Hey, I randomly discovered this when trying to understand that "could've" and excuses in general don't make any sense. It seems that anytime people make an excuse or say something could've happened they tend to not understand there are more than one single reason for any outcome. It's incredibly comforting to see you emphasize that Leibniz knew most reasons are known to us. I think the closest we can get to understanding the 'why' behind something is by action taking. I'm aware it's a sort of chicken or the egg thing trying to logically deduce the reasoning behind everything since the start of the universe but it's comforting to know how deeply somebody else has pondered this already. Thanks for the video.
Hi, you're most welcome. Yes, infinite regress is unending, but what other options are there? There are mainly 3: 1 infinite regress was initiated by an uncaused cause through creation ex nihilo. 2 It is all the works of nature, the Darwinian Leap. 3 The concept of causation is not real. Causation is not an absolute reality.
does anyone know any resources on this more aimed at a level students? i’m struggling to understand as most of them are aimed at people to understand the advanced terminology
Or it could be proof of a monism? Interestingly, the PSR is also self-grounding, by refuting the PSR you are presenting a reason, or using the PSR to attempt to refute the PSR. Loved the video!
You're right. The PSR is definitely intuitive at least in its surface. Leibniz uses this same argument when he says that there are many effects in the world whose causes are known, but there there no effects that are Known to have no causes. This is the inductive proof of the PSR. It's not the strongest, but when combined with the Theory of Truth and the concept of a Requisite, it holds. The PSR as proof of monism is something I've never considered or come across. How would you link the two?
@@Leevark I wasn't sure either about linking monism and the PSR. It seems like there is some overlap between the two concepts monotheism (only one god) and monism (everything comes from one thing), being if there is only one god (if you considered god a "thing") which everything is created from. Although, if God could create a different substance from what he himself is made of, then i'm unsure if it would it be considered something made from himself or something completely different. If it was a different different substance, then it wouldn't be a monism. So i guess the question is why would god create something different? I do think that anything but a monism violates Occam's Razor. Thank you and looking forward to your response.
@@Noah-qh3it Aaaah now I see how you related the PSR to monism. Because every effect derives from its cause, all effects would derive from the first cause, God. This is a little more in line with Spinoza's substance monism which is different from Leibniz's monism. It is Spinoza who says that the only substance that exists is God. All other things that are in existence, humans, mountains, rocks, animals and all things, are modes of God. Modes unfold from the original substance. Here, it's clear that the sufficient reason behind the existence of modes is the very essence of the original substance. Leibniz's monism is different. It's monism that is opposed to mind/ body dualism. For Leibniz, the human, or the animal, is made of only one thing, the immaterial monad. But Leibniz postulates that there are many substances that exist. They are all created by God, and maintained in existence by God and can only be destroyed by God. But they are distinct from God. Yes, you can argue that through Conceptual Analysis, we can find some of the concept of God in the concept of God's creation. It's clearer, though, with Spinoza.
I don’t think Leibniz’s argument here for one vs many is necessarily true. If we consider each monad as an equivalent instantiation of Being, their distinctions and differences do not necessarily have to be apparent in the world as separate kinds of substances or anything like that, as they are of the same kind of substance. Their uniqueness can be expressed through their necessary autonomy, through their particular agency. This is apparent in the world as the actions we take as humans for example. In his private correspondences, he held many opinions contrary or more advanced than his published works. The Pythagorean Illuminati via Ontological Mathematics have grounded this view of many monads as necessary Beings in the PSR and its mathematical expression.
Hello, The Principle of Sufficient Reason does two important things. It solves the problem of infinite regress, and it conceptualises a necessary being, God. The PCR distinguishes between contingent and non-contingent truths. 1 A contingent truth requires a reason. This reason is itself a contingent truth if it is the effect of some other cause. This creates a chain of causation. 2 A non-contingent truth is self-sufficient. It does not require any reason for its existence. This is God for Leibniz. Based on this, every effect finds its ultimate cause in God who is the creator of everything.
Hi. I would like to know why or how the PSR (principle sufficient Reason ) is true. Why do ALL contingent existence need and explanation. This is the only part of the argument I Don't understand.
I seems to me, that there are no exeptions for the PSR. If there is a detektive, and he finds a dead body, he should be looking for a murderer. To say: „Well, not all things need to have a sufficient reason for its existence, therefore there could be a dead body without any reason what so ever.“ Then I would consult a different detective. So everyday experiences and Intuition do not point to any exeptions. I think as long as there is no clear defeater to this argument, its reasonable to hold this position. If you would like to make even 1 single exeption, than the question arises, why not anything can dismiss this rule. That would make the Idea of science obsolete, and also the Idea of morality, since the Idea of morality presuposes that for every action, there is a moral reasoning behind it, that makes it just or unjust. This connection can only be made over the PSR. Hope thats thought provoking. Let me know if I made any mistakes in that line of thinking!
Another perspective: The PSR is a Axiom. That means, it is self evidently true, and you can not negate it as a reasonable person. The sentence „The PSR is wrong“ is not a logical contradiction. But it’s also not very impressive. I can state that the Universe doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t make it true. I would have to give arguments. But in order to argue that the sentence: „The PSR is false“ is correct, you have to use the PSR in order to try to defeat the PSR. And that’s logically impossible. Hope that helps 🙌🏻
Quantum mechanics begin to scratch the surface of Leibniz's metaphysics. His idea of pre-established harmony has it that there is no real interaction between anything and anything else. All things that exist are coded and preset to act in a way that looks like they interact with each other. Quantum mechanics is telling us now that things do not really touch each other.
It's because quantum mechanics violates the PSR. Things can randomly happen according to quantum mechanics. Sadly, science just "decided" to go with quantum theory over PSR b/c otherwise the theory itself would be literally invalid and their work/research would have less meaning. I've actually watched content "refuting" the PSR and one of the reason was because "the PSR violates quantum mechanics." Unfortunately, science is pretentious in regards to philosophy, ultimately slowing humanities mental evolution.
@@Noah-qh3it Yes, quantum mechanics seems adversarial to the PSR. Yet, Leibniz says that there's always a reason behind every effect, but that oftentimes these reasons are unknown to us. So, even if we can't pinpoint the reason behind an effect, it shouldn't necessarily mean that there is none.
Bcz you assume we could observe the reason after quantum level. Its like you guys saying, we could observe or test (Naturalistic view) any reason about all things on reality. On the other hand, one of our understanding about Science is it simply to explain physical things with physical explaination. Whether you said, oh there s only physic in this reality or vice and versa, it is out of science. In my view, if we throw PSR, why couldnt I said I dont have any reason to look a reason why "book" (example) exist? I could just saying that its just a brute fact from the get go. Or questioned what a different between I stop lookin into the explaination about existence of "book" and scientist stop at electron or etc? And its absurd.
Interestingly, Leibniz does not consider extrinsic properties (space and time) to be difference making qualities, precisely because they would violate the PSR. So yes, the two intrinsically identical molecules would be differentiated by their position. But this means there is no good reason for God to keep some arrangement A rather than an arrangement B where they are swapped. We can differentiate the molecules, but not the two possible worlds. So if God were to make a world where atoms exist, he would have to pick one of those (A or B) for no good reason. Which, of course, violates his supreme wisdom.
You wonderfully described Leibniz's rejection of philosophical atoms. Your exposition or the argument is very redolent of Leibniz's New Essays on Human Understanding. Many commentators on Leibniz hold relational properties, space and history, to be difference-making qualities. And it's Kant's main attack on the identity of indiscernibles. Another argument could be that no two molecules are similar. It is just that our flawed perception of them makes them look indiscernible. We can't see molecules with our naked eyes. We use machines to do so. But there's no evidence that those machines aren't still perfectible.
No. Because they would say there is sufficient reason as to why these things should be considered equivalent on all levels, for example the extension of a physical objects length, that should have the same density and properties at any point, it would be necessary that there should exist things that of themselves cant be told apart,but from some combination and ordering of them emerge other things with other functions and properties, and that is necessary to construct a Universe at all and this would be the sufficient reason. You can chose between them arbitrarily but the fact that they must be identical is NOT arbitrary but determined by its function in the creation of other things.
@@malikialgeriankabyleswag4200 I think you're missing the point. The point being that the act of choosing A or B itself is irrational because there is no good reason to choose one over the other. Maybe there could be reasons for God choosing an atomic world like A or B. But when it comes down to it, if he were to choose an atomic world, he would have to pick one and violate his wisdom. And a single act of irrationality is more than enough to violate his perfect wisdom. This issue only exists if you're really trying to be realist about atoms. But for Leibniz this isn't an issue because each substance/monad in Leibniz' idealism is absolutely unique. Not to mention that in Leibniz' time you had the option of putting forward matter as constituting a plenum (a view advocated by Leibniz himself), making the idea that atoms are somehow necessary even more silly. And considering atoms as real might soon (if it isn't already) become irrelevant for any scientific realists (with the description of physical phenomena being more about fields than hard corpuscles). It's not like anything's at stake to make us want to preserve "atomic realism."
@@2tehnik Why would he have to pick one exactly? Leibniz talked about the progression of the Real number line, and human beings seeing the world definite "bits" I.e as a Natural number line {1,2,3,...} we have developed a view of cause and effect in line with our own capabilities, one thing following another definite and bound thing.. But an act of God fills all spaces between 1 and 2 and 2.00001 and so on. Under those capabilities I'm sure he could act in relation to A and B and all other like things at once, acting on the attributes themselves, for example on "positively charged things of the mass of a proton" as one unit rather than its bits which appear to us in time and space
@@2tehnik It depends what you want to call atoms. There are certainly things that exist that are differentiable to other things by their properties and behaviour which we've been calling atoms all this time. I think all language and thought, reason is an enclosing of something, but I dont know what the thing is. Every thought I have fails to give proper justice to the sentiment it tries to describe.. The same I think with objects or our perception of them. Maybe the atom is a way that we've boxed in the appearances of these properties in nature, and the source of these properties is the real thing.. I think this is sounding like Platonic sh*t but it's different in my head I cant Express it well 😂 Anyway I hope that was at least kind of coherent
