(+ further question re: individuation of causes; what makes a cause a cause and not another...). — StreetlightX
What I wanted to address was the notion that a PSR of some sort is indispensable to our everyday thinking (basic principles of thought frank) and to science. I argue the opposite. Both everyday thought and science are oblivious to the PSR, unless they specifically focus on the question. — SophistiCat
I argue that any attempt to account for the existence of something rather than nothing must ultimately bottom out in a set of brute facts; the universe simply is, without ultimate cause or explanation. — Sean M. Carroll
But I would put a caveat there, that the overall context, the Universe, reality, being, or whatever you want to call it. at the limits of both its micro and macro dimensions, obviously cannot be caused by "something else", at least not by something else within the system. — Janus
So whether the Big Bang is uncaused, self-causing, or caused by something unknowable, we are not precluded from conceiving it as an event in terms of its observed consequences. But it can only be understood in terms of its consequences, a fact which itself supports the PSR, it cannot be understood 'in itself'. So, in other words, events like the Big Bang or the decay of uranium atoms are conceivable in terms of their consequences, but not conceivable in themselves. — Janus
So in terms of Frank's 'Big Bang' example, it could be, as he says a brute fact, and will remain so for us, even though it could alternatively be a self-caused, and thus in principle, self-explanatory, event. But confirmation of the latter possibility would seem to be closed to us; we cannot tell whether it is simply a brute fact, is self-caused or even caused by some other set of unknowable conditions. — Janus
Lewisian modal realism dissolves the PSR, in the same way that the guillotine cures a headache. — SophistiCat
We look at the past and we assume the future will repeat its past. "From causes which appear similar we expect similar effects. This is the sum of all our experimental conclusions." 4.31
His argument brings into question the uniformity of nature, why should we suspect that nature is ceteris paribus uniform. — Cavacava
He isn't denying that we believe that nature is ceteris paribus uniform. — frank
I don't think it matters to the argument whether the PSR is present, as a formulated principle, in the minds of everyday people and scientists; the important point is whether they operate on the implicit understanding that everyday events and the objects of scientific study are capable of explanation. And I think the answer to that question is very obviously 'yes'. — Janus
If the PSR is not taken as a Kantian type insight into the fact that objects of knowledge must conform to human reason, then how should it be taken? — Janus
If you wanted to argue for the ontological provenance of the PSR, how else would you go about it other than in some variation of a Hegelian/ Spinozist or a Phenomenological/ Heideggerian mode of thought? In other words to merge the epistemological with the ontological or both with the phenomenological. Or some kind of theology perhaps? — Janus
3. Is it an ontological principle?
The only ontological formulation that I can think of is something along these lines:
3*. The world is "rational" (perhaps necessarily so): it is such that everything is amenable to explanation. Or, in a more standard form: Nothing can exist unless it has sufficient reasons for its existence and for the way it is. — SophistiCat
Of course, in a merely logical sense, it is possible to say that its denial "would state that there is at least one thing that does not have a sufficient reason", but so what? — Janus
You only need one uncaused event to refute PSR. — tom
but specific criticisms need specific examples to which to address them — SophistiCat
I don't want to dive into Spinoza, Heidegger or other historical works though, which is why I don't comment on them. I am more interested in live ideas than in philology. — SophistiCat
That's not much of an insight. Of course objects of knowledge conform to human reason - they wouldn't be objects of knowledge otherwise. — SophistiCat
Well, let's see how the slogan "Everything must have a sufficient reason" could be cached out. — SophistiCat
We require reasons and explanations for everything. We are not satisfied with brute facts. Things lacking an explanation are unintelligible to us. This, I think, is closer to what some proponents of the PSR say, but as I argued previously, this is not true. The way we actually reason is not at all like this. — SophistiCat
Here we should pay closer attention to what is meant by (sufficient) reason, cause or explanation (and the possible differences between these concepts). This is a huge topic, but it cannot be sidestepped in this discussion, because a lot depends on it. — SophistiCat
And of course with the ontological formulation, more than with the other two, the obvious question is: Why believe this? Our experience strongly suggests that the world is a pretty orderly place, at least that part of it with which we are familiar.But that observation alone is far too banal to call it a Principle; on the other hand, stronger commitments seem both unwarranted and unnecessary. — SophistiCat
This would actually defy the law of identity. If a thing is identifiable as one thing, then there is a reason why it is that thing and not another thing. That's what makes it identifiable as a thing. So you cannot premise that there is one thing which does not have a sufficient reason without saying that this thing is not a thing, and that's contradiction. That it is a thing implies that there is a reason why it is a thing. The PSR cannot be avoided so easily. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm not really following you. If you didn't know the reasons for two things being different, then how could you know there are such reasons? Would this not be an unjustified assumption? — Janus
Or are you proposing a more deflationary approach which might, for example, count the very having of different qualities as sufficient reason for things being different from one another? — Janus
We require reasons and explanations for everything. We are not satisfied with brute facts. Things lacking an explanation are unintelligible to us. — SophistiCat
And yet you don't seem to be able to explain how reason is "not at all like this" or give an example of some reasoning which is not like this. So why should I not believe you are indulging in bare assertion? — Janus
Your allusions to the existence of more exhaustive accounts or counterexamples do not help me; It would be far more helpful if you actually gave some more exhaustive account or counterexample of your own. — Janus
Seeing as your responses have degenerated into hostile retorts, I don't know if it is worth continuing this conversation. But I'll give it another try. — SophistiCat
By contrast, in our ordinary and scientific reasoning such questions are largely irrelevant. — SophistiCat
Another important question to consider is how subjective it is: how much of the perceived "rationality" of the world is in our heads, vs. being a direct impression of the way the world actually is. I think there is some of both. On the PSR-friendly side of the dilemma, our very existence and our rational faculties seem to require an objectively regular environment. But on the other side, the multiplicity of working accounts of the world casts doubt on the idea that there must be a unique, objective and comprehensive Reason for everything. — SophistiCat
Just one small but illustrative example: anthropic explanations in fundamental physics and cosmology. — SophistiCat
Not everyone likes this anthropocentric framing, but it does have some appeal, even if we are trying to be objective about it: after all, our own existence is the one thing that we can believe with more confidence than anything else! Why not this as at least one of the reasons? — SophistiCat
However, a radically different explanatory terminus has been suggested in the latter half of the last century (if not earlier): our very existence as "observers," living creatures with the ability to make observations and come up with such theories - a Cartesian turn, if you like. Not everyone likes this anthropocentric framing, but it does have some appeal, even if we are trying to be objective about it: after all, our own existence is the one thing that we can believe with more confidence than anything else! Why not this as at least one of the reasons? — SophistiCat
So, my conclusion is that the PSR does capture the phenomenology of human knowledge-seeking, insofar as we are never, generally speaking, satisfied with the current sufficiency of our knowledge and reasoning, and are constantly seeking to increase it. If all you want to claim against the PSR is that there can be no, for us, absolutely sufficient explanation, and that our enquiries don't necessarily need to proceed on the assumption that there is such an absolute explanation, then perhaps we have not been disagreeing so much after all. — Janus
Also, the PSR does not require that there be a "unique, objective and comprehensive Reason for everything", but merely that nothing happens in our world without sufficient reason or cause. — Janus
This is where we diverge, I think. You seem to have a kind of Cartesian view which separates the subject from the world such that rationality could be 'merely in our heads", and that the world could somehow "be some way" that is radically different from the way we experience it. — Janus
I wouldn't call this a Cartesian turn, but quite the opposite, a somewhat Kantian or phenomenological turn that heralds the closing of the Cartesian gap between mind and world. — Janus
And I totally agree; "why not this as at least one of the reasons"? That's what I alluded to earlier; there is no radical separation between us and the world, between our rationality and the 'way things are'. — Janus
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