Principle of Sufficient Reason

[Bodhi]

The Principle of Sufficient Reason says that for any event, object, happeneing (any X you please, basically), there must a reason or cause sufficient to explain it. This principle was very dear to 17th and some 18th century philosophers, but has fallen out of fashion in western philosophy since Hume became widely known and read.
What bothers me is that I see such pseudo-logic employed all of the time by creationists/intelligent-design advocates in their effort to shock us with the realization that we don't know what caused the universe, and that we must grasp on to something, anything that would be sufficient to explain it. Scientists, in turn, are not well-armed philsophically, and try to refute this nonsense with emprical examples of how common-sense has failed us in the past... What they say is true, but not to the point. Instead, what is really needed is to fight fire with fire, to show philosophically why sufficient-reason arguments are so bad and poorly constructed.
Do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating any kind of inductive skepticism or other clap-trap. My target is bad philosophy that says human reason alone is enough to be sure that there "must be a cause" for the big question of cosmology.

[Your Mom]

Is this in response to my post?

[Triumph36]

Kant has a very interesting section in the Critique of Pure Reason about introducing purposive unity to scientific inquiry - that regarding the world as having been created by a supreme intelligence allows reason a greater ability to unify.

This could be tautological or simply wrong - to assume that the world is unified before reason unifies it.

Of course, this is long after Kant has already proved that the world can neither be finite nor infinite regarding space and time. So who knows.

[BZ_Zorro]

I agree with the Principle of Sufficient reason - it basically means that the universe and everything in it is fundamentally comprehensible. I think it is a noble goal and the correct way to approach knowledge. The only trouble comes when you're too quick to jump to conclusions.

The way to refute this simple 'Gawd did it' hypothesis is to point out that all the revelations of science have pointed to a purposeless universe void of any controlling force. In other words, the further science has pushed back the boundaries of knowledge, the further it has found that the universe works just fine on its own, thank you very much. Everything from the rising of the sun to the foundations of behavior have naturalistic explanations, where once they didn't. Everything works without magic God-Glue holding it together.

Of course, you have to be sufficiently aware to understand this. With most theists this is a pointless exercise.

[maurile]

[ QUOTE ]
The Principle of Sufficient Reason says that for any event, object, happeneing (any X you please, basically), there must a reason or cause sufficient to explain it.

[/ QUOTE ]
What caused God?

[Zygote]

interesting ideas. personally, i've recently reached similar conclusions. however, i'm not as optimistic about successful persuasion as you appear to be.

[David Sklansky]

Bingo

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Of course, you have to be sufficiently aware to understand this. With most theists this is a pointless exercise.

[/ QUOTE ]


Ognib!

-Zeno

[IronUnkind]

[ QUOTE ]
The way to refute this simple 'Gawd did it' hypothesis is to point out that all the revelations of science have pointed to a purposeless universe void of any controlling force.

[/ QUOTE ]

They have? What a cynical interpretation of "all the revelations." Er, I mean, "Bingo!"

[ QUOTE ]
In other words, the further science has pushed back the boundaries of knowledge, the further it has found that the universe works just fine on its own, thank you very much. Everything from the rising of the sun to the foundations of behavior have naturalistic explanations, where once they didn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well now you are saying something entirely different, which is more or less true but elicits a yawn. "In other words" indeed.

[ QUOTE ]
Everything works without magic God-Glue holding it together.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. "Magic God-Glue" is a term firmly entrenched in Christian theology.

[IronUnkind]

Read his entire post.

[maurile]

[ QUOTE ]
Read his entire post.

[/ QUOTE ]
I did. He asked for a way "to show philosophically why sufficient-reason arguments are so bad and poorly constructed."

Asking, "What caused God?" does the trick.

If the answer is that Super-God caused God, then what caused Super-God?

Alternatively, if the answer is that nothing caused God, then that defeats the assertion that "for any event, object, happeneing (any X you please, basically), there must a reason or cause sufficient to explain it." If something exists without having been caused, then that something may be the universe as well as it may be God.

Bertrand Russell makes this point eloquently in Why I Am Not A Christian, but I'm sure it had been made many times before that.

[Bodhi]

Not you personally, but you reminded me of the topic.

[Bodhi]

Oh come on, everyone knows that God is self-caused. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[maurile]

[ QUOTE ]
Oh come on, everyone knows that God is self-caused. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
"Self-caused" is a contradiction in terms just like "married bachelor" is.

The statement "A caused B" means that first there was A and no B. Then A did something to bring about the existence of B.

The statement "A caused A" means that first there was A and no A. Then . . . there is no then because that's a contradiction.

So God is not self-caused.

[Bodhi]

Dude, don't give me a lecture on FOL.

[IronUnkind]

It should be obvious that conceptually speaking, married bachelors and jumbo shrimp are not in the same category as self-caused gods.

[maurile]

[ QUOTE ]
It should be obvious that conceptually speaking, married bachelors and jumbo shrimp are not in the same category as self-caused gods.

[/ QUOTE ]
Tell it do Bodhi. He could use a lecture on that topic. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[snowden719]

what about instances of time travel, in which something in the future causes something in the past, in this instance A causes B, even though B is prior to A, or do you deny that time travel is logical possibility.

[Aytumious]

[ QUOTE ]
Tell it do Bodhi. He could use a lecture on that topic. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I need to step in for Bodhi and say that you really missed his point and are basically arguing for him.

[maurile]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Tell it do Bodhi. He could use a lecture on that topic. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I need to step in for Bodhi and say that you really missed his point and are basically arguing for him.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, I understand all of Bodhi's posts. I've been around here long enough to know where he's coming from. But I can see how you'd get the wrong impression.

Bodhi told me not to lecture him about first-order logic because he already knows it. His "self-caused" post was a jopke. I get that.

My response wasn't really aimed at him -- I was just explaining, for general consumption, why "self-caused" is self-contradictory.

Then IronUnkind made his comment and I told him to lecture Bodhi -- not because Bodhi actually needs a lecture, but because he said he didn't. (It was sarcasm, but the polite kind if there is such a thing.)

[BZ_Zorro]

I think I misread your post.

The honest answer to the question of origins and some of the mysteries of the universe is 'we don't know'. All you can do is teach people to be comfortable with this conclusion.

From here, theists say: "We don't know, but the God hypothesis makes a lot of sense". Philosophically, it is wrong to accept a hypothesis because 'it makes a lot of sense', but getting the average person with no training in critical thinking to see this is pointless.

The way to refute it is to show that this hypothesis has failed miserably in the past on other issues, and hopefully they'll gain some insight into why this is a weak hypothesis to make.

[ QUOTE ]
Scientists, in turn, are not well-armed philsophically, and try to refute this nonsense with emprical examples of how common-sense has failed us in the past...

[/ QUOTE ]
But I believe that's exactly how you refute it. We don't know what caused many things, but our prior investigations have led us in certain directions - and every single time that direction has been towards naturalism. Every time an old 'God did it' hypothesis has been wrong, it has said something about the nature of the 'God did it' hypothesis. I think that's what you need to get theists to see.

I see where you're coming from, but theists don't have a head for philosophy or rational thought (as evidenced by the countless Pascal's Wager posts), so giving them something like a reverse first cause argument is pointless. God isn't subject to the rules of logic. How do you logically argue against that?

[Bodhi]

The secret is out: I knew you were only messing with me.

[Bodhi]

[ QUOTE ]
But I believe that's exactly how you refute it. We don't know what caused many things, but our prior investigations have led us in certain directions - and every single time that direction has been towards naturalism. Every time an old 'God did it' hypothesis has been wrong, it has said something about the nature of the 'God did it' hypothesis. I think that's what you need to get theists to see.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not out to change the beliefs of theists, just those who surrepticiously present a priori argument as an empirical hypothesis. I'm glad you see where I'm coming from now, over all... My thought that since loads and loads of history of knowedge isn't enough to stop it, then we should try a different rout. If you deny the creationist/intelligent-design advocate the principle of sufficient reason, then he really has nothing to stand on. I don't know if in the future there will be some empirical basis for a theory about what happened before the big-bang. It could happen. I'm open to it. I'm also happy with the possibility that the issue might not ever matter, that we'll never have reason to posit a first-cause for everything/images/graemlins/smirk.gif.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
The further science has pushed back the boundaries of knowledge, the further it has found that the universe works just fine on its own, thank you very much. Everything from the rising of the sun to the foundations of behavior have naturalistic explanations, where once they didn't. Everything works without magic God-Glue holding it together.

[/ QUOTE ]

What about the watch-in-the-street principle?