Abstract
Shamik Dasgupta (Nous 50: 379–418, 2016) proposes to tame the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) to apply to only non-autonomous facts, which are facts that are apt for explanation. Call this strategy to tame the PSR the taming strategy. In a recent paper, Della Rocca (PS 178: 1101–1119, 2020a; The parmenidean ascent, Oxford University Press, 2020b) argues that proponents of the taming strategy, in attempting to formulate a restricted version of the PSR, nevertheless find themselves committed to endorsing a form of radical monism, which, in turn, leads right back to an untamed-PSR. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Della Rocca is right. My question is this: Is there reason to believe the principle of sufficient reason (in its untamed version)? In this paper, I argue that it is impossible for there to be a reason to believe the untamed-PSR.
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Notes
As cited in Della Rocca (2020a: 1103).
As cited in Amijee (2020: 63).
Hereafter, I will refer to these two versions of the PSR as the “tamed-PSR” and the “untamed-PSR”.
For an argument that the PSR leads to necessitarianism see van Inwagen (1983: 202–204) as cited in (Della Rocca, 2010: 9, fn.13). For a contemporary version of the argument see Samuel Levey (2016: 399–400) as cited in Hall (2021). See also McDaniel (2019) for an updated version of van Inwagen’s argument, which supposedly avoids the pitfalls of his earlier one. As Dasgupta (2016: 413, fn. 2) notes, not every version of the PSR will necessarily lead to, e.g., necessitarianism.
RM says that the world contains no properties, relations, and distinctions, i.e., claims of the following form: (1) The cat is black (‘C is B’); (2) The cat loves Spinoza (‘L < c,s > ’); (3) Spinoza is thinking of his cat (‘T < s,c > ’).
Most prominently, Russell (1910: 374) as cited in Della Rocca (2020a). Della Rocca notes that the infinite regress is also vicious. He writes: “Grounding R depends on first grounding R* which depends on first grounding R**, etc. This chain of grounds not only can never be completed, but it can never even get started: the chain of grounds can never, as it were, get off the ground” (Della Rocca, 2020a: 1113). Of course, as Della Rocca notes, there is still the infinitist strategy of saying “that there are infinitely many relations of grounding—R*, R**, R***, etc.—but to deny that this regress is vicious” (Della Rocca, 2020a: 1114). But Della Rocca’s worry with this infinitist strategy is that it requires making a distinction between the relata (A and B) and the grounding relation (R*); such a distinction, Della Rocca claims, seems to arbitrarily violate the PSR. It is a violation of the PSR, Della Rocca claims, because while it grants that A and B are built into the nature of R, it denies that the further grounding relation R* is fundamental to R. This seems strange, for relations, as we know, are not free-floating entities. So, then, what licenses such an arbitrary distinction? Della Rocca’s answer: the positing of a brute fact. Now, perhaps this is an option worth considering (for the PSR-denier). Yet, as Della Rocca claims, it does not seem open the PSR-tamer (Della Rocca, 2020a: 1114). Thanks to an anonymous referee for pressing me to highlight this crucial step of Della Rocca’s (2020a) argument.
I should note here that Della Rocca (2020a) does not present an argument directly for the untamed-PSR in his paper. Rather, the dialectical strategy seems to be one of pushing PSR-tamers toward accepting the more radical untamed-PSR. Of course, there is still Russell’s (1910: 374) road to take; that is, if presented with a choice between the untamed-PSR and the wholesale rejection of it, one might prefer the latter. Nevertheless, Della Rocca’s (2020a) argument still does shift the dialectical burden, for if Della Rocca (2020a) is right, then there is no longer any middle-ground position with respect to the PSR. Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this point to me.
Here I follow Scanlon (2014: ch. 1–2).
I borrow this definition from Schroeder (2007: ch.1).
Della Rocca explores this theme in Della Rocca (2020b: ch.9).
Della Rocca’s (2020a) emphasis.
It is also telling that chapter 12 of The Parmenidean Ascent is titled “Tractatus-Parmenideo-Philosophicus” (Della Rocca, 2020b). A close reading of that chapter further elucidates the similarities between it and the last sentence of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. See also Wittgenstein’s 1930 lecture notes from Cambridge for parallel thoughts in ethical and religious domains (Wittgenstein, 1930/1965: 11). And finally, see McGuinness (1966) for a discussion of mysticism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, esp. page 326 for a discussion on Wittgenstein’s “Lecture on Ethics”.
Here, Wittgenstein uses “zeigt”, which is the third-person present singular of “zeigen”.
See Della Rocca (2020b: ch. 13).
I am indebted to an anonymous referee for pressing me to say more about the upshot of my argument in this paper; I wrote Sect. 5 after considering their insightful comments. I also owe a special thanks to participants at the 28th Annual University of Waterloo PGSA Conference for their valuable comments. And finally, I would like to thank Alex Grabiner, Aditya Guntoori, Hasana Sharp, Brandom Smith, and Ljubo Raicevic for helpful comments and discussion.
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Walters, J.D.T. Is There Reason to Believe the Principle of Sufficient Reason?. Philosophia 50, 777–786 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00414-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00414-7