausible assumptions that satisfying this condition is impossible, since no action can have an ultimate explanation. This in turn is not a distinctive feature of human agency, but an instance of the general truth that no fact is ultimately explicable.

(1) If positive situation S fails to obtain, then some other positive situation excluding S (that is, R entailing ~S) obtains.

(2) If it is not the case that some other positive situation excluding S (that is, R entailing ~S) obtains, then it is not the case that positive situation S fails to obtain. [From 1, Contraposition]

Therefore, causality can be (and regardless of whatever else is involved in the description of what causality ‘is’ *must* be) construed in terms of logical constraint, based on consistency with whatever is the case in the actual world, all told, at any given time.

The PSR (which is famously controversial, and admits of many variants in response to various objections) says (more or less) that every fact has a reason sufficient to explain it. But we have just proven the following:

There not being a sufficient reason to *exclude* some fact is sufficient reason to explain it.

In other words, logical non-exclusion is provably the logical equivalent of saying "there is sufficient cause that it be so".

If I am not mistaken, this summarily solves all of the extant controversies about the nature of causality and whether some variant of the PSR is true and/or provable.

Inductive conclusions rest upon the Uniformity Principle, that similar events lead to similar results. The principle derives from three fundamental axioms: Existence, that the observed object has an existence independent of the observer; Identity, that the objects observed, and the relationships between them, are what they are; and Continuity, that the objects observed, and the relationships between them, will continue unchanged absent a sufficient reason. Together, these axioms create a statement sufficiently precise to be falsified.

Simple enumeration of successful observations is ineffective to support an inductive conclusion. First, as its analytical device, induction uses the contrapositive form of the hypothesis; a successful observation merely represents the denial of the antecedent, from which nothing follows. Second, simple enumeration uses an invalid syllogism that fails to distribute its middle term.

Instead, the inductive syllogism identifies its subject by excluding nonuniform results, using the contrapositive form of the hypotheses. The excluded data allows an estimate of the outer boundaries of the subject under examination. But an estimate of outer boundaries is as far as the inductive process may proceed; an affirmative identification of the content of the subject never becomes possible.

During the last year of his stay in Paris (1675-76), Leibniz wrote a number of
private papers on metaphysical themes, many of which have been collected by the
Academy Editors and published under the title De Summa Rerum. Although these
writings are often fragmentary and not systematic, they have recently captured the
attention of some scholars, for they show interesting ideas and hypotheses, which
are still far from Leibniz’s mature thought.
In this paper, I will focus on one of these provisional hypotheses, i.e., the
universal vortex, which was entertained by Leibniz only for a brief period (February-
March 1676). I will present some texts in which Leibniz made use of the image of the
universe as a great vortex, and I will give a brief account of the recent debate on its
presumed pantheism (section I). After focusing on possible theoretical and historical
sources of such image–particularly Athanasius Kircher (section II), René Descartes
and Democritus (section III)–, I will turn to the analysis of pantheistic echoes in
the philosophy of the young Leibniz. I will argue that some of his metaphysical
doctrines are still incomplete, at that time, i.e., the universal harmony, the mindbody
relationship, and the theory of substance (section IV). These doctrines, I
believe, are at work in the great vortex theory of 1676. Here, by identifying God
with a mind, and the world with a body (section V), Leibniz drew the pantheistic
conclusion that as each mind vivifies and substantiates its own body, so does God
vivify and substantiate the whole world.

The two problems are:

a) Does one ever have sufficient reason for what one does; and if not, should this be a cause for concern? If, when reasons for action conflict, reaching a decision is always a non sequitur, then it looks as though in such situations the answer is: No.  But would it even be desirable to act according to the Principle of Sufficient Reason?  It can be argued that, unless one can give sufficient reason for one’s actions, one can never really justify them; nor will rational persuasion be possible.  On the other hand, the idea that there is only one rational thing to do in any given situation seems oppressive, almost totalitarian.

b) Is deliberation an inherently self-deceptive operation? Is the deliberator compelled to treat an irrational procedure with no right outcome as though it were the intelligent engagement with a problem that has a correct answer? And if so, what will become of deliberation once this is fully realised?  Less nihilistically, what would a maximally rational decision be like?

ABSTRACT: As a supplement to John L. Heilbron's account, I will argue that, although the label 'experimental physics' can be rightfully used to describe aspects of Petrus van Musschenbroek's (1692-1761) work, the latter's understanding of 'physica' is to be situated within a broader framework in which theological, philosophical and teleological considerations continued to play an important role. First, I will draw attention to Musschenbroek's views on the scope of physica and especially to his conception of a law of nature. It will be shown that by radicalizing certain aspects of Isaac Newton's methodological ideas van Musschenbroek no longer considered physics as the discipline that uncovered causes from effects, as Newton did, but as the discipline that studies the effects of unknown causes. In addition, I will show that van Musschenbroek endorsed the view that the laws of nature are contingent on God's free will and that they are knowable due to his goodness. Second, it will be argued that for van Musschenbroek physics, alongside with teleology, had clear physico-theological repercussions. Along the way, van Musschenbroek's views on the principle of sufficient reason will be discussed for the first time.

There is stock argument against libertarianism: that the indeterminism it postulates makes human choice a matter of chance and this is no better as a basis for practical rationality and moral responsibility than the most rigid determinism.  I suggest that a similar problem arises on deterministic assumptions: although human choice is no longer a matter of mere chance, it remains arbitrary since whatever explains a person’s choice to act on the reasons for an action rather than those against, it is not a matter of reasons that were reasons FOR THAT PERSON.  The explanatory gap is closed in the wrong way for the impression of sheer arbitrariness to be cancelled.  I discuss (via a digression on F. H. Bradley) whether Davidson’s ‘anomalous monism’ would, if correct, necessitate any modification to this conclusion.  I also ask how the problem addressed in this paper relates to Galen Strawson’s rejection of the possibility of complete autonomy or self-determination.

This article analyses the principle of sufficient reason in the systems of I. Kant and A. Schopenhauer, making the parallels with the Chr. Wolff’s metaphysics. Also the author demonstrates how the principle was being transformed from Wolff, through Kant to Schopenhauer and which kind of usage (dogmatic or critical) of the principle could be fruitful as methodological rule to the construction of philosophical  system.

Анализируется закон достаточного основания в системах И. Канта и А. Шопенгауэра, проводятся параллели с метафизикой Х. Вольфа. Автор показывает, как закон достаточного основания трансформировался от Вольфа через Канта к Шопенгауэру и в каком виде он был использован (догматическом или критическом) как методологическое правило построения философской системы.