Abstract
This paper concerns the philosophical justifications of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and the main challenge to the PSR. Leibniz is most often associated with the PSR, and it is usually assumed that Leibniz accepts the PSR as simply an obvious principle of all our reasoning, one that requires no justification. This paper, however, reveals and analyzes two arguments that Leibniz gives purporting to justify or establish the truth of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: the first from one of his earliest pieces; the second from his work in the 1680s, principally from the Primary Truths. It then treats arguments given by his rationalist successors Wolff and Baumgarten—arguments that have generally been considered abject failures. Finally, the paper examines Hume’s challenge to the Universal Causal Principle. It is shown that Hume’s argument does not rule out all of the rationalist arguments for the PSR. Ultimately, it is argued that the acceptance of “brute facts” (other than in perhaps matters of quantum physics) is due mainly to a faux metaphysical machismo that even Hume rejected. If the results of this paper are correct, then the PSR has more going for it than is usually suggested in contemporary discussions.
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- 1.
- 2.
AT VII 40/CSM II 28. AT = Descartes (1964–74) and CSM = Descartes (1984).
- 3.
AT VII 108/CSM II 78. The extraordinary case of a thing not having an efficient cause outside of itself is, of course, God.
- 4.
Ethics, Part I, Proposition 11, Definition 2, from Spinoza 1985.
- 5.
Malebranche (1958–68), Volume XII, p. 175.
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In this paper, the following abbreviations will be used: “A” followed by series, volume, and page number = Leibniz (1923–) ; “AG” = Leibniz (1989); “C” = Leibniz (1903); “CP” = Leibniz (2005); “DSR” = Leibniz (1992); “G” followed by volume and page number = Leibniz (1875–90); “H” = Leibniz (1985); “L” = Leibniz (1969); “LLP” = Leibniz (1960); “RB” = Leibniz (1981). References to Hume’s Treatise are to Hume (1739–40/2007); I shall simply abbreviate this “THN” followed by book, part, section, and paragraph numbers. Finally, “AA” = Kant (1902–1983), followed by volume and page number.
- 7.
Heidegger asks this: “Welches ist der Grund des Satzes vom Grund, von welcher Art ist dieser gewiß seltsame Grund?” (Heidegger 1957, 39).
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It is important for my later argument that some of Leibniz’s texts were unknown to the philosophical world until recently.
- 9.
In a letter to Magnus Wedderkopf from May 1671, Leibniz does point to the importance of the thesis that nothing can exist without a sufficient reason for existing; without this thesis, he says, it is impossible to prove the existence of God and many other philosophical theses. (A II i 186) Still, we do not have the Principle of Sufficient Reason.
- 10.
This view is shared by Adams (1994, 68), who points to the apparent petitio principii, and Sleigh (CP 151, n.23), who refers to this “alleged proof.”
- 11.
See Leibniz’s Fifth Letter, §18. (G VII 393/L 698)
- 12.
This is discussed with subtlety by Carraud. See his (2002, 430f).
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C 518–23.
- 14.
These formulations are taken from Sleigh (1983, 196). Leibniz’s debt to Aristotle is great, and it is no surprise that Leibniz seeks to ground much of his philosophy on the Principle of Contradiction, just as Aristotle does in the Metaphysics. Compare the Stagirite’s presentation of the Principle of Contradiction: “the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect,” which is immediately glossed as “it is impossible for any one to believe the same thing to be and not to be” (Metaphysics 1005b18–19, 1005b23–24) .
- 15.
Leibniz also suggests that PIN has similar Aristotelian roots. Cf. New Essays 4.17: A VI vi 486/RB 486. Remnant and Bennett point to Prior Analytics 1.4 (25b32ff), where Aristotle argues that in syllogisms terms are “in” other terms. This seems to be what Leibniz has in mind with the conceptual containment of the predicate by the subject.
- 16.
“Wahrsein heißt Identischsein, inesse heißt idem esse.” (Heidegger 1928, 49)
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See G II 64.
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See Russell (1937, 27).
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- 20.
- 21.
It is true that a condensed version of Leibniz’s initial, superficial argument for PSR appears in his Fifth Letter to Clarke. But this shows mainly that the argument is so condensed that it did not make a sufficient impression on Wolff as he read the exchange.
- 22.
See Crusius 1743, esp. §XIV, in Vol. IV of Crusius (1969–87).
- 23.
The young Kant gives an argument for a special form of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. In the Nova dilucidatio (1755), he argues for his Proposition VIII: “Nothing which exists contingently can be without a ground which determines its existence antecedently.” (AA I 396) This argument, however, is not an embarrassing failure and gets at a number of deep issues. I plan to treat this on another occasion.
- 24.
As this paper concerns the arguments for, or purported demonstrations of, the Principle of Sufficient Reason, I shall pass over the topic of its intuitive certainty. But I do wish to make one remark. It was claimed at the beginning of this paper that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is a fundamental tenet of “rationalism”. While this is true, it is more accurate to say that “rationalism” holds the Principle of Sufficient Reason to be innate and, therefore, intuitively certain. It is for this reason that Descartes, Spinoza, and Malebranche provide no argument for it, nor highlight it in the way that Leibniz and his followers do. What I wish to emphasize here, however, is that Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten, and the pre-critical Kant consider the Principle of Sufficient Reason to be logically dependent upon other, more fundamental, notions. Compare this idea with that of Heidegger, who claims that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is the most basic of all principles; the Principle of the Ground is the Ground of all Principles, we are told (Heidegger 1957, 30–31).
- 25.
Hume attributes the second argument to Samuel Clarke, but it is not clear that Clarke actually favored such an argument. See Hume (1739–40/2007), vol. 2, 736.
- 26.
From On Liberty and Necessity in English Works 4:276.
- 27.
One might argue that it bears a similarity to the argument that Leibniz advances in his correspondence with Clarke for the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles, which is based on the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Cf. G VII 363–64/AG 325.
- 28.
AA III 219–33, that is, A 260–92/B 316–49; see especially AA III 228, or A 284/B 340.
- 29.
Although Leibniz writes that ideas can be contained in other ideas in the New Essays, we ought to hold this for a slip of the pen; for strictly speaking it is concepts and not ideas that are contained within others.
- 30.
Feb. 1754, Letters 1:186.
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Look, B.C. (2010). Grounding the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Leibnizian Rationalism and the Humean Challenge. In: Fraenkel, C., Perinetti, D., Smith, J. (eds) The Rationalists: Between Tradition and Innovation. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 65. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9385-1_12
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