Friday, November 9, 2012
No Brute Facts?: The Principle of Sufficient Reason
You are hiking in a remote wilderness, miles from the nearest building
or even cell phone tower. You come upon a clearing and see a crystal
sphere hovering over you and emitting colorful light pulses in some
seeming order: red, blue, green and the pattern repeats. Should there be
an explanation for this odd phenomenon or is it acceptable to shrug
our shoulders and mutter "Stuff happens"? Can we extrapolate from this
case to a general principle of the universe? If so, can we prove that
God (or a reasonable facsimile) exists?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If you were walking through the woods and you stumbled upon a hovering crystal sphere, you would not simply shrug your shoulders. Most of us would wonder where it came from, how it hovers and how it emits colorful lights. We as humans are forced to search for the origin of things we cannot comprehend. This questioning is a result of a general understanding that everything has a cause. If there is a hovering orb, something or someone had to have put it there. This brings us to cosmological argument.
ReplyDeleteThe glowing orb is analogous to the universe. It is very mysterious and there are many questions about how it came into existence. Hume starts us off with the theory of universal causation. Everything that exists has a cause for its existence, including the universe. Either the universe was created through an infinite chain of existence, or by something that is necessarily existent. He rules out an infinite chain, because there had to be a cause for that infinite chain, a spark to get the whole thing going. Therefore, the universe had to be created by something that necessarily exists, namely God or some other superior being.
I like the reasoning in this argument, however I feel that the conclusion is a bit of a stretch. Why couldn't the universe itself be necessarily existent? I don’t understand how Hume creates this overarching statement, and then simply dictates that there can still be certain exceptions which necessarily exist. If this is true, the chain of existence could stop at the very beginning, perhaps the universe doesn’t need a creator. I do think this argument has epistemic value, however, because it really forces us to dig deeper into the origin of the universe. I agree that there has to be a cause to everything that exists; however, I disagree that there are things that necessarily exist. I think that there are certain things that humans will never be able to comprehend as long as we exist. I am willing to simply be mystified by all that we do not know.
If I were walking through the woods and discovered a crystal sphere hovering in the air emitting all different types of colors, I would definitely question the existence of this object. There are so many intriguing aspects of this object (the colorful lights being emitted, the fact that it is hover above the ground, etc.) that I would be very curious. Now of course I would question the origins of this object because, as Hume states, whatever exists must have a cause or reason for its existence. This is called the principle of sufficient reason. This principle also states that everything that does not have a reason is "brute fact", and therefore does not exist. Hence the hovering, colorful object must have some explanation for its existence or else it could not possibly exist.
ReplyDeleteThe principle of sufficient reason leads to the cosmological argument. This argument states that whatever exists must have a cause or reason for its existence. This leads to an infinite chain of creation, where everything is caused by something else. Now even if this infinite chain exists, hum concludes that there must be a self-sufficient being that created this infinite chain. We call this self-sufficient being God, therefore the cosmological argument proves God exists. This orb analogy is similar to the existence of the universe as everything is widely questioned as to how it came to existence. A general principle that can be applied to the universe is that everything in the universe was caused by something else, as shown by the cosmological argument and principle of sufficient reason.
I believe that the proof of God stemming from the general rule (cosmological argument) is strong to a certain extent. The argument is strong in the sense that it does prove there must be a being who created the infinite chain, as the infinite chain did not come from nowhere. However, this self-sufficient being who created this chain, God, has no reason for his existence, which contradicts everything about the cosmological argument. Hume argues that the existence of God is not a brute fact but a necessary being, as nothing could exist without God. However, I don't feel it is a strong enough argument to say that God exists just because he says so. While I do agree with the fact that there must be some powerful being who created the infinite chain, Hume's "proof" of God's existence is very weak and goes against his prior argument.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAfter Philo has effectively reduced Cleanthes argument from design to an unlikely case for God's existence, Dimea provides the group with an argument a priori for God's existence. In summary, the argument demonstrates that, given the fact that everything must have an reason for its existence, and given the fact that a chain of reasoning for the origin of the universe would continue on forever without there being any definitive origin, there must be a reason for existence which contains the reason for its own existence within itself. In other words, there must be necessary being, God, who cannot not exist if there is to be any existence at all. This argument relies on the essential first premise, which is the Principle of Sufficient Reason. The principal states that there are no brute facts, that there is nothing for which there need not be a reason. After deliberating on this principle, it seems that Dimea has no grounds for establishing to exist that which he cannot fully comprehend other than stating that it cannot not exist.
ReplyDeleteI cannot challenge Dimea's argument solely on the premise of the principle of sufficient reason. If this principle was not accurate, there would be no need for any argument for God's existence in the first place. We create a sense of God, or an external superior being, because we tend not to assume that there is no reason for the universe. If we simply believed there need not be a reason for that which exists, Dimea's argument would not only fail and sound like unintelligible nonsense, it wouldn't even be considered in the first place. It is in our nature to question. We do not accept any brute facts because we do not subscribe to a world where there are brute facts. Because everything we see, feel, and believe tends to seem coherent with what has previously been perceived and thought, we subscribe to a world where events are sequenced and everything is said to be caused by or cause other things. Therefore, but inductive reasoning, we assume that the universe as a whole must be caused by something. While some people are content to stop at God being the cause of the universe, philosophers are inclined question what has caused God. Unfortunately, we have no answers or even conjectures once we regress a few steps. We simple don't know the real cause of everything.
Because we cannot ascertain any true cause without making wild assumptions beyond our purview, we can either accept that we have more questions than answers or we can assume there is some being or something that defies the principal of sufficient reason in that it exists solely because it cannot not exist. As Will previously stated, the jump from a need for a necessary being to the existence of God is a bit of a stretch. If there must be some cause that exists because it must for there to be existence, why can't the universe itself with all that matter be necessary? Why even take the first regression to God? It is because it is contrary to nature to assume that something physical and tangible exists because of itself. But is it not also contrary to experience to assume that some cause of carries the need for its existence within itself? We have no reason to deduce that God is necessary over nature itself being necessary for its own existence. In either case, our experience is insufficient for the conclusion. If we are to conclude anything at all rather than endorsing skepticism, our conclusion will be contrary to what we experience and furthermore will be a conclusion for the sake of answering an unanswerable question.