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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Implications' and 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671'

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2 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c
     A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'.
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
Anti-Razor: if you can't account for a truth, keep positing things until you can [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: The Anti-Razor says 'whenever an affirmative proposition is truly stated, if one thing does not suffice to account for its truth, then one must posit things, and if two do not suffice then three, and so on to infinity'.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 14.3)
     A reaction: This is quoted from an anonymous logic text of 1325. Apparently Ockham himself articulated the idea more than once.