2 - Reflections on Some Historical Episodes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 July 2009
Summary
Let us begin with some instructive historical episodes. Of these, Parmenides and the truthmaker principle will be crucial at important points in the book. Aquinas is important historically and we will eventually extend his metaphysical ideas to provide Thomistic arguments for the PSR. Leibniz is probably the most famous proponent of the PSR, but we shall, alas, see that he does not seem to give us a sufficient argument for it. Hume's argument against the PSR is still one of the most powerful. And, finally, Kant's arguments for the Causal Principle will give us an example of an original and interesting argument that simply fails.
PARMENIDES
Truthmakers and the First Argument for the ex Nihilo Nihil Principle
The PSR first shows itself clearly in Parmenides' second argument against becoming. If something comes to be, it does so from something or from nothing. It is against this second possibility that the PSR is ranged. Parmenides asks: “[W]hat need would have driven it later rather than earlier, beginning from the nothing [tou mêdenos arxamenon], to grow?” (Fr. 8, 9–10). If we have a state where nothing exists, and then something comes to exist – think of a universe as a whole to make the argument particularly forceful – why did it come to exist when it did, rather than, say, five minutes earlier? An empty universe is temporally homogeneous: “the nothing” was no different five minutes earlier than it is now.
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- Information
- The Principle of Sufficient ReasonA Reassessment, pp. 20 - 40Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006