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Single Idea 14018

[filed under theme 2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason ]

Full Idea

Mackie (1983) dismisses the Principle of Sufficient Reason quickly, arguing that it is self-refuting: there is no sufficient reason to accept it. However, a principle is not invalidated by not applying to itself; it can be a powerful heuristic tool.

Gist of Idea

Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool?

Source

Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 6.VI)

Book Ref

Bourne,Craig: 'A Future for Presentism' [OUP 2006], p.180

A Reaction

If God was entirely rational, and created everything, that would be a sufficient reason to accept the principle. You would never, though, get to the reason why God was entirely rational. Something will always elude the principle.

The 23 ideas with the same theme [claim that there is a reason for everything]:

1496 The earth is stationary, because it is in the centre, and has no more reason to move one way than another [Anaximander, by Aristotle]
20910 Everything happens necessarily, and for a reason [Democritus]
306 Nothing can come to be without a cause [Plato]
5969 Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
4819 There is necessarily for each existent thing a cause why it should exist [Spinoza]
4642 No fact can be real and no proposition true unless there is a Sufficient Reason (even if we can't know it) [Leibniz]
5042 For every event it is possible for an omniscient being to give a reason for its occurrence [Leibniz]
2098 The principle of sufficient reason is needed if we are to proceed from maths to physics [Leibniz]
3646 There is always a reason why things are thus rather than otherwise [Leibniz]
2104 No reason could limit the quantity of matter, so there is no limit [Leibniz]
3347 Leibniz said the principle of sufficient reason is synthetic a priori, since its denial is not illogical [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA]
18241 Sufficient reason is implied by contradiction, of an insufficient possible which exists [Wolff, by Korsgaard]
19807 Both nature and reason require that everything has a cause [Rousseau]
5563 The principle of sufficient reason is the ground of possible experience in time [Kant]
5565 Proof of the principle of sufficient reason cannot be found [Kant]
23232 Sufficient reason makes the transition from the particular to the general [Fichte]
19661 Making sufficient reason an absolute devalues the principle of non-contradiction [Hegel, by Meillassoux]
4187 'There is nothing without a reason why it should be rather than not be' (a generalisation of 'Why?') [Schopenhauer]
21918 Sufficient Reason can't be proved, because all proof presupposes it [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB]
4643 The Principle of Sufficient Reason does not presuppose that all explanations will be causal explanations [Baggini /Fosl]
19666 If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux]
14018 Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool? [Bourne]
17263 Why do rationalists accept Sufficient Reason, when it denies the existence of fundamental facts? [Correia/Schnieder]