Principle of sufficient reason:
Principle that there must be a sufficient reason – causal or otherwise – for why whatever exists or occurs does so, and does so in the place, time and manner that it does.
The principle goes back to at least the early 5th century BC – being used by Parmenides (see Eleaticism) in his Fragment 8, lines 9-10 – but it is most famously associated with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), who used it to exclude all arbitrariness, and to account for ‘truths of fact’ (while the law of contradiction accounted for ‘truths of reason’).
He also derived the identity of indiscernibles from it.
Also see: principle of perfection, causal principle
Source:
H G Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clark Correspondence (1956)
Table of Contents
- 1 Videos
- 2 Related Products
- 2.1 The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)
- 2.2 On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Open Court Library of Philosophy)
- 2.3 Principle of Sufficient Reason
- 2.4 Schopenhauer: On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and Other Writings (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer Book 84)
- 2.5 Saint Thomas Aquinas And The Principle Of Sufficient Reason
- 2.6 Religious Studies: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, vol. 32, no. 1 (March 1996) (Morality of Theodicies; Principle of Sufficient Reason; Leibniz & God's Existence)
- 2.7 On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
- 2.8 The Principle of Sufficient Reason
- 2.9 Causation and the Principle of Sufficient Reason (The God Series Book 21)
- 2.10 The History of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Its Metaphysical and Logical Formulations
- perfection principle
- Leibniz’s law
- continuity law or principle
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- indiscernibility of identicals
Videos
The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Pruss, Alexander R. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 352 Pages - 03/20/2006 (Publication Date) - Cambridge University Press (Publisher)
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Open Court Library of Philosophy)
- Used Book in Good Condition
- Arthur Schopenhauer (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 260 Pages - 01/22/1999 (Publication Date) - Open Court (Publisher)
Schopenhauer: On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and Other Writings (The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer Book 84)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Schopenhauer, Arthur (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 557 Pages - 09/20/2012 (Publication Date) - Cambridge University Press (Publisher)
Saint Thomas Aquinas And The Principle Of Sufficient Reason
- Sullivan PhD, Scott M. (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 242 Pages - 06/28/2016 (Publication Date) - CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (Publisher)
On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason
- Schopenhauer, Arthur (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 132 Pages - 08/24/2017 (Publication Date) - CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (Publisher)
Causation and the Principle of Sufficient Reason (The God Series Book 21)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Hockney, Mike (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 298 Pages - 11/03/2014 (Publication Date) - Hyperreality Books (Publisher)
The History of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Its Metaphysical and Logical Formulations
- Hardcover Book
- Urban, Wilbur Marshall (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 90 Pages - 10/11/2018 (Publication Date) - Franklin Classics (Publisher)
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