The Cosmological Argument Without the Principle of Sufficient Reason
Faith and Philosophy 14 (1):62-70 (1997)
| Abstract | We formulate a version of the Cosmological Argument that deploys an epistemic principle of explanation in place of the traditional Principle of Sufficient Reason. The epistemic principle asserts that if there is a possible explanation of a fact, and some proposition is entailed by that explanation and by every other possible explanation of that fact, it is reasonable to accept that proposition. We try to show that there is a possible explanation of the fact that there are contingent beings and that any possible explanation of this fact presupposes that there is a necessary being. We conclude that it is reasonable to believe that there is a necessary being | |||||||||
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Alexander Pruss (1999). A New Cosmological Argument. Religious Studies 35 (4):461 - 476.
Patrick Francken & Heimir Geirsson (1999). Regresses, Sufficient Reasons, and Cosmological Arguments. Journal of Philosophical Research 24:285-304.
Alexander Pruss (2003). A Response to Almeida and Judisch. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 53 (2):65-72.
Alexander R. Pruss (2004). A Restricted Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Cosmological Argument. Religious Studies 40 (2):165-179.
Graham Oppy (2000). On ‘a New Cosmological Argument’. Religious Studies 36 (3):345-353.
Richard M. Gale & Alexander R. Pruss (2002). A Response to Oppy, and to Davey and Clifton. Religious Studies 38 (1):89-99.
Ghislain Guigon (2011). Merely Possible Explanation. Religious Studies 47 (3):359-370.
Christopher Weaver (2009). Explanation, Entailment, and Leibnizian Cosmological Arguments. Metaphysica 10 (1):97-108.
Mark T. Nelson (1996). The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Moral Argument. Religious Studies 32 (1):15-26.
Anthony Brueckner (2001). Van Inwagen on the Cosmological Argument. Philosophical Papers 30 (1):31-40.
Mark T. Nelson (1998). Bertrand Russell's Defence of the Cosmological Argument. American Philosophical Quarterly 35 (1):87-100.
Tyron Goldschmidt (2011). The New Cosmological Argument: O'Connor on Ultimate Explanation. Philosophia 39 (2):267-288.
Alexander R. Pruss (2006). The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment. Cambridge University Press.
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