Comment by contractualist on 01/02/2025 at 23:00 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)

View submission: The Principle of Sufficient Reason is Self-Evident and its Criticisms are Self-Defeating (a case for the PSR being the fourth law of logic)

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Obviously, explanations exist. As otherwise, there would be no need to answer "why" questions. Our search for underlying explanations presumes those explanations exist. We can say on paper that we don't believe in explanations, but we operate our lives with this presumption of the PSR.

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Comment by Oink_Bang at 01/02/2025 at 23:13 UTC

5 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Explanations obviously do exist for many things. But it doesn't follow from this alone that they exist for all things.

Humans do naturally ask why. And, demonstrably, we can often figure out explanations that tell us why. So at least very often this natural impulse of ours is not mistaken. But why think the impulse is *always* appropriate? Our other instincts sometimes misfire, especially when dealing with situations differing in some manner from a typical case.