Brute Fact

2021 ◽  
pp. 179-188
Author(s):  
John Heil
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Brute Fact ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Finite Minds ◽  
The Universe

Concerns about contingency are explored further by way of a consideration of brute facts. Facts (ways the universe is) that are explanatorily brute are distinguished from those that are ontologically brute. Explanation, being a product of finite minds, must end somewhere, it would seem, but this leaves open the question whether the universe, or its nature, is in any respect ontologically brute. The difficulty of answering this question is registered and the suggestion advanced that reality, being itself, determines what could or must be the case. This leads to an ontological argument of the form, if there is something, if there is anything at all, there could not have been nothing: nothing comes from nothing. The upshot is something like a metaphysical counterpart to the principle of sufficient reason.

The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Uncaused Beginning of the Universe

Dialogue ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Allen
Keyword(s):  
Big Bang ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Nous Sommes ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
The Universe

RésuméDes philosophes théistes comme Thomas D. Sullivan ont adapté les arguments cosmologiques bases sur le Principe de raison suffisante (PRS) pour les ajuster à la cosmologie contemporaine du Big Bang Leur thèse centrale est que uisque le Big Bang n'a pas pu avoir une cause physique et puisque tout a une cause, le Big Bang a dû avoir une cause non physique ou surnaturelle. Des philosophes non théistes qui acceptent la cosmologie standard du Big Bang ont remis en question la vérité de PRS, en soutenant que certains événements (comme une singularité) peuvent se produire sans aucune cause. Quentin Smith a défendu l'idée que PRS n'est pas du tout évident par lui-meme et qu'il y a en fait de bonnes raisons de supposer que des choses comme des singularites peuvent se produire sans cause. Thomas D. Sullivan a répliqué à l'argument de Smith voulant que PRS ne soit pas évident par lui-même, et il afourni en outre une pretendue preuve de PRS. Je soutiens dans cet article que PRS, en réalité, n'est pas évident par soi-même et que l'argument de Sullivan en faveur du contraire repose sur un malentendu quant à ce que nous entendons généralement pas «évident par lui-même». J'essaie également de montrer que la preuve de PRS fournie par Sullivan souffre de nombreuses difficultés. Si j'ai raison sur tout cela le PRS nest pas evident par lui-même et nous ne disposons d'aucun argument en safaveur. Il n'en découle pas que PRS soit faux, mais il en découle que nous sommes justifiés de ne pas être convaincus par les arguments en faveur de l'existence de Dieu qui prennent PRS pour prémisse.

Spinoza’s “Ontological” Argument

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Definition Of

Proposition 11 of Part 1 of Spinoza’s Ethics states that God necessarily exists. Although his demonstration of the proposition is often said to constitute his ontological argument for the existence of God, and to report an essentially private “rational perception” of God’s existence, he provides four distinct “proofs” for the proposition. This chapter analyzes the four proofs and the relations among them. Like ontological arguments, they depend crucially on a definition of God that is intended, when grasped, to show that God necessarily exists; but like most cosmological arguments, they also depend crucially on a principle of sufficient reason. The last two proofs can be seen to address an objection, concerning the principle that substances cannot share attributes, that might otherwise be raised to the first two proofs.

Why God Thinks what He is Thinking? An Argument against Samuel Newlands’ Brute–Fact–Theory of Divine Ideas in Leibniz’s Metaphysics

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Levin Propach
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Brute Fact ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason

According to the most prominent principle of early modern rationalists, the Principle of Sufficient Reason [PSR], there are no brute facts, hence, there are no facts without any explanation. Contrary to the PSR, some philosophers have argued that divine ideas are brute facts within Leibniz’s metaphysics. In this paper, I argue against brute-fact-theories of divine ideas, especially represented by Samuel Newlands in Leibniz and the Ground of Possibility, and elaborate an alternative Leibnizian theory of divine ideas.

The Necessity of Sufficiency

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce L. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Divine Action ◽  
Ontic Structural Realism ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
Quantum Phenomena

There is an argument for the existence of God from the incompleteness of nature that is vaguely present in Plantinga’s recent work. This argument, which rests on the metaphysical implications of quantum physics and the philosophical deficiency of necessitarian conceptions of physical law, deserves to be given a clear formulation. The goal is to demonstrate, via a suitably articulated principle of sufficient reason, that divine action in an occasionalist mode is needed (and hence God’s existence is required) to bring causal closure to nature and render it ontologically functional. The best explanation for quantum phenomena and the most adequate understanding of general providence turns out to rest on an ontic structural realism in physics that is grounded in the immaterialist metaphysics of theistic idealism.

The Provenance of Consciousness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Vision
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Material Base ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
Intrinsic Nature ◽  
Fundamental Particles ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason

Unlike brute ‘entities’, if conscious states (c-states) are brute, it will be a consequence of their primitive—viz., not admitting further elaboration—connection to their material base, what is commonly known as emergence. One might suppose the chief challenge to emergence comes from various materialist counter-proposals. However, given the distinctive character of c-states, a class of critics describe even materialist reductions as objectionable forms of emergentism. Instead, their fallback position is a reinvigorated panpsychism: consciousness is the intrinsic nature of the most fundamental particles. In this chapter the author examines that form of panpsychism, tracing its roots to a version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and to suggestions aired in Bertrand Russell’s struggles with the issue. He concludes that this panpsychism fails, leaving the field to materialism and emergentist dualism.

Being and Reason

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Lin
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Existence And Nonexistence ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Necessary Existence

In Being and Reason, Martin Lin offers a new interpretation of Spinoza’s core metaphysical doctrines with attention to how and why, in Spinoza, metaphysical notions are entangled with cognitive, logical, and epistemic ones. For example, according to Spinoza, a substance is that which can be conceived through itself, and a mode is that which is conceived through another. Thus, metaphysical notions, substance and mode, appear to be defined through a notion that is either cognitive or logical, being conceived through. What are we to make of the intimate connections that Spinoza sees between metaphysical, cognitive, logical, and epistemic notions? Or between being and reason? Lin argues against idealist readings according to which the metaphysical is reducible to or grounded in something epistemic, logical, or psychological. He maintains that Spinoza sees the order of being and the order of reason as two independent structures that mirror one another. In the course of making this argument, he develops new interpretations of Spinoza’s notions of attribute and mode, and of Spinoza’s claim that all things strive for self-preservation. Lin also argues against prominent idealist readings of Spinoza according to which the Principle of Sufficient Reason is absolutely unrestricted for Spinoza and is the key to his system. He contends, rather, that Spinoza’s metaphysical rationalism is a diverse phenomenon and that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is limited to claims about existence and nonexistence which are applied only once by Spinoza to the case of the necessary existence of God.

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