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The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)
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10 Reddit comments about The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy):

u/WorldOfthisLord · 6 pointsr/askphilosophy

Michael Della Rocca defends the PSR, as already mentioned. Alex Pruss also defends the PSR, both at book length and in more informal fashion at his blog.

Both men are theists, and Pruss has also blogged about the problem of evil, although I don't believe he's defended the premise that this is the best possible world (just check the "problem of evil" tab on the side of his blog to find out more).

u/josephsmidt · 6 pointsr/latterdaysaints

> I want an answer unique to you

Okay!

> What gives you such strong conviction that what you believe is true?

The same reason you said your mother loved you. It feels right and makes the most sense. It could be she doesn't actually exist outside of your mind. (This cannot be proven wrong objectively. You have to believe it without objective evidence.) Or it could be that she has no free will and loves you no more than a robot who was programed to think and act like it loves you loves you. (Again, you cannot objectively prove your mother has any free will to actually love.)

There are more examples I can give but the point is: at the end of the day, you cannot know your mother is an actual person that actually loves you (beyond just determinism forcing her to act and think so like a robot) without exercising some faith in the Heb. 1:1 sense. (You much choose to believe some things that cannot objectively be proven. Like Solipsism is wrong. For you they are "obvious" but same for me.)

With that said, my two reasons are: 1. It makes the most sense intellectually and 2. It feels right (as if I am receiving spiritual assurances.)

First: Let me start out with noting: though most philosophers are atheist, most philosophers of religion are theists. My point is only, the intellectual case for God and religion must be quite strong if those that study it professionally using the methods of the secular academic world emerge theists. If anyone tells you there is no rational basis for God and religion have obviously not studied the issue in any actual depth.

Want some examples? Well you can start with the argument from contingency + principle of sufficient reason. Even atheists have admitted Pruss has made a formidable case with this argument here. Or you can go the The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics and show the universe is more rational and coherent than you have any right to believe assuming random and purposeless. The NY Times have a lay version here. Or there is the observation that evolution optimises on survivability not truth. (And we know the two are different) This would imply, if there is nothing more than brute, random evolution producing brains, there is no reason to think our brains find truth in what is actually true, only in what it takes to survive. Thus, any "rational" conclusion we ever make, we need to be suspicious actually has anything to do with actual truth. (IE... lack of something like God forces you to admit you might be completely irrational pertaining to any and all your beliefs.)

There are more, and said right they are stronger that I presented, but I am writing a book! So will provide more if you ask.

Second: It feels right. I feel the spirit when I pray. (Just like you feel "love" when your mother hugs you. They both may be no more that chemicals fooling you what is actual, but you trust in at least one is real while trust both are.) I feel the spirit when I read the scriptures. I feel the spirit when I keep the commandments. Like Alma 32 says, when I nourish the seeds of the gospel, I see them grow. I see how the gospel blesses myself and my family. I, etc... So, by this second method I also know it.

So, just like you believe your mother is an actual person who actually loves you (something you must believe without objective proof) because it makes the most sense and feels right I likewise believe there is an actual God who actually loves me because it makes the most sense and also very much feels right (the spirit).

u/classicalecon · 6 pointsr/DebateReligion

A lot of philosophers think something like Pruss's rendition of the Leibnizian cosmological argument is the most likely to be successful. You can see Pruss discuss it here at considerable length and depth. The basic logical structure is something like:

  1. Whatever is contingent has an explanation.
  2. The BCCF is contingent.
  3. Therefore the BCCF has an explanation (from 1, 2).
  4. This explanation must involve a necessary being.
  5. Therefore there is a necessary being (from 3, 4).

    P1 is PSR, which Pruss defends in that article. He also gave it a book length treatment. The BCCF of P2 stands for big conjunctive contingent fact, which is just a conjunction of all the contingent facts. The BCCF is contingent because all the conjuncts are contingent, and so any / all of the conjuncts could have failed to exist, so the BCCF could have failed to exist. P4 should be intuitive. Either the explanation of P3 is necessary or contingent. Say it's contingent. This means the explanation of the BCCF is itself a conjunct of the BCCF, in which case the BCCF explains itself. But nothing contingent can explain itself, otherwise it would be necessary. So the explanation of the BCCF must be necessary, not contingent.

    Most of the debate will be about whether or not PSR is true, and that's what Pruss focuses most of his argumentation on as well. You could also debate what exactly the necessary being the argument concludes with is. Pruss gives a few reasons in that paper to think it's the God of classical theism.
u/TheTripleDeke · 3 pointsr/CatholicPhilosophy

Hey! These are good questions and if I am understanding you correctly, they are questions that are very relevant to contemporary analytic philosophy.

Let's first try and clarify the problem: does Aquinas, by endorsing a specific cause and effect theory of causation, endorse determinism about human creatures? Is this compatible with Catholicism? Or even Christian theism for that matter?

I read Aquinas as a compatibilist; he thinks that determinism is compatible with free will. So it seems you are correct in thinking that he finds determinism to be true, but also that free will is real and that it is compatible with the former.

The problem is seen in contemporary philosophy with two premier philosophers in Peter van Inwagen (an Anglican) and Alexander Pruss (Catholic). van Inwagen, so it seems, is a libertarian concerning free will and so is Pruss. There is this idea called the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) which says that every contingent thing must have a reason, ground, or cause for its existence. But if this is true, like Pruss thinks (he uses it skillfully to defend a contingency argument), how can there be libertarian free will? Doesn't the PSR, if true, rule out all contingency in the world? It seems we cannot say a choice is free if it is not contingent. van Inwagen thinks precisely this case and thinks it is worrisome for the theist and thus he rejects it; Pruss disagrees.

Pruss wrote a fantastic book where he argues that the PSR (Principle of Sufficient Reason) is true.

If you want a fantastic book about free will, God and evil I would recommend these two books: this book by Alvin Plantinga (which I think should be read by every Christian--it's that important) and this book.

u/DJSpook · 3 pointsr/askphilosophy

Glad to see an interest in the philosophy of worldview comparison (what I like to call "phil. of religion"). As arguments for the existence of God, moral arguments have made up one of the significant research programs in the field of Natural Theology.

Like the cosmological argument, philosophers refer to a family of arguments intended to establish theologically significant conclusions united under the indicated common theme (in this case, morality) when referring to "the moral argument". There is no single moral argument, it can be said. Appeals to conscience go quite a ways back (John Henry Newman, Kant), but I think you would get a lot out of Robert M. Adam's formulation and defense of various appeals to conscience he makes in addition to his theory of normative ethics which many now take as a clear option outside of the so called "Euthyphro Dillemma".

Here are some lecture notes by Alvin Plantinga which roughly sketch out a few of such arguments a few pages down I won't give any synopsis beyond that because it's a reality far too often ignored that there are many moral arguments which independently argue from moral intuition to various conclusions.

I'll commend you some resources which I think will be helpful in pursuing an informed opinion regarding them:

Proponents:

The Moral Argument, a long essay (combining two shorter essays) explicating two relatively independent arguments appealing to moral intuition by Mark D. Linville. These two essays are some of the best I've read on the subject, the first regarding what he calls The Moral Poverty of Evolutionary Naturalism wherein he argues for the inconsistency of naturalism and the belief in moral truth, the second dedicated to establishing a theistic foundation for moral truth by refuting all other salient moral theories in contemporary analytic philosophy. Linville has emerged as one of the moral argument's most prominent defenders, and uses much of his essay to attempt to answer its main lines of objection.

J.P. Moreland--whom I mention particularly because his book may be more approachable.

(try not to spend too much time going to apologetics popularizers for your assessment of theistic arguments, though. They can help lay some of the groundwork, but you'll get a lot more out of your study if you work your way up towards the prominent defenders and opponents of theism today.)

The Moral Argument, a shorter essay mainly concerning only one moral argument which infers from moral truth a morally perfect God like that of Western (Christian) Monotheism.

Opponents:

J.L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism

Antony Flew--really any of his books

Graham Oppy--his latest book Arguing About God's devotes some portion to the moral arguments. He intends to spend more time on this subject in a later publication.

A "neutral"-ish essay

In recent years, the philosophy of religion has become one of the most prolific fields in philosophy. With the arguments and their responses becoming more creative and interesting today, I think you would find these edifying:

In Two Dozen Or So Theistic Arguments: The Plantinga Project, scheduled to come out later this year from Oxford U Press, several independent moral arguments will be developed in detail.

Alexander Pruss (forthcoming Necessary Being), mathematician and analytic philosopher whose work on the cosmological argument has made him one of its most prominent defenders. (see also his book The Principle of Sufficient Reason and Dr. Robert Koon's Epistomological Foundations for the Cosmological Argument)

Graham Oppy is co-authroring a book on the contemporary objections to theistic moral arguments. Being one of the imminent atheist philosophers of religion today, it will definitely be worth the read.

For a completely different perspective, Edward Feser's Five Proofs of the Existence of God will also come out later this year. I mention him because he represents one of many theistic philosophers who don't find the moral arguments all that important. It's worth noting that the arguments for theism are meant to "stack up"--as is standard practice in science. If a hypothesis can explain 24+ problems, that's significant evidence in its favor, so theist philosophers today tend to defend their arguments as being part of a collective case for theism.

Further resources on arguments for and against the existence of God, as orthodoxly conceived

u/mleeeeeee · 3 pointsr/DebateReligion

> Contingent things need explanations for their existence by the definition of contingent. It doesn't need to be deduced since "needing an explanation for its existence" is the definition of contingent. It's just a tautology to say that contingent things require explanations for their existence, like "all bachelors are unmarried"

No, it isn't. You're wrong about this.

To be 'contingent', in philosophy, is simply to be not necessary. Is it a controversial question whether all contingent (i.e. non-necessary) things have an explanation for their existence. That's why the Principle of Sufficient Reason is so controversial.

If you want some quick examples, start with a look at Alexander Pruss's book. I'm pretty sure it's the best-regarded work on the PSR and cosmological arguments from contingency. His whole book is dedicated to defending the principle that "necessarily, every contingently true proposition has an explanation". He doesn't just shrug and say it's a tautology. He spends 110 pages considering objections to the PSR, and then 221 more pages trying to justify the PSR.

Or take the SEP article linked above. It briefly discusses an interpretation of Descartes, where he holds that God's willing of the eternal truths is an unexplained contingency. Is Descartes simply contradicting himself? No, he's saying some contingent truths have no explanation.

Or take the SEP article on the cosmological argument. Here it sketches a version of the argument from contingency. It has a separate premise for "This contingent being has a cause of or explanation for its existence", and correctly notes that this premise "invokes a version of the Principle of Causation or the Principle of Sufficient Reason". It then notes that the premise is challenged by Russell and Hume:

>Interpreting the contingent being in premise 1 as the universe, Bertrand Russell denies that the universe needs an explanation; it just is. Russell, following Hume (1980), contends that since we derive the concept of cause from our observation of particular things, we cannot ask about the cause of something like the universe that we cannot experience. The universe is “just there, and that's all” (Russell, 175).

Can we respond to this view by blithely citing the definition of 'contingent' and accusing Russell of denying a tautology? Of course not. After all, it's simply not part of the definition of 'contingent' that something contingent has an explanation.

u/reubencogburn · 2 pointsr/DebateReligion

I just mean they're not stipulating PSR to be an axiom such that it is taken to be self-evident (in the sense that it can be assumed without argument). Philosophers that defend the cosmological argument usually aim a significant portion of their argumentation toward justifying the PSR. Pruss, for example, wrote an entire book defending it.

u/AtheismNTheCity · 2 pointsr/CatholicPhilosophy

> This is seriously one of the weakest objection I've ever heard against the PSR. What does this even mean? Of course God is not obligated to create our universe or any anything for that matter. How does this affect the PSR? There is no explanation other than the 'because'.

It shows that the PSR is self refuting because even a god cannot satisfy it. To put it into a more logical form:

r/https://bit.ly/2wJRxaL

Please feel free to refute that.

> Next: the brute fact response. This still leaves our most basic thirst about understanding reality unquenched. The universe is contingent; there is no way around even when involving science, math, etc--whatever. If it is possible for it to not exist, it is contingent.

Our thirst is technically irrelevant, since we can thirst for things like the color of jealousy, which obviously has no answer. What matters is part of logic. Regarding the possibility of the universe not existing, that assumes it is logically possible that the universe not exist. But so too is god. It is not logically necessary that the god theists believe in exist because other conceptions of god are possible. Why does god timelessly and eternally exist with desire X rather than desire Y, when neither desire X or Y are logically necessary or logically impossible?


Logical necessity cannot explain this scenario. There is no way to show in principle why god had to timelessly and eternally exist with the desire to create our particular universe, and not one just slightly different, or even radically different, or no universe at all. The theist would have to show that it was logically necessary for god to desire to create our universe in order to avoid eventually coming to a brute fact. He can try and say "It's because god wanted a relationship with us," but that wouldn't answer the question at all. Why did god want a relationship with us? Is that logically necessary? Could god exist without wanting a relationship with anyone? And still, even if god wanted a relationship, why did he have to desire this particular universe? There are an infinitude of logically possible universes god could have desired that would allow him to have a relationship with someone else that for no reason god didn't timelessly and eternally exist with the desire to create. A theist can also try to argue that "our universe is the best of all possible worlds, and therefore god had to desire it." But this claim is absurd on its face. I can think of a world with just one more instance of goodness or happiness, and I've easily just thought of a world that's better.


The theist is going to have to eventually come to a brute fact when seriously entertaining answers to these questions. Once he acknowledges that there is no logically necessary reason god had to timelessly and eternally exist with the desire to create our particular universe, and that god could have timelessly and eternally existed with a different desire, he's in exactly the same problem he claims the atheist is in when he says the universe is contingent and could have been otherwise, and therefore cannot explain itself. Hence, even positing a god doesn't allow you to avoid brute facts. There is no way to answer these questions, even in principle, with something logically necessary.

> God, on the other hand, is an entirely different kettle of fish; if God exists, he must exist necessarily. Merely saying it is a brute fact does not get around this; it's getting at that the universe is not contingent. Some think that there could be an infinite chain of causes to get us here. Maybe so. But how does this help? The chain is still contingent.

Nope. If god with eternal contingent (non-necessary) desire X exists, there cannot in principle be a logically necessary reason why that god exists, since a god with another non-necessary desire is just as possible. Hence god is just as contingent as the universe, lest you want to resort to special pleading.

>This is more of the New Atheism that is pure sophistry. 'Simple Logic'. Yikes. There are good objections to the PSR; this is obviously not one of them.

Not at all. This is serious logic showing how even you cannot answer the basic questions of why does god timelessly and eternally exist with desire X rather than desire Y, when neither desire X or Y are logically necessary or logically impossible? The only possible answer must be contingent, since a necessary one is off the table.

>I am not a Catholic but here is a very sophisticated defense of the PSR. Pruss is a Catholic. Pruss is brilliant here as well.
>
>Timothy O'Connor has my favorite book on the topic here

It is impossible to defend the PSR and all attempts to claim otherwise depend on false arguments from consequence.

u/Teilhard_de_Chardin · 1 pointr/askphilosophy
u/Ibrey · 1 pointr/Christianity

> The way you've phrased this makes it sounds like theism is the fallback if every other explanation fails. But theism is its own position with its own potential complications and contradictions.

No, I have argued that the evidence points directly to theism, and said at the outset that this kind of argument is superior to inferences to the best explanation.

> But for what it's worth, my tendency tends to lean towards whichever model is simplest. And I don't view deities as simple things.

But why not? God is absolutely simple. If He were composed of parts, He could decompose and cease to exist, and thus would not be a necessary being; but He is a necessary being.

> And equally, by removing contingency, necessitarianism potentially removes a layer of complexity, makes a simpler model with less stuff left to be confused about. That makes it something I like.

>> Are you advocating necessitarianism because you have some reason to accept it

> I think you are framing this backwards. I just want to check, doesn't the argument from contingency assume as a premise that contingency is a thing i.e. necessitarianism is false? If so, I'm "advocating" necessitarianism, only in the sense that I'm open to it as a possibility, and your argument relies on an assumption I don't hold?

Let me offer an argument against necessitarianism from premisses I believe you will grant me based on your comment:

  1. If necessitarianism is true, it is necessarily true.
  2. Possibly, necessitarianism is false.
  3. Therefore, necessitarianism is false.

    Necessitarianism has won few adherents over the centuries primarily for the reason that we look around us, and we find that is simply not what the universe is like. Even if one accepts the weaker position of determinism, with every event in history being determined by fixed natural laws and the initial conditions of the universe, it defies common sense to think that there could have been no different laws and no different initial conditions; that this particular actual causal chain is the only way things could have been. And if some metaphysical hypothesis demands that we deny common sense, so much the worse for that hypothesis. If we are going to deny the existence of contingent beings on the sole grounds that it makes things "simpler," we might as well make things simpler still by saying that there are no necessary beings either, since an empty universe must be the simplest of all—there are good reasons to prefer a simpler explanation, but not one that is so much simpler that it ceases to be an explanation.

    Yes, the argument denies necessitarianism. But there is no challenge to the argument unless an objector is willing to say not just that necessitarianism is a possibility, but that they think it is actually true. It's pointless to contend that a theistic argument hasn't proved some key premiss beyond the shadow of a doubt as long as you have to admit it is rather more likely than not; you still have to admit the direction that the evidence points.

    > I'd actually be curious in what a longhand deductive version of this argument would look like, just to see if there are any premises that I would accept fearlessly. :)

    The atheist philosopher William L. Rowe wrote a classic study of this argument called The Cosmological Argument (1975), arguing that many popular objections to the argument fail and it justifies theism for those who defend it; he rejects the argument's conclusion because he thinks PSR is probably false, but for a second opinion on this subject see Alexander Pruss' The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment. Pruss developed an interesting version of the argument together with the atheist philosopher Richard M. Gale which replaces PSR with the weaker premiss that every contingent fact possibly has an explanation; Gale and Pruss only argue that the necessary being of their argument is "very powerful" and "very intelligent," but Jerome Gellman shows in his paper "Prospects for a sound stage 3 of cosmological arguments" that the God of the Gale-Pruss argument is necessarily omnipotent and omniscient, which Gale and Pruss concede.

    For a valuable discussion of theistic and atheistic arguments in general, pick up Brian Davies' An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion. For a deeper investigation of some of the principles at the heart of these arguments, see Metaphysics: The Fundamentals.