Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Causal Principle
- Part II Objections to the PSR
- Part III Justifications of the PSR
- 11 Self-Evidence
- 12 Three Thomistic Arguments
- 13 Modal Arguments
- 14 Is the Universe Reasonable?
- 15 Explanation of Negative States of Affairs
- 16 The Puzzle of the Everyday Applicability of the PSR
- 17 Inference to the Best or Only Explanation
- 18 Inductive Skepticism
- 19 The Nature of Possibility
- 20 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
14 - Is the Universe Reasonable?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Causal Principle
- Part II Objections to the PSR
- Part III Justifications of the PSR
- 11 Self-Evidence
- 12 Three Thomistic Arguments
- 13 Modal Arguments
- 14 Is the Universe Reasonable?
- 15 Explanation of Negative States of Affairs
- 16 The Puzzle of the Everyday Applicability of the PSR
- 17 Inference to the Best or Only Explanation
- 18 Inductive Skepticism
- 19 The Nature of Possibility
- 20 Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Often the following argument is attributed to the defender of the PSR: The PSR says that reality is rational. It is irrational to suppose reality to be irrational. Hence, it is irrational to deny the PSR. Typically, this argument is given only a straw man, quickly refuted, and the defender of the PSR is associated with an evidently unsound argument.
The argument as given is plainly valid, at least:
(122) The PSR says reality is rational.
(123) It is irrational to suppose reality to be irrational.
(124) Thus, it is irrational to deny the PSR.
Of course, one might be a skeptic about the PSR, neither denying nor affirming it, and escape the argument thus. Now while the argument is valid, acceptance of (123) may rest on a confusion between irrationality within a belief operator and outside it. To hold that reality is irrational need not prima facie be an irrational belief, just as for me to hold that Jones is irrational need not be irrational.
But there could be a little more to the argument than this. The PSR is one of our basic assumptions about how the world works; our belief in it increases our confidence and resolution in our search for truth and explanation. Prima facie, a stepmotherly nature might not support our scientific research. However, once we suppose nature to be thus stepmotherly vis-à-vis the PSR, recalcitrant in the face of our drive to seek explanations, then one might reasonably worry that our other intuitive expectations about the world, such as that it conform to our senses, might be frustrated.
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- Information
- The Principle of Sufficient ReasonA Reassessment, pp. 249 - 251Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006