scholarly journals Du Châtelet on Sufficient Reason and Empirical Explanation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Wells
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason

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.

The question-view of logos

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michel Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Integrative View ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
New View

Chapter 2 redefines the three basic concepts of any rhetoric: ethos, logos, and pathos. It relates these elements to the questioning process by which they are rhetorically linked. Special attention is given to logos as a way of answering and expressing questions. This leads to the development of a radically new view of language and the principles of thought. The passage of a propositionalist view of language and reason, indifferent to questioning, to a problematological one, based on questioning is studied through examples of sentences. This leads to an integrative view, in which texts are also seen as answers to questions taken up (partially, i.e. as points of view) by the audience or the reader. The chapter ends with a reformulation of the basic principles of thought (identity, sufficient reason, and non-contradiction) as the three principles necessary to deal with questions, answers, and their relationship.

Parmenides, Cosmology and Sufficient Reason

Apeiron ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
GregoryGregory Andrew
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason

scholarly journals The psychology of sufficient reason.

1897 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-373
Author(s):  
W. M. Urban
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason

200 Jahre Parkinsonsyndrom - 1817-2017

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Peter Ludin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Symptomatische Therapie ◽  
Jean Martin Charcot

<P>1817 hat der englische Arzt James Parkinson in <I>An Essay on the Shaking Palsy </I>das Krankheitsbild, das heute seinen Namen trägt, erstmals beschrieben. Zittern (Tremor) und Bewegungsstörung (Akinese) waren zwar schon lange bekannt. Parkinson hat aber erkannt, dass die Symptome Teil einer einzigen Krankheit sind. Rund 50 Jahre später hat Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris das klinische Bild vervollständigt und auch erste Therapieversuche gemacht.</P> <P>Zahlreiche Forscher und Ärzte haben sich in der Folge um die Hintergründe und die Behandlung der Krankheit bemüht. Einen riesigen Schritt vorwärts hat in Wien Oleh Hornykiewicz mit dem Nachweis eines stark verminderten Gehalts der Überträgersubstanz Dopamin in bestimmten Hirnarealen der Betroffenen ermöglicht. Mit der Anwendung der Vorläufersubstanz L-Dopa durch Oleh Hornykiewicz und Walther Birkmayer in Wien und durch George Cotzias in New York konnte vor gut 50 Jahren erstmals eine symptomatische Therapie eingeführt werden, die das Schicksal der Patienten stark verbessert hat. Die Lebensqualität der Betroffenen ist seither viel höher und ihre Lebenserwartung hat sich praktisch normalisiert. Angefeuert durch diesen Erfolg hat das wissenschaftliche Interesse am Parkinsonsyndrom noch einmal stark zugenommen. Trotz vieler Fortschritte ist die Ursache der Krankheit immer noch umstritten und eine ursächliche Behandlung, die eine Heilung brächte, ist noch nicht in Sicht. Nicht einmal Parkinsons Hoffnung, dass das Fortschreiten der Krankheit bald aufgehalten werden könne («there appears to be sufficient reason for hoping that some remedial process may were long be discovered, by which, at least, the progress of the disease may be stopped»), hat sich nach 200 Jahren erfüllt.</P>

III.—On the Motion of Glaciers

1876 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 493-499
Author(s):  
J. F. Blake
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Geological Magazine

In a recent Number of the Geological Magazine Mr. Burns assumes that Geologists in general seem to be satisfied with Mr. Croll's theory of the motion of glaciers because they do not write in refutation of it. I am convinced that with some at least it requires no refutation, and its very obvious inadequacy is to them a sufficient reason for passing it over in silence. There cannot be wanting men who, appreciating the difficulty of the problem, can only smile at such a “solution.”

A restricted Principle of Sufficient Reason and the cosmological argument

2004 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDER R. PRUSS
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Quantum Mechanical ◽  
Cosmological Argument ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Restricted Version ◽  
Van Inwagen ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Peter Van Inwagen ◽  
Mechanical Phenomena

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) says that, necessarily, every contingently true proposition has an explanation. The PSR is the most controversial premise in the cosmological argument for the existence of God. It is likely that one reason why a number of philosophers reject the PSR is that they think there are conceptual counter-examples to it. For instance, they may think, with Peter van Inwagen, that the conjunction of all contingent propositions cannot have an explanation, or they may believe that quantum mechanical phenomena cannot be explained. It may, however, be that these philosophers would be open to accepting a restricted version of the PSR as long as it was not ad hoc. I present a natural restricted version of the PSR that avoids all conceptual counter-examples, and yet that is strong enough to ground a cosmological argument. The restricted PSR says that all explainable true propositions have explanations.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document