creators_name: Post, John F.
type: preprint
datestamp: 1999-08-24
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:52
metadata_visibility: show
title: How to Refute Principles of Sufficient Reason
ispublished: unpub
subjects: phil-epist
subjects: phil-logic
subjects: phil-metaphys
subjects: phil-metaphys
subjects: phil-sci
full_text_status: public
keywords: cosmological argument, first-cause argument, causalargument, sufficient reason, principle of sufficient reason, causalprinciple, Gale, theism, arguments for the existenceof God, explanation, ultimate explanation, big bang, mystery, mystery of existence, question of being, necessary being
abstract: Outlines a conceptual argument against the Principle of Sufficient reason. The argument is presented in detail in earlier work, and is based on deductive inferences from PSR's own concept of explanation. The argument shows that not everything can have an explanation of the sort claimed by PSR. So far from being a presupposition of reason itself, as some think, PSR can be refuted by reason, arguing only from PSR's own concept of explanation. Hence PSR cannot be used to argue that there must be some explanation or reason for existence, invisible at least to science, or that because we do not or cannot know the explanation, there must be irreducible mystery about why there is anything at all rather than nothing, including why there was a Big Bang in the first place.
date: 1999
date_type: published
refereed: FALSE
citation:   Post, John F.  (1999) How to Refute Principles of Sufficient Reason.  [Preprint]    (Unpublished)  
document_url: http://cogprints.org/390/1/psrcogprt.htm