The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A ReassessmentThe Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) says that all contingent facts must have explanation. In this 2006 volume, which was the first on the topic in the English language in nearly half a century, Alexander Pruss examines the substantive philosophical issues raised by the Principle Reason. Discussing various forms of the PSR and selected historical episodes, from Parmenides, Leibnez, and Hume, Pruss defends the claim that every true contingent proposition must have an explanation against major objections, including Hume's imaginability argument and Peter van Inwagen's argument that the PSR entails modal fatalism. Pruss also provides a number of positive arguments for the PSR, based on considerations as different as the metaphysics of existence, counterfactuals and modality, negative explanations, and the everyday applicability of the PSR. Moreover, Pruss shows how the PSR would advance the discussion in a number of disparate fields, including meta-ethics and the philosophy of mathematics. |
Contents
Section 1 | 20 |
Section 2 | 41 |
Section 3 | 75 |
Section 4 | 82 |
Section 5 | 97 |
Section 6 | 126 |
Section 7 | 160 |
Section 8 | 163 |
Section 11 | 189 |
Section 12 | 209 |
Section 13 | 231 |
Section 14 | 249 |
Section 15 | 252 |
Section 16 | 254 |
Section 17 | 280 |
Section 18 | 295 |
Section 9 | 171 |
Section 10 | 184 |
Section 19 | 299 |
Section 20 | 321 |
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Common terms and phrases
absurd accept action actual actual world affairs allow Alternately apple apply argue argument Aristotelian BCCF causal cause choice choose chose claim complete concepts conjunction consider contingent course depends distinction entails entities essence event evidence ex nihilo existence explanans explanation explanatory fact fails fall false first follows freely further give given grounds happen hence holds human identity inference infinite initial instance intuitions Jones kind laws of nature least libertarian logically matter mean metaphysical modal moral namely necessarily necessary Note notion objection Observe occurred once perhaps person physical plausible positive possible worlds preceding premises principle prior probability problem properties proposition quantum mechanics question reason regress relation require response seems self-evident self-explanatory sense shows simply Socrates sort substance sufficient suppose talk theory things thought true true proposition truth truthmaker understand universe virtue