㊙️ PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON

Author: 3RU7AL

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I take it the main question here is whether the PSR is true. Or, we can put this ontologically: what is it that would make the PSR true? Or epistemically: what it is that would warrant our knowledge that the PSR is true?

It is Kant, in The Critique of Pure Reason, who famously both makes these sorts of questions explicit and defends some influential reasons to doubt the PSR, or at least doubt the PSR in some relevant contexts.

In answering what I have just called the ontological and epistemic questions, Kant argues that what makes the PSR true/what warrants our knowledge of the PSR is its transcendental ideality. That is, on Kant's view, the PSR is a principle which necessarily governs any rational act of conceptualizing what one experiences, so that it serves as a norm of reasoning or as a basis for producing concepts about nature from our experiences. The positive result of this position is that we have a reason to think that the PSR holds in principle whenever any rational agent is cognizing their experiences, and so holds in principle as a norm or basis of scientific reasoning. The negative result of this position is that, because the PSR is grounded in the necessary conditions of reasoning about experience, it is being misapplied if it is taken as a basis or norm for things beyond our experience. This is to say that, while we can know that the PSR is a principle governing our cognition, we cannot know that it is a principle governing things-in-themselves, or nature as it is independent of our cognition of it. This prohibits its use in metaphysical arguments like the cosmological argument for God, where it is taken as the norm governing a causal series extending beyond our experience to a first cause which lies outside it.

So this sort of position is probably the most famous case of a mitigated skepticism regarding the PSR. But there are of course people who defend the PSR against this kind of criticism, as well as those who defend a broader skepticism regarding it. [[]]

Best.Korea
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Most people confuse 

"Things must have a reason"

with

"Things must have this specific reason I assigned to them".

Really, in most cases, people cant tell difference between observable and non-observable reasons.

To be specific, they cant tell difference between observable causation and non-observable causation.

Thats why there are masses of people who believe in causations they never even observed.

The non-observable causation, which is present in all causations, consists of this simple problem:

"A causes B"

Why does "A causes B" exist?

Because C.

Why does C cause "A causes B" to exist?

The only way to confirm causation is by observation.

Thus, when people believe in causations they never observed, they might as well believe in santa.
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@Best.Korea
Thus, when people believe in causations they never observed, they might as well believe in santa.
HISTORY = FICTION
MAV99
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@Best.Korea
The only way to confirm causation is by observation.

So...how do you know your mother was born? I do not think you observed it.
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@MAV99
So...how do you know your mother was born?
I dont.

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@Best.Korea
I dont.
And that is not absurd to you?
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@MAV99
And that is not absurd to you?
No.

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@MAV99
So...how do you know your mother was born? I do not think you observed it.
your mother might be a robot or an alien or some sort of monster or angel

sure

but generally speaking

we have observed human births

it is reasonable for you to believe your mother is human

and demand evidence if someone claims she is not
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@3RU7AL
your mother might be a robot or an alien or some sort of monster or angel

sure

but generally speaking

we have observed human births

it is reasonable for you to believe your mother is human

and demand evidence if someone claims she is not


BK was saying that if one has conviction, one must have observed the causation. There is no conviction otherwise.

My point was that, if BK is human and was born, BK must have come from a human that was born. To say that you cannot know that is absurd.
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@MAV99
My point was that, if BK is human and was born, BK must have come from a human that was born. To say that you cannot know that is absurd.
Best.Korea is the only individual in this conversation that can know this for certain

from our perspective Best.Korea may simply be a computer program or an alien ghost spirit god
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@3RU7AL
from our perspective Best.Korea may simply be a computer program or an alien ghost spirit god.
I think you are completely missing my point.

You can think whatever you want about what BK is, that is totally besides my point. You can think whatever you want about BKs mom, it is once again besides my point.

My point is to point out the absurdity of the "certitude only by self-observed causation."

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@MAV99
My point is to point out the absurdity of the "certitude only by self-observed causation."
the principle of cause-and-effect is demonstrable

the principle of conservation of mass is demonstrable

the principle of human reproduction is demonstrable

therefore

(IFF) you had a mother (THEN) her mother also had a mother
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@3RU7AL
the principle of cause-and-effect is demonstrable

the principle of conservation of mass is demonstrable

the principle of human reproduction is demonstrable

therefore

(IFF) you had a mother (THEN) her mother also had a mother


Yes! I agree!

But that means you have observed the effect and reasoned to the cause. That shows that BKs "certitude only by self-observed causation." is wrong because we can observe effects as well.

That is why I asked how BK knew her mother was born. To see if BK meant we observe effects as well. BK said no. BK said they did not know if there mother was born.
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@MAV99
Yes! I agree!
bingo