5 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
Whenever we ask a question, we don't accept answers like "That is just how it is," or "It's just a brute fact." We demand explanations. In fact, the whole reason we ask questions is to discover these underlying explanations, which we already *presume* to exist.
Citation, please. And just who is this "we," anyway?
This is where this article breaks; the presumption that I demand explanations for *everything* and an somehow incapable of shrugging my shoulders, saying: "That is just how it is," and going on with my life.
True, the author is also attempting to make this point for humanity as a whole, but I'm going to use myself as the example here, because this allows me to make the following challenge:
Because what breaks this argument for me is smuggling in of psychology. When the author says:
People may *say* that the universe is fundamentally random and physical events lack true explanation, but they will still navigate through life by asking "why?" questions and would never accept "just cuz its brute," as an answer.
Then there is a "why" to this. In other words, the fact that "people" (and perhaps the author leaves themselves an out by never saying just *who* "people" are...) "would never accept 'just cuz its brute,' as an answer," has a reason. So present it. Present to me the evidence that when someone tells me "I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all," that I am fundamentally prevented from taking that at face value.
Sure, the author can simply *assert* that I am, and then attempt to move the burden of proof back to me, but I refuse to take it, in the same way that I refuse to take the burden of proof when some random person walks up to me and asserts "You stole something from me, and now owe me $1,000.00."
If the author is going to make a truth claim about me, they should explain why it is true. The fact that they can't understand why it must be true of themselves, and even other people that they know, has no bearing on me.
You might try to argue that even though reasons against the PSR are self-defeating, there still *can be* contingent truths that lack an explanation, independent of whether or not we accept the PSR. We cannot be forced to accept the PSR just from clever equivocation.
This is where I basically walked away. A contingent truth cannot lack an explanation... *because having an explanation is definition of a contingent truth*. The author redefines "truth" to equal "contingent truth," and then (I presume) merrily proceeds from there. *Tautology* and *axiom* are not synonyms.
Comment by contractualist at 02/02/2025 at 18:08 UTC
-1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
prove it
Proofs are just reasons. You’re quite literally demanding proof for why proof should be demanded. And you can’t “prove” proof itself, not at least without first taking “proof” for granted.
If you want to call it the “principle of sufficient *proofs*” that’s fine, but you’re relying on reasons either way.