We have now connected facts and meanings by showing, how facts are inevitably seen as meaningful in the interpretative activities of language-games and how they are intertwined in the relationships underlying language-games. This undermines one of the main assumptions of theodicy: the fact/meaning split. In Chapter 2.2 we have seen that the problem of evil arises when one tries to connect facts, meanings and values with the principle of sufficient reason. Theodicism itself is a theological version of this strategy of seeing meaning in the world: God exists only, if everything has a (morally) sufficient reason. Then the question inevitably arises: What should we think of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, when meaningfulness and intelligibility is already given by language-games and their relational contexts?1
6.1 The Principle of Sufficient Reason and Reasons for It
The Principle of Sufficient Reason is one of the oldest principles of metaphysics and philosophy. Alexander Pruss shows that the Presocratics used it in their arguments, and Terence Irwin’s overview of Greek thought shows that the Principle of Reason motivated the Presocratic search for natural laws and ultimate principles for explanation. For example, Democritus’ arguments for atoms can be read as the claim that there has to be a ground for material causes, and Aristotelian arguments for the existence of God depend on the idea that there is a ground for efficient, final and formal causes.2 This chapter defines the psr, investigates arguments for it and brings the connection of the problems of evil and intelligibility to the fore by highlighting the role of the psr.
6.1.1
Martin Heidegger defines the principle in his lectures in The Principle of Reason3 as “Nihil est sine ratione”, or “Everything has a reason”, or “everything has a cause”. Pruss formulates it in The Principle of Sufficient Reason4 the terms of explanation: “Every contingent fact has a good explanation”.
When the Principle of Reason is put that way, it may seem trivial or self-evident. Pruss argues for its self-evidence: we use it in our everyday search of explanations, and the man on the Clapham Omnibus would undoubtedly accept it. Pruss claims that psr is often denied because it is taken to have unacceptable consequences, like the existence of God or universal metaphysical determinism. However, he reports that when he discusses the cosmological argument in class, even atheist students are more inclined to accept the necessity of the universe than to deny the Principle. Pruss moreover makes a strong case that the standard Humean doubts about it are metaphysical nonsense. Heidegger discusses the strong hold of the Principle on our consciousness: it is the nature of the human mind to search for reasons to get to the bottom of things, and a phenomenon or an object is a well-founded object of consciousness only if we can supply reasons or explanations for it. Neiman applies this Kantian insight to the grounds of the problem of evil by arguing that evil events require an existentially satisfying explanation: “Why did this happen? It should not have”.5 The Principle of Reason is nevertheless open to criticism due to its ambiguity. Heidegger argues that the Principle does not specify, what counts as a reason and could conflate different kinds of reasons like logical consequences and cause-effect relationships.6 The Principle involves three overlapping intelligibility claims, ordered from the weakest to the strongest: the Principle of Intelligibility, the Principle of Good Explanation and the Principle of Rational Grounding:
- 1.(pi) Reality as a whole is intelligible.
- 2.(pge) Every (contingent) fact has an illuminating explanation. (Nothing is without reason.)
- 3.(prg) Being qua being is constituted by rational grounding. (Nothing is without reason.)7
The Principle of Rational Grounding is stronger than the Principle of Good Explanation. Heidegger defines the Principle of Grounding as the claim that reason and rational principles constitute objects by determining their rational grounds. Tahko defines grounding as metaphysical explanation and links it with the essences of entities. Metaphysical grounding involves ontological dependence, and is constituted by the identity-conditions and essences of an object. One could propose the definition that x grounds y if and only if the existence of y depends on x and it is a part of y’s essence Y that xRy.9
The link between object-constitution according to the principles of reason, metaphysical explanation and explanation in general can then be clarified. If reason, rational concepts and derived essences explain X by fixing the answers to the question “What is an X?”, then all possible entities and facts have a rational metaphysical explanation, as they all have metaphysically constituting reasons. Moreover, these reasons also serve as a foundation for empirical explanations by fixing the space of possible explanations and constitute the being of possible empirical explanations as well. This can be seen from Heidegger’s two historical examples of the Principle of Reason. Kant argues
Pruss also discusses the structure of explanation that is entailed by the two Principles of Reason, the pge and the prg. He argues that the concepts of explanation, justification and grounding involved in the Principle yield the familiar picture of a strict linear order of reasons terminating in a First Cause.11 He claims that explanation holds between facts or true propositions, and is constituted by the removal of puzzlement: it might be puzzling that I am not hungry, but if the fact that I ate porridge in the morning removes the puzzlement, then it explains the fact that I am not hungry. No fact A explains A, i.e. itself, so explanation is irreflexive. Removal of mystery is dependent on a chain of explanations, and this entails transitivity. Suppose that the fact that I ate porridge is left a mystery. Then it does not completely remove the mystery why I am not hungry. Now suppose that my choice renders my eating porridge not mysterious. Then it also makes the fact that I am not hungry not mysterious precisely by removing the puzzlement why I ate porridge. Then if A explains B and B explains C, A also helps explain C and explanation is transitive. Explanation then yields chains of contingent events and establishes a strict priority of sense-making among them, so the regress must end up in some necessarily holding or self-evident facts that serve as first causes. Pruss also argues that the Principle is compatible with many types of explanations: physical explanation involves natural laws and personalistic explanation involves the intentional states of persons. He also makes the presupposition that causation
Pruss also motivates the Principle(s) of Reason by making another comparison between their different versions of it. Our contrast between pi, pge and prg involved the strength of the concepts of intelligibility, whereas Pruss contrasts versions of the Principle by scope. He distinguishes between the Ex Nihilo Nihil Principle, the Causal Principle and the full psr:
- 1.ennf: Nothing comes to existence out of nothing, or if some x exists at t, some y exists at all t’<t.
- 2.cp: Everything has a cause, or
- 3.psr: Every contingent fact has an explanation.13
Pruss argues that the same considerations regarding causal continuity and the persistence of objects underlie all of these principles.14 He first points out that ennf would be violated by a rock appearing out of nothing. The second contrasting case would be a rock exists up to t, it disappears at t and a blue billiard ball pops up at t and exists from there on. Such a scenario would be equally absurd, as the rock would disappear and the billiard ball would appear out of nothing at t. Thus the violation of cp by a rock disappearing and a billiard ball appearing would be a violation of ennf as well, because the non-caused ball and its non-caused properties would arise out of nothing. Pruss also argues that the same would hold of property change without underlying substances. Suppose that a blue ball would turn red at t. If there were no underlying ball enduring the change, then there would be nothing that can ground the possibility of the causally continuous change from a blue ball to a red one. Thus changes without an underlying substance would be without causal continuity and would thus involve getting something out of nothing.
Pruss argues that both ennp and cp are limited versions of the psr by claiming that ennp limits cp to objects coming into being, and cp limits psr into the causal chains of objects. He proves that one can get the full psr from cp by appealing to the Axiom of Choice: since all causal chains can be ordered into sets of effects Ey = 
Pruss then argues that the ennp in fact entails cp and the cp entails the psr by appealing to principles of causal continuity.16 A closer examination reveals these principles of continuity to be principles of being qua being: Pruss presents the arguments of Greek metaphysics that characterize objects through their persistence and presence, and being by causal continuity. I will first discuss Pruss’s arguments for and against the Principle, and show how they depend on philosophical connections between the nature of objects, the nature of metaphysical possibility and intelligibility. Then I connect Heidegger’s reading of the history of metaphysics in the light of the Principle with contemporary debates to overview the connection of metaphysics, grounds and evil.
6.1.2 Reasons for and against the Principle of Reason
Pruss discusses four types of arguments against the Principle: Humean arguments from the nature of logical space, contingency-based arguments that the psr entails universal logical determinism, indeterminist arguments and the argument that the reduplication of possible worlds entails the failure of the psr. He then offers three types of arguments for it: Aristotelian arguments from the causation of substances and the nature of logical space, broadly ontological arguments from the nature of causal explanation, and a defence of the self-evidence of the Principle.17
Humean critiques of the psr depend on the presupposition that if p can be imagined, then p is possible. Hume’s imaginability principle in fact gives a view of possibility and logical space that is isomorphic to Poteat’s picture of aleatory music: music is composed of the arbitrary combinations of facts, because notes follow each other at random. On the imaginability principle, any combination of ideas is similarly possible.18 Hume’s imaginability principle then also allows for excisions: if w is possible and the situation w- = w/{p}
Pruss presents a very sharp critique of Hume’s imaginability principle, and gives arguments that are similar to those presented against “loose and separate” facts in Chapter 5.2. He first notes that Hume’s excision arguments lead to anti-contextualism. On a Humean view, it would be possible for bricks to exist even if everything else were removed, they popped out of nothing or outside causal chains, or even if nobody ever used them to build anything. He then argues that such anti-contextualism of “loose and separate” facts goes against the ordinary uses of “can”, “is possible”, “must” and “necessary”, which are either causal or epistemic. Thus the imaginability criterion has been abstracted out of language use. Then the grounds for a Humean case against the psr collapse. Even though we can imagine a model M with effects with no causes or a world w without a necessary being, this does not establish that they are genuine possibilities. The model where cp fails won’t necessarily be isomorphic with actual causal chains simply because it is imaginable or logically possible, because causation in the actual world could function differently. Moreover, a necessary being could be broadly logically necessary in Plantinga’s sense.19
Claim: Not all contingent p have explanations.
Proof attempt: Suppose for contradiction that all contingent p have explanations. Let p =
, where p1…, pm are all the contingent propositions. Then since p is contingent, p is explained by q. Either □q or ⌐□q. If □q, □p, because q explains p. If ⌐□q, q = pn for some n. Then either □p or some conjunct pn of p explains p. Since p is contingent by assumption and no contingent pn is self-explanatory, not all contingent pk have explanations.20
Pruss’s liberalization of the Principle and the concept of explanation is at the centre of his answers to indeterminist critiques of psr.22 The possibility of libertarian free will is sometimes used to criticize the Principle, as is the inherent indeterminism of quantum mechanics. The failure of Leibniz’s Law is also offered as an argument: a world with the process (ababab…) could be turned into a world (ab), (ab), (ab) by splitting the process. Then there would be no sufficient reason for distinguishing the possible worlds, as they are indiscernible. Pruss instead argues that propositions of the type “S chose A for the reason R” and “S chose A for no reason” are both self-explanatory. He defends the reasonless-choice model against the criticism that the choices are not explanatory.23 If the choices are not explanatory, they are brute facts and thus random. He counters the problem of randomness and the associated problem of luck. The agent could be directing himself without determining external reasons,
Pruss’s answers to the indeterminism objections then liberalize the notion of explanation.24 He in fact argues that any boundary condition that confers intelligibility is a sufficient explanation. Causation is distributive, because causal explanations of disjuncts are prior to explaining the disjunction. If an indeterministic process like spinning a roulette wheel ends with a result 5, then the explanation for the result 5 is prior to the explanation for getting a 5 or a 6. He quotes Anscombe’s view that causation does not necessitate the effects or even guarantee them a high probability, but establishes a boundary condition that makes them possible. Similarly, he argues that a boundary condition q is sufficient to explain p even, if P
Pruss then offers arguments for the Principle. His arguments are in many ways metaphysical. The Principle follows from a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of substances and possibility. He also compares arguments from the nature of explanation with ontological arguments for the existence of God, as both start with some weak and limited possibility claims and then entail strong claims about actuality due to the structure of the space of possibilities.25 Pruss’s strongest arguments however are broadly Wittgensteinian or Hamannian ones concerning the everyday use of the words “possible” and “necessary”. He first argues that ordinary language involves using “possible” and “necessary” for causal or epistemic possibilities. He then connects causal possibilities with an Aristotelian theory of real possibility, and uses ordinary language-use to
Pruss offers two types of Aristotelian arguments: the Thomistic distinction between being and essence and an Aristotelian view of possibility as potentiality entail the Principle. The Thomistic arguments can be clarified with Feser’s account of the act/potency-distinction, and the connection of the distinction with the logic of functional terms as well. The essence of an X is an answer to the question “What is an X?”, and the existence of an X means that the essence of X is instantiated, or 
Pruss’ second Aristotelian argument involves the nature of possibility. Aristotelianism interprets possibility as potentiality: ◊p if and only if there is a substance x with the causal power F so that x can bring about p by exercising F. The Aristotelian theory of potentiality entails the Principle right away: if p, p is possible and if p is possible, then p is caused and can be explained by some substance x and its power F. Pruss also points out that the Aristotelian theory
Proposition: Suppose that if C is the cause of E, then if C would not have happened, then E would not have happened. Then if it is possible that E has a cause, then it has a cause.
Proof: Suppose for contradiction that E has no cause but E could have had a cause C at w. Then there is a possible world w’, w’ is accessible from w, wRw’, s.t. C causes E at w’. Now it is true in w’ that if C would not have happened, E would not have happened. Since accessibility R is symmetric, at w it is true that if C does not happen, E does not happen. By the assumption of bruteness, E happened but C did not, a contradiction.29
Pruss’s modal argument looks like a reductio of Humeanism. He also offers three arguments from the everyday use of the psr into the full psr. The first is the “dog that did not bark” objection. Suppose that we list all of the ordinarily
Pruss then goes on to argue that limited versions of the psr end up in presupposing the full version, due to the wildcard nature of possible brute facts. If there are brute facts, they are like random notes in Poteat’s music metaphor: they have no motives and context of intelligibility. They then end up breaking up the natural laws and objective probabilities that any explanation depends on. Pruss makes the case for natural laws by pointing out that natural laws are ceteris paribus. To use Bhaskar’s terms, laws are normic: they express the tendency of F’s to yield the function or result G. Then they only give constant conjunctions 
Pruss’s defence of the Principle of Reason can be viewed as a synthesis of neo-Aristotelianism and a liberalized form of Leibnizianism.32 His argument is an attempt to make strong connections between the concepts of being, substance, possibility, intelligibility and God. The world is composed of chains of causes, with God as the ultimate Explanation just like in the Leibnizian cosmological arguments discussed in Chapter 2.3. The Aristotelianism uses contemporary ideas like possible worlds, and unlike Aristotle it holds that it is sufficient to appeal to formal and final causes to establish the psr. The Leibnizianism is liberalized, because “a sufficient reason” does not mean “a logically sufficient condition”, but “a good explanation”. Moreover, any explanation that establishes boundary-conditions that render a fact intelligible is a good one. Explanation and being qua being are ultimately connected, because
Heidegger’s view of the Principle of Reason receives strong support from Pruss’s arguments for the psr and regarding continuity and presence in the ennf, cp and psr. Heidegger argues that the Principle of Rational Ground is logically prior, because objectivity and being consist in the persistence and presence of substances, a logical space that ties together possibility and the possibility of explanation, causal chains of explanation that terminate in God’s free choices and explanation as the removal of puzzlement in the intellect. Heidegger even argues that the Principle depends on a certain view of the connection of object-constitution and the language-world-relationship, and it empowers the rest of the rational principles. These connections can now be examined by drawing links between the Principle and the founding questions of metaphysics.33
6.1.3 The Principle of the Ground of Metaphysics and the Problem of Evil
Heidegger argues that the Principle of Reason is in fact the foundational grounding principle of metaphysical theorizing. It underlies metaphysical principles, like the Principle of Identity:
Whereas Neiman writes the history of the problem of evil as reactions to the Principle of Reason and the unity of reason, values and facts in modern thought, Heidegger reads the history of the whole Western metaphysical tradition as a story of how the Principle either reveals or conceals Being by connecting the concept of being qua being with different types of reasons in different historical eras. He discusses ancient Greek metaphysics, Leibnizian
Heidegger discusses the Principle in Greek metaphysics by commenting on Aristotle and the Parmenides fragment that is also quoted in Pruss: “what there is to be thought of and what there is are the same thing”.36 Heidegger argues that the Greek concept of Logos, or being as reason, involves seeing one in the many. He interprets Aristotle as arguing that the senses accrue natural facts and information from the world. The sensuous material reveals the emergence of natural phenomena, and the emerging phenomena reveal the being or persistent presence of things.37 Heidegger then continues to discuss the Greek concepts of being and logos. Being is taken to consist of persistent presence through time, and Logos is taken to involve a gathering-together that orders or organizes the collected whole. Logos as a saying then brings to the fore or highlights the presence of an order R or a feature F that organizes the whole. Logos then involves “seeing one in the many”, or organizing sensuous materials with predicates R and F that highlight the order typical of a being, highlight its persistence and brings forth its presence to the mind.38
Aristotle’s concept of a substance and the Aristotelian concept of metaphysical grounding embody this view of being and the connection of being and reason.39 A substance like Socrates is at the same time both the sensible individual that underlies predication, it has essential properties and predicates like “being a human” or “being a rational animal”, and it is able to change through time: one could well say “Socrates stands now and five minutes ago he was sitting”. Then Socrates is a substance, because he is both the sensible subject of predication s and an essence that answers the question “What is Socrates?”, i.e. a human. Then Socrates as a subject of predication and as an object of sensation is present and endures change, and his being human is also a form or “thisness” that he has in common with other people and that explains his typical features. Tahko’s concept of grounding highlights that essences constitute objects on the Aristotelian reading of the relationship between being and reason. To revisit the example of water molecules: the atoms H, O and H only make up a water molecule due to a reason R: their tendency to form the
Thought is surrounded by a halo. – Its essence, logic, presents an order, in fact the a priori order of the world: that is, the order of possibilities, which must be common to both world and thought. But this order, it seems, must be utterly simple. It is prior to all experience, must run through all experience; no empirical cloudiness or uncertainty can be allowed to affect it (…)
We are under the illusion that what is peculiar, profound, essential, in our investigation, resides in its trying to grasp the incomparable essence of language. That is, the order existing between the concepts of proposition, word, proof, truth, experience, and so on. This order is a super-order between – so to speak – super-concepts.41
Heidegger describes Leibniz’s views with the slogan: “When God calculated, the world came to be”.42 This slogan is a restatement of Leibniz’s solution to the problem of evil that was discussed in Chapter 2.3: God’s choices for the
Heidegger also discusses the transcendental rules of reason in Kantian metaphysics: like Hamann, Heidegger notes that Kant holds reason and its subjective conditions to be the grounds of all knowledge of objects and even the objectivity of objects itself. For Kant, reason is a system of laws that determines the conditions of possibility for objectivity, and thus constitutes its objects. Something is an object of cognition, and a cognition is objective insofar as it lies inside the bounds that are given by reason. The unity of reason is reflected out the conditions of objectivity in general, or the conditions for being something = x.43
Kant’s famous deduction straightforwardly applies the view of reason as a ground for objective representation into the constitution of empirical objects and the justification of the categories or metaphysics. A cognition is objective only, if it is logically ordered and makes logical sense. A logically ordered cognition makes logical sense by being formed according to the logical forms of true or false propositions. Using logical forms to interpret experience requires that rational rules form a unity that governs the representation of objects = X. Moreover, the use of logical forms to interpret experience orders the experienced objects according to logical rules, and each logical form or rule of interpretation corresponds to an abstract concept of metaphysics. For example, the logical form A → B corresponds to the concept of causation. Then the abstract concepts of metaphysics are applicable, because the objects of experience have been constituted according to the rules of reason that concern the use of logic to interpret experience. An interesting parallel arises between Leibniz and Kant. For Leibniz, the world is grounded in reason because God orders
The Heideggerian historical overview suggests some connecting threads between different versions of the Principle, and also connections between the metaphysical methods debate and the problem of evil. In Greek metaphysics, the Principle arises because being is taken to be persistence among phenomena, which are constituted by a form that involves seeing one in a many, i.e. an essential predicative definition. Heidegger argues that according to Aristotle one has empirical phenomena, abstracts an essential concept F for their persistence out of them, and identifies being with F: phenomena → concept F = being. In modern metaphysics, reason is not an essential real definition, but a system of conceptual laws that clears a logical space for facts and objects and thus rationally constitutes them. Dickson characterizes the Kantian process of abstraction as first replacing expressions with concepts, and then identifying these concepts with the structure of reality: expressions → concepts = reality.45 Burtt and Bayer describe modern positivistic metaphysics: one has scientific phenomena, abstracts a mathematical structure M out of them and then identifies the structure M with being: phenomena → mathematical laws = being.46 However, in all of the cases being qua being is understood via an abstraction: phenomena → form R = being. In all the cases form is taken to be logically prior and constitutive of being, and then it is understood in terms of concepts of the intellect, either ordering predicates R or laws of rational constitution for possibilities.47
The connections between the principle of reason, the problem of evil and the foundations of metaphysics have all been made in a preliminary form in Chapter 2.2.4 on the psr, 2.2.5 on the general argument, and in Chapter 3.3 on the problem of metaphysical foundations.48 The Principle of Reason is a key presupposition of the problem of evil: how can the world be meaningful and
These questions can be put as aporias following the General Argument and Juti’s characterization of the question at the core of metaphysics.49 The conceptual gaps senses/reason, facts/meanings and facts/values stand behind the problem of evil, and the dualisms senses/reason, concepts/objects and matter/form stand behind the problem of the empirical objectivity of metaphysics. How can one close the senses/reason, fact/meaning, fact/value, concept/object, matter/form and general/particular conceptual gaps? The question is made even more difficult, because a conceptual gap arises when A and B are defined to be separate and opposite to each other, so a reduction will end up in problems as A is not B and B is not A by definition. The Principle of Sufficient Reason then answers these questions with a rationalistic reductionism. Reason, a rationally constituted order of Being and possibilities or an order of explanations that terminates in an Arche serves as a foundation, a reductive explanation or analysis for being, meaning and values. Then the sensible world is intelligible by being ordered and defined via concepts and orders that are given by reason. These concepts and orders also constitute objecthood and the order of being, characterize the possible forms and structures of objects, and connect facts, meanings and values.
Heidegger finishes his book on the Principle by comparing being and play, and at a different point of his book he argues that the Principle stands or falls on “the ground of the essence of language”.50 We have established that it is language-games that are the Lichtung, and that the concept of being, its categories and identification-principles function in language use and in the
6.2 Practical and Relational Intelligibility as a Critique of the psr
Developing a critique of the Principle of Reason might seem to be difficult or even foolish. After all, we have seen that it is a principle that we rely on in everyday life, and both Heidegger and Pruss have made strong cases for its self-evidence. Moreover, the psr is often taken to be a demand for explanation. It is also often taken to be equivalent with a denial of brute facts, which has been argued for by Pruss, in Chapters 5.1 and 5.2, and in a different way by Kant too. However, in Chapter 4 we have shown that the abstract concepts for essences and the structure of logical space are based on ordinary language-games, which intertwine both senses and reason, and the use of expressions with objects in the relationships of the game. In Chapter 5 we have seen that the logic of elements, institutions and contexts in language-games for encountering objects
6.2.1 The Ambiguity of the Principle and the Plurality of Reasons
We have seen that the Principle of Reason has many different forms and many different strengths. The Principle can be read as the Principle of Intelligibility, of Good Explanation or of Rational Ground on the depth of the Principle, or of how strong the links between being and reason are. It can also be read as having a different breadth, as the Principles of Ex Nihilo Nihil, Causation and Reason assign a different scope to the connection between being and explanation. Heidegger in fact points out that such ambiguity is inherently built into the Principle, because it links being, facts, explanation and rational grounding by relying on a prior concept of reason: “The principle (…) speaks about beings (…) on the basis of having a view of something like ‘reason’. Yet what the essence of reason amounts to is not defined in this principle. That is presupposed by this principle as an obvious idea”.56 He takes the comparison of causal reasons and logical reasons as an example of this further ambiguity of the Principle. An axiom or a logical proof offers logical reasons that are different kinds of reasons than causal relationships, like rain causing a roof to be wet.57 In addition to causal and logical reasons, one has to consider moral reasons as well. In the theodicy debate, free will is often taken to be a sufficient moral reason for God to allow evil.58
The Principle is then ambiguous on three different conceptual axes: depth, scope and the nature of reason.59 Such ambiguity might not be a problem for
Hume and Heidegger show the conceptual distinction between logical and causal reasons. It is logically possible that one billiard balls hits another but that ball does not move. In model-theoretic terms, we could have D = {Ball1, Ball2}, I(x hits y) = {(Ball1, Ball2)}, I(x moves) = {Ball1}. Then the sentence 
Causal reasons are moreover separate from moral reasons. Suppose that Stan gets drunk and attempts to drive home from the bar, but there is slippery ice on the road and the car crashes. Then the crash had no morally sufficient reason, because drunk driving is a moral evil and a car crash due to slippery ice is a natural evil. However, the crash was causally necessary, because drinking too much caused Stan to ignore the ice and the ice caused the tyres to lose friction and the car to get out of control. Moreover, the separateness of moral and causal necessity in the case of Stan is a case of Hume’s is/ought separation: it ought to be that there was no crash, but the crash in fact happened due to physical necessity because it had a cause. Moral reasons are separate from logical reasons as well. Consider the case that Stan considered calling a taxi when he was leaving the bar, and chose to call a taxi to take him home. Then he had morally good reasons to decide to call the taxi, but his choice to call the taxi was not logically necessary. There is no logical contradiction in the example that he tried to drive home, as the set {“Stan got drunk at the bar”, “Stan attemps to drive home”, “Stan’s car slips on ice and crashes”} is consistent.
Moral, logical and causal reasons are all conceptually distinct. Moreover, these distinctions can be shown by arguments that resemble the discussions of conceptual gaps in Chapter 2.2.4. The distinction between causal and logical explanation on the one hand, and moral explanation on the other, is related to the is/ought distinction. The distinction between causal and logical explanation is related to Hume’s critique of causation and the fact/meaning gap. Then the conceptual gaps underlying the problem of evil arise in the context of the Principle of Reason itself as ambiguities about the nature of reason. This is however something to be expected: Dickson and Kondylis show that attempts to close conceptual gaps by reducing one of the terms to the other only end up presupposing the conceptual opposition as a starting point.64 The reappearance of the conceptual gaps in theodicism strongly suggests that theodicism puts expressions like “reason”, “ground” and “cause” to metaphysical use. If there are many different kinds of reasons, then there are many different moral, scientific, theological, logical and other language-games for assessing reasons, and a metaphysical account that uses the concept of reason in a grand unification has detached the concept of reason out of its contexts.65
The ambiguity concerning the depth or strength of the Principle poses more difficulties for the stronger versions of the Principle, which are needed to formulate theodicism. The key transition here is the move from the Principle of Intelligibility to the Principle of Good Explanations. In Chapter 6.1.1 we saw that such strengthening presupposes two extra assumptions: the distributivity of intelligibility, and the claim that intelligibility entails explanation. Pruss straightforwardly assumes that the second holds by definition: sufficient explanations always give sufficient reasons, and explanation is the removal of mystery. He also explicitly defends the first: an explanation of 
The problems with the claim that intelligibility entails distributive explanation can be highlighted by taking examples of rules that hold of entire systems, but are not strong enough to fix all the facts about them. For example, a neighbourhood association has a board with 5 members. Gender equality rules demand that the board has 2 men and 2 women. Nevertheless, the institution does not fix which seats are held by men or women. Thus it holds of the board as a whole, not of particular seats or office-holders.67 We can similarly describe a language-game where white and black balls are drawn out of a bag. A small bag contains 5 balls, 3 of which are white and 2 of which are black. The player takes a ball out of the bag and does not return it. If the ball is white, he writes down “W” in a row, and if it is black, he writes down “B”. The game continues until all of the balls have been drawn. Suppose that Sue plays the game and gets the sequence bwwbw. Then the rules of the game make the sequence as a whole intelligible, but they do not shed light on the question, why the second ball was white. The problem of distributivity also arises in quantum mechanical explanation. Pruss gives the example of an epr experiment, which demonstrates quantum entanglement. In such situations, the properties of particles are not given independently of measurements and other interactions, and the laws or rules concern probabilities for patterns of events. Radioactive decay too is an example of the failure of the distributivity of intelligibility. Half of uranium-238 atoms decay in 4.5 billion years, but one cannot say which atoms will decay in a particular sample. Then the decay of one gram of uranium can be explained with the laws concerning decay, but they do not explain why some particular atoms decayed.68
The claim of the distributivity of intelligibility is in fact a strong reductionistic claim. It denies that there can be intelligibility that consists in the patterns or institutions that function at the level of whole systems or relationships. This might seem to be in tension with the fact that patterns or institutions function
The problem with distributive explanation can also be raised with probabilistic intelligibility in cases, which follow the Principle of Insufficient Reason.70 pisr is the claim that if there are n possibilities, then the probability of each is
We can conclude the arguments about the ambiguities in the Principle of Reason. The logic of elements, institutions and relationships of contextual intelligibility allow for cases where the relationships of a game or the facts of a play are intelligible even, if all features of them do not have good explanations. Thus the logic of elements and institutions make them intelligible even, though they have no sufficient reasons. Moreover, the concept of intelligibility of elements and institutions allows a reply to Pruss’s defence of the psr. Pruss’s strongest arguments for the Principle resemble those given for the intelligibility of facts in Chapter 5.2: Humeanism detaches necessity and possibility from their contexts, and a neo-Aristotelian account of causal powers and individuals connects being and intelligibility. However, Pruss defines “x explains y” in
The concept “sufficient reason” is moreover systematically ambiguous, as the Principle does not specify what a reason is and one can talk of different types of reasons in different language-games. The plurality of reasons also suggests that “sufficient reason” is a family resemblance term that is used in many different language-games and contexts, so an attempt to define a Principle of Reason once and for all will put the concepts of “reason”, “ground” and “cause” into metaphysical use by detaching them from their language-games. This anyway is the case in the theodicist appeals to the Principle, as they attempt to reduce facts to a rational order in a way that builds the fact/value and fact/meaning gaps into the Principle itself as ambiguities about the nature of reason. We must next investigate the context for terms like “ground”, “reason”, “essence” and “possibility” in language-games to get to the (rough) ground.72
6.2.2 The Location of Reasons in Language-Games and Relationships
The Principle of Reason then stands or falls on the question: “How are sufficient reasons like essences and spaces of possibility themselves possible?”73 In Chapter 4.1, we have seen that language-games are categories of being by forming the Lichtung for encountering reality and for the use of the concept of being. Both the logical space for the description and identification of objects, and the functional terms for reidentification are located in language-games. Moreover, language-games and their rules depend on underlying relationships R, and their activities are a part of the encounter: (source → SoAs → concepts). Heidegger argues that the Principle of Rational Ground is the fundamental version of the Principle of Reason, which holds of the ground of language. The Principle will have to hold of the answers “What is an X?” and the possibilities given by language-games as categories of description, and due to the connection of language-games with their underlying relationships. Language-games and their relationships function as games or relational systems that are composed of elements and institutions. Then the Principle leads to conceptual
6.2.2.1 The Ground of “Reasons” and “Grounds” in Language-Games
Hamann points out that making reason the ground of objects and types of knowledge is dependent on detaching it from experience, tradition and language. Then the concept of “reasons” loses its intelligibility, and the Principle of Rational Ground thus goes against the relational conditions of reasons and leads into metaphysical confusions. Moreover, he argues that language use relates reason to experience and tradition by functioning as a response to reality in the Lichtung (source → SoA → language-games), which he describes as the encounter (God → nature → reason). Thus existence and the encountered Other is prior to reason and its conceptual relationships: “Not Cogito; ergo sum, but vice versa, and more Hebraic, est; ergo cogito”.75 Wittgenstein develops similar arguments in On Certainty by locating the concepts of “reasons”, “knowledge” and “rational grounds” in language use, which is based on trust in realities. Wittgenstein puts the matter well in a slogan: “Am Anfang war die Tat”.76
Wittgenstein’s arguments in On Certainty examine the uses of the expression “rational grounds”. He notes that the expression “’I know…” presupposes rational grounds and thus involves giving sufficient reasons for the known fact, but the assessment of reasons takes place against the background of a language-game and its rules: “’I know’ often means: I have the proper grounds for my statement. So if the other person is acquainted with the language-game, he would admit that I know. The other, if he is acquainted with the language-game, must be able to imagine how one may know something of the kind”.77 Language-games however presuppose an underlying agreement not just on definitions and practices, but on judgments about facts that must hold if the language-game is to have a point. Then sentences like “This is a hand” must be presupposed if the practice of seeking and finding material objects is to get off the ground, and therefore they must also be used as rules for assessing reasons for claims. Then the assessment of reasons requires not just a practice, but also a whole network of sentences that are constitutive of its logical activities and
The rules of language-games then determine what is a “sufficient reason” or a “ground”. These rules are however located in language use: it was shown in Chapter 4.2 that the rules of a language are the institutional aspect of their use, so sufficient reasons depend on the institutions of language-games. Moreover, Wittgenstein argues that language-games are more fundamental than rational grounds: describing the Earth as a ball might be a good picture, as the “game proves its worth. That may be the cause of its being played, but it is not the ground”.79 Moreover, communication and encountering reality are the foundation of language-games. Wittgenstein gives the example of uttering “This is a towel!” and the utterance takes hold of the towel just like grabbing it does. Then taking hold of reality is prior to giving reasons. Such a taking hold of reality however resembles Hamann’s concept of faith as recognition: one recognizes the towel by trusting one’s senses and the practices of using it. Wittgenstein even claims: “It is always by favour of Nature that one knows something”.80 Recognition of reality in communicative practices then also gives the grounds for objects: in oc 475–476 Wittgenstein argues that primitive communication in response to reality is sufficient for language. He then applies this insight into the language-games for seeking and finding: and one first learns to fetch books and sit in armchairs, and only then learns the more abstract concept of existence. One can follow Hintikka in drawing a distinction between first- and second-order language-games: first-order language-games involve seeking and finding, and second-order games involve explanations and giving grounds. Then the encounters with reality and first-order language-games for existence are logically prior to language-games for reasons.81
One can sum up the Wittgensteinian location of the concept of “reasons” in language-games. it is linguistic practices for the recognition of reality, their associated belief-systems and institutions that give the grounding rules for seeking and finding objects in our language-games. Reasons and grounds are then dependent on the institutions of language, and also on prior activities of encountering reality and seeking and finding objects. Then linguistic action, the existence of reality itself, the rules for the concept of existence, and associated
6.2.2.2 The Grounds for Logical Spaces and Essences
In Chapter 6.1.3 we saw Heidegger argue that modern metaphysics starts with the assumption that rational laws ground the conditions of possibility for objects. Kant argues that the unity of the logical rules of representation determine objectivity in general = X. Wittgenstein sums up this approach as the view that the essence of language consists of an order of super-concepts like “truth”, “language” and “the world” that hold together language and the world by establishing an a priori order of possibilities. Both Hamann and Wittgenstein criticize this starting point as a metaphysical abuse of language. Hamann argues that metaphysical attempts to construct the general rational condition of objecthood detach terms like “being” and “possibility” from their empirically fixed and practical use, and thus turns the practically given matter-of-factness of language “into such a meaningless, (…) unstable, indefinite something = X”.82 Wittgenstein similarly criticizes the quest for a super-order for concepts constituting rational representation and possibility that have been abstracted from use: “These concepts: proposition, language, thought, world, stand in line one behind the other, each equivalent to each. (But what are these words to be used for now? The language-game in which they are to be applied is missing.)”83
We have seen in Chapter 4.3. that language-games are categories of being by being ways for encountering objects, and the being of these objects can then be sorted into types and characterized by the rules of these games and the abstract conceptual structures they embody. This holds both of logical spaces and of essences. Take the example of a rage from Wittgenstein and Chapter 4.3: Sadness(t) = (Feeling at t, Expressions at t, Strength at t, Object at t). Then the questions correspond to types of practices for encountering it, as the practices for answering “How strong is it?” and “How does it feel?” involve pointing to different properties of the objects. Different answers to the questions like “I’m feeling a bit sad”. then offer discourse possibilities, which form a grid for all the possible properties an entity might take. The space of possible metaphysical descriptions is then located in the possible encounters with
The question of essences and essential terms has been discussed from Chapters 4.3 to 5.2. An essence gives the answer to the question “What is an X?” by giving X:s typical properties and principles of reidentification. Essences typically involve functional terms: a brain tends to produce consciousness under certain conditions. These functional terms are then associated with rules or tendencies: they produce the function f(x) in the situation x. Moreover, these functional terms can characterize the essence or help answer the question “What is an X?” by describing the principles of continuity that are used to reidentify objects in their functions in relationships. For example, a physical object like a coffee-mug is identified by telling a story of its causal roles: it was on my desk yesterday, I am drinking coffee from it and if it fell to the ground, it could break because it is fragile. Moreover, the functional terms and the rules for reidentification function through pointing out empirical facts and activities in language-games.85
The Principle of Reason then is the principle that being itself can be identified with formal features, which are then identified with abstract conceptual structures: logical spaces in modern metaphysics, real definitions that point out presence in Greek metaphysics. However, if the conceptual structures for logical spaces are understood in terms of discourse possibilities and the conceptual structures of essences and principles of reidentification are located in language-games and their underlying relationships, then these identifications do not hold. The fact/meaning split includes the matter/form split as a special case, but facts and meanings are intertwined. Moreover, the abstract conceptual structures can only be objective in concrete and sensuous language-games. The correspondence between rules of language-games for discourse possibilities and reidentifications on the one hand, and intrinsic necessities in relationships on the other, is mediated by sensuous responses to reality. Then the existence of reality and its relationships are prior to conceptual structures.86
The argument against the senses/reason and fact/meaning dualisms have been made in Chapter 4.2 and 5.2. Language-games and their underlying
Abstract rational concepts then do not constitute objects: the element/institution-networks in language-games and their underlying relationships do. Another argument against the Principle can be given from language-games as responses to reality and its relationships, and how essential rules are objective only in the context of sensuous responses to reality. In Chapter 4.2 the category theoretic concept of a natural transformation was used to develop Wittgenstein’s idea that intrinsic necessities are reflected by arbitrary rules. The tendency or power for hydrogen to burn is manifested by the process 
In the example, the researcher observes water and then forms a language-game with the norm of description 2H+O→H2O in a response to the empirical phenomenon of burning. Then the burning process and the rule-formulation are two opposite but related parts of the linguistic interaction, which can be also put as (Burning → facts → rule). Thus, the roles of the causal process and the rule differ in the language-games and relationships of linguistic interaction, as the rule is a part of a game that is a response to the phenomenon and its underlying powers. The same is made even more explicit in the Adamic language-game: God first plays rules like tree → fruit, and Adam forms the rule “tree → fruit” by appropriating it sensuously. Then the would-be tree → fruit and Adam’s rule have different roles in the communicative space (God → nature → reason), as the phenomena and their institutions exist prior to the rules and constitute their objectivity communicatively and through sensuous practices. One should note that the distinct roles for rules and functions of objects lead to the problem of identity of form in Aristotelianism: how can the same form H2O be in the mind and also in water molecules? It seems that practically mediated isomorphism of function is a better concept to understand the natural correspondence.90
A second problem with the straightforward identification of either rules for functional terms with intrinsic necessities or of rules for discourse possibilities with the structures of intrinsic possibilities in relationships is the autonomy of grammar. Language is a free response: the values for forming language-games are derived from the relationship with the world, and human nature and action
6.2.2.3 The Contingency of Necessity
The location of concepts and rules for essences and logical spaces in language-games then entails the priority of being over thought: “Our reason must wait and hope – and want to be the servant of Nature, instead of its legislator”.92 The logical spaces and essential concepts are structures and rules of language-games, and thus relate to objects only in use. Then they are not logically constitutive of the reality that is encountered in our language-games, and live only in use. The priority of existence over rational rules also entails the contingency of necessity. Both logical spaces and essences are ultimately rooted in relationships and are thus contingent upon them.
Locating contingency and necessity in relationships allows us to connect both with the systems view of these underlying relationships that was developed in Chapter 5.1.2. The relationship R can be viewed as a game that is formed out of the interaction of many actors, or as a complex system of objects, their states and the laws that govern the interaction of a system. Hamann has a related view about philosophical activity: philosophical analysis identifies the objects and states of the system, and synthesis explains its functioning and points out the realities that are present in it by throwing light on the interrelationships and its institutions. These systems can moreover be analysed into elements, institutions and the relational features that are present in interactions. The elements of a game are its possible moves, and its institutions are its
One can now redefine necessity and possibility relative to a game or a system. One can note that the objects in our language-games could be parts of completely different systems with counterfactual possibilities. One can e.g. speculate how physical particles functioned if the laws of nature were different, or how a person would act in a fictional situation that put pressure on his character. In order to ground such discussions on the language-games that function as categories of being, widening the spaces of possibility to cover traditional metaphysical possibility must relate to practices for encountering objects. The practices for reidentification can function in counterfactual situations with different functional terms or physical laws, if the grammar rules for trans-world reidentification depend on general facts that remain fixed. For example, the characters of Hamlet could exist in a world with different physical laws as their roles in the play would stay the same, but water could not be xyz because the chemical property H2O is used to pick it out in our practices of identification.94 However, the institutions or rules of language-games and their underlying systems give two concepts of necessity and possibility:
- 1.If all of the situations w that are allowed by the rule R of S are F, then F is necessary.
- 2.If the rules R allow the situation F, then F is possible.
- 3.If there is a rule R that attaches to x with the response f(x), then the connection x ⟶ f(x) is necessary.
- 4.If the connection x ⟶ g(x) is allowed by the rules, then the connection is possible.
The rules R are determined by the game, and they can be either strategic or defining rules. The contextualization of necessity into relationships can again be illustrated with the example of chess.95 A black king is in e8. Then the rules allow its move to d8, so both the position Kd8 and the connection Ke8 → Kd8, or the move Ke8-d8 are possible. Suppose that a white rook is checking it from e1. Then the situation where there is an open file between e1 and e8, and
These grammatical notes about relational necessity due to game rules and dynamic laws can be contrasted with Poteat’s different models for terms like “logic”, “necessary” and “form”. Like Strawson, he associates different models for concepts of being with different sense modalities. One can distinguish between a static visual space, melodic music, random music and speech acts. These models of necessity have implications for the Principle of Reason, because the Principle identifies being qua being with a form that can be reduced to the structure of reason. Then if necessity is not identifiable with a rational structure, but can be compared with the motives or rules of speech acts in language-games, the Principle of Reason cannot hold.97
The statistic theory of necessity and contingency is based on co-presence in the visual field. The picture involves having a God’s Eye point of view of all the actual facts of the world: as if all the true propositions P(a), Q(b) etc. were written up as a giant book or text and then held before the eyes. Another good metaphor is to say that as if one were looking at a fresco of the elementary diagram of all the true atomic sentences of the world.98 The connection A→B is necessary if and only if A is always followed by B. The traditional Greek statistic theory of necessity was based on the visual picture: □(A→B) if and only if A→B always holds. The theory is plausible once one accepts the Greek version of the psr: A→B is a principle of Being or a real definition if it can gather the different perceptions A, B, A, B … and give them a permanence. The statistic theory can also be used by positivists to deflate the concept of necessity: e.g. A leads to B with causal necessity if and only if A is always constantly conjoined with B. Both connect necessity with correlations of actual facts, viewed from a God’s Eye point of view.99
The random music picture allows for another concept of necessity: that of loose and separate facts. Random music arises when one presses the keys of a piano at random, and notes of random pitch and duration follow each other. Then the sounds arise completely outside a framework of meaning, and all musical facts are brute, because there are no connections between the randomly generated notes. Musical facts are absolutely contingent, as they just happen outside the framework of meaning. Moreover, no musical fact holds necessarily. The fact/meaning split underlying theodicism presupposes this picture of logical connections. Facts are separate and opposite to meanings and values, because facts are atomic and no motives connect them. To use the language of rules, they are subject to a rule that establishes a space of possibility, but not to one that establishes motives. We have seen that this picture underlies the Tractatus view of logically atomic facts and Hume’s imaginability criterion of possibility: facts hold independently of each other, and it is
Poteat discusses a fourth picture for the concept of necessity: that of speech acts and language-games. A speech act is both necessary and absolutely contingent. It is necessary, as it is subject to the rules and motives of a language-game. It is contingent, as it is dependent on a speaker and the relationships of the game to function. Then the necessity of the speech act is constituted by the rules of a game, and the contingency of the language-game is its dependence on the speaker and the relationships of the game. Speech acts are then dependent on language use that underlies meaning, and the priority of action and relationships establish the contingency of the speech acts. Poteat locates the speech acts in a relationship, as they presuppose a space of communication or an underlying linguistic practice. He also discusses (God → salvation history → Israel) as his basic biblical model. Strawson also offers a similar model with his everyday example of audial identification of speakers: every speaker has a master-sound or a voice in the dialogue, and influence other speakers by making speech acts in the dialogue (Speaker with master-sound → Speech act → Responding to other speakers). Then speech acts are absolutely dependent on speakers, but subject to the rules of communicative use. The logical relationships of use are rooted in communication, as they are its motives. The possibilities are not limited with a priori rules, but are related to speakers and their communicative relationships (source → SoA → receiver). The speakers or players in the relationship help constitute it, so logic is contingent on them.102
The picture of language-games and speech acts can be usefully juxtaposed with the interpretation of relationships and games and the necessity inherent in them. Speech acts are moves in language-games, so they are subject both to the defining and strategic rules. The defining rules establish discourse possibilities and the bounds of sense, and the strategic rules establish the motives and functional patterns of use in conversation. The necessity of rules then holds of speech acts and moves in games. The rules are however the institutions of the game, and they only function within the element/institution/context-complex of the relationship. Then it is the relationship and its interaction that is prior, so the speech acts are contingent on the relationship. Moreover, the necessity of game rules depends on the players as well, as if they did not play the game, then the rules would not hold either. Take the case when Garry and Magnus can choose whether to play a game of chess or a game of draughts. If they choose
The location of rules in the relationships of language-games and the dependence of necessity on rules then entails that necessity is dependent on language-games and their underlying relationships R. Then it is contingent on the relationship R, the rules of games and the interaction of its players. This entails that the necessity that is based on language-games and their systems cannot consist of conceptual relationships, or prior forms. The form of the language-games and their underlying relationships is rule-governed activity, and not a prior conceptual structure. The forms of reason moreover do not constitute the underlying relationships R, as the rules are relative to the game and do not give a rationally constituted or conceptual ground for it. Then the contingency of necessity entails that the Principle of Reason cannot hold: the model of necessity presupposed by the Principle first abstracts the rules from their contexts and then identifies Being with them, taking “words for concepts and concepts for things themselves”.104
6.2.3 The Question of Reason and the Question of God105
Poteat takes God to be an example of an ideal agent in his discussion of the model of necessity inherent to language-games. The same model of necessity and sufficient reasons is however embedded in two examples that have been inspired by biblical traditions: the Adamic language-game of Chapter 4.1 and the Solomonic succession narrative. These examples give a reinterpretation of theodicist terms in terms of religious metaphors that could give them a content, and lead into how confusions about sufficient reasons and intelligibility end up as an antinomy about God.106
In the Adamic language-game, God can play either facts X or connections X→Y. Adam then senses the facts and objects X and forms grammar rules “X→Y”. Then the objects and intrinsic necessities X→Y are constituted by God’s choices in the exchange of the game and depend on the interactions of the players. The objects and essences are thus contingent on God, and Adam then formulates essential functional concepts “X→Y” by appropriating the structures
The Succession Narrative similarly relativizes the Causal Principle. In the narrative, King David, his sons and court advisers act to reveal their character and further their “counsel”, or strategic plans, in a variety of political situations. These scenes then form sub-games, and their connection into one sequence of events forms the narrative of David’s sin, the struggle for power among his sons, Absalom’s putsch and eventually Solomon’s rise. However, God had chosen Solomon. He determines the outcomes of the plans in every situation, and their connections into one big power-game and political history. Then it is God who determines both the setting and the various possible states of the scenes, and the possible outcomes of interactions or the institutional structures that give the outcomes according to the law of retribution. Then the Causal Principle holds: every political event has a corresponding cause, and God acts as a “cause of causes” or a reason of reasons by supplying the institutions of the game and thus determining the outcomes.108
These relativizations help to highlight and to bring into view that the connection of God with an unrestricted and decontextualized version of the Principle of Reason leads to an antinomy of reason about theism and atheism. Both Heidegger and Pruss hold that the existence of God and the Principle of Reason are equivalent. If every contingent thing has a sufficient reason, then the universe will itself have a necessarily existing efficient cause, and only something like God will be both necessary and causally effective. On the other hand, God will explain all contingent things, because He is the First Cause. This entails the theist side of the antinomy right away: psr → God. To get the atheist side, one must note that God → psr is a statement of theodicism. Then one can plausibly argue that there is no God, because there is evil without sufficient reasons.109
The problem is made even worse, because if God ↔ psr holds, then the existence of evil is a middleman in atheistic arguments, just like God is a middleman in theodicism. One can get atheism right away by arguing against the
Relativized versions of the Principle however do real work in the search for intelligibility. Heidegger and Pruss argue convincingly that our everyday search for causes and the scientific search for explanations presuppose at least some versions of it. Nagel argues that the search for explanations in science and the search for a unified and explanatory worldview depend on the explanatory intelligibility of phenomena.111 The role and possible uses of the psr can be brought to the fore by pointing to Kant’s and Hamann’s arguments regarding the antinomies of reason. Kant argues that the Causal Principle is true of the phenomenal world, as we order phenomena into causal chains. One cannot however speak of an infinite regress or a First Cause, because such arguments would take us beyond experience. Applying psr beyond experience turns it into a regulative principle: it guides our search for explanations, but does not hold necessarily of objects. Hamann argues that language is “the ground of all the paralogisms and antinomies of which reason is accused”.112 The search for reasons must then be located in language-games and their intelligibility. We can then take the cosmological argument as an example of such a relocation.
C. Stephen Evans argues that the cosmological argument depends on a sense of wonder at the contingency and intelligibility of the creation. Then the argument can be formed as an aporia or puzzlement over: {The world is intelligible, The world is contingent, ⌐God exists}. However, the intelligibility of the world and the move to God do not need to take the form of a full psr. One could make the connection with something like Peirce’s humble argument: simply thinking about the world, its manifold orders and the connections between them point to the reality of a Necessary Being connecting them. Another approach would be the biblical Wisdom theology presupposed in the Solomon narrative: God has put a meaningful order into creation, and
A version of the argument can be made from the idea of an essentially ordered series. A series is essentially ordered if and only if A constitutes the power of B and B constitutes the power of C. The grammar of elements, institutions and contexts forms an essentially ordered series: if s has a role in S, and S is embedded in a larger system S’, then s is located in the larger system S’ and the rules and institutions of S’ locate s both in the immediate context S and the wider relationships of S’. In short, contextualism entails a regress of constituents: if A is a constitutive context for B and B is a constitutive context for C, A is a constitutive context for C. To take a theological example: in the Solomon story, David prays to God to foil the plans of Achitophel, Absalom’s clever advisor. Then Hushai the advisor comes to David and goes back to the court on his instructions to offer bad advice. Now Hushai’s actions have a role in his support of David, but his mission is also a part of God’s plan to defeat the putsch. Then the action of going to David is embedded in Hushai’s practice, which is then constituted by the wider context of God’s plan.114
The regress of systemic embeddings S, S’… must then end somewhere: there has to be a universal relationship R. Such an argument can be based both on the musement over the contingency of the universe, and on the scientific search for wider contexts and causal relationships that hold in them. A nesting of contexts underlies the search for causes for systems and unification in science: scientists discuss, how their phenomena relate to phenomena in other sciences and how these phenomena could be unified. They can also ask, what are the causes for the systems that they are studying. The search for a unifying ground and the causes for systems are themselves involve the psr, so it can be given a context in the search for unifications, links and causes.115
Moreover, the search for contexts of intelligibility and context-relative reasons can be applied to the world as a whole in the practices of musement or religious interpretation. In the religious case, one can give either Spinozist or theistic answers. If the relationships of Nature are the most general, then they constitute necessity and one cannot claim that the world could have been radically different. The rules of Nature are the most fundamental, and the systemic
The contextual interpretation of the psr and various alternatives to it in religious practices also point a way of answering some of Oliver Wiertz’s criticisms that the method of language-games might presuppose an ordinary language or a religious language free of all metaphysics. Wiertz points to a possible problem in the descriptive approach: metaphysical principles can have a role in shaping world-views and their ontologies, and one should bring the top-down approaches of articulating a world-view and bottom-up approach of conceptual description into an equilibrium. Wiertz’s religious tradition (Roman Catholicism) also integrates theology and traditional Thomistic metaphysics closely as a matter of Church tradition.117
The question of top-down vs bottom-up approaches in metaphysics and world-views is big, and I will investigate it in my next research project. In Chapter 4.3.3 we have seen that new metaphysical models can be used to define new frameworks and ways of making sense of the world, when they are used to interpret experience and to develop new ways of seeking and finding objects. For example, models like gunkism could lead to new research programs. The phlogiston theory failed because it assigned phlogiston a negative oxygen mass, and the metaphysical assumption that all matter has a positive mass is a well-established interpretative principle. Religious traditions can use metaphysical theories, once they interpret the metaphysical models and concepts through their religious practices: Catholicism uses the psr to view the world as God’s creation by interpreting it through its doctrine of creation. However, theologians drawing on metaphysics should be able to clear out metaphysical antinomies by reinterpreting and limiting the concepts by giving them a new religious context, e.g. as the Church Fathers did to the concept of substance
The example of biblical Wisdom theology highlights, how different religious traditions can give a practical meaning to the terms involved in metaphysical theology in a way that could avoid theodicism. They do so by developing views of the intelligibility and value in the world by practical responses to it. This includes offering practical ways for coping with evil. Different worldviews can make different contributions to the human search for intelligibility, and grammatical anti-theodicy can contribute by describing and comparing them. Biblical Wisdom theology can answer theodicism with its metaphors for God’s actions. Taoism offers another interesting take on the problem. It teaches that the Tao, or the fundamental order of the world, is ineffable and mysterious. Therefore, it cannot be reduced into a conceptual order and the Principle of Reason does not hold. Similarly, literary humanism holds that meaningfulness and intelligibility is to be found in art and moral action, which cannot be true or false and thus not subject to strictly logical reasons. Then an examination into different religions and worldviews can deepen the ways of understanding our ways of coping with evil. The examination of religious thought can also lead to a questioning of the special problem as well.119 We can sum up the discussion:
- 1.The Principle of Sufficient Reason is a family of principles connecting being, reason and explanation. The most fundamental is the Principle of Ground: being qua being is rational ground.
- 2.Facts and meanings are intertwined in contexts of elements, institutions and contexts. If the psr is correct, then it is a second-order principle referring to these contexts.
- 3.There are systems with elements and institutions that do not yield good explanations for all of the contingent facts. Examples include systems with pisr and system-level institutions.
- 4.“Reason” is an ambiguous term, as there are moral, logical and causal reasons. The psr does not determine a language-game for
determining reasons. The theodicist version instead conflates them due to its attempt to close the fact/meaning and fact/value gaps by reducing being to reason. - 5.“Reason” has a use only in language-games. Encountering reality and seeking and finding objects are logically prior to explanation and conceptual rules. Being thus cannot be reduced to reasons.
- 6.Logical spaces and essences are located in language-games and their underlying relationships. The identification phenomena ⟶ rational form = reality does not hold as rules for essences and discourse possibilities are formed in responding to reality.
- 7.Necessity is due to rules in a context. The necessity of language-games is dependent on the Lichtung of relationships, and not on a priori conceptual rules.
- 8.The use of the psr as a regulative principle in science or as a principle of order in creation theology depends on models for sense-making in worldviews and language-games.
See Chapters 2.2, 2.3, 5.1, 5.2. For the centrality of psr for the problem of evil, see Neiman 2015, 314–328. For theodicism, see Pihlström & Kivistö 2016, Peterson et al. 2003, 148, 128–153. My discussion of psr is based on Heidegger 1996/1971 and Pruss 2006. I also use Pruss’ overview of his arguments (2007) to summarize them.
See Pruss 2006, 20–28, Irwin 1989, 49–50, st i:2, Chapter 2.3.
Heidegger 1996/1971, the quote is on p. 3.
Pruss 2006, esp. 16–19.
Pruss 2006, 189–208, Heidegger 1996/1971, Chapter 1, Neiman 2015, 1–13, 314–328, Rossi 2010.
Heidegger 1996, 21/1971, 44. See also Grayling 1994.
The three formulations of the various principles of rational intelligibility are based on the different formulations of the Principle of Reason in Heidegger (1971/1996), Pruss (2006) and Nagel (2012, 17).
Pruss discusses the issues of good explanation, intelligibility and distributivity (2006, 126–170). His position amounts to defending distributivity by arguing that explanations of conjuncts are logically prior to explanations of their conjunctions, and that explanation just means making facts intelligible.
Heidegger 1996/1971, Tahko 2015, ch, 5 (93–119). The sketch of a definition is based on Tahko. Pruss (2006, 211) points out that all types grounding, like causation, explanation or justification, entail logical priority. See Chapter 6.1.3.
KrV B, preface. See Heidegger 1996/1971, chs. 9–13 for the discussion of the Principle of Ground in modern and Greek philosophy. For essences as explanations in Aristotelianism, see Met. v:1, Williams & Charles 2013.
Pruss 2006, 16–19. See also Leibniz 1989, cf. Tahko 2015, 106–112, Chapter 6 (120–150).
See Chapter 2.2.4 and Hume 1949, Chapter 7 for Hume’s critique of causation.
Pruss 2006, 58–62.
Pruss 2006, 58–62. Cf. Heidegger 1996/1971. For Aristotle on substance as the ground of change, see Cat. 1.
Pruss 2006, 50–62.
Pruss 2006, Heidegger 1996/1971. Cf. the reidentification conditions of Chapters 4.3. and 5.1.
Pruss 2006. Pruss 2007 contains a useful summary of the arguments for the Principle.
See Hume 1949, chs. 3–4, Poteat 1985, Pruss 2006, 31–37, 75–96. Cf. model sets in Hintikka 1973, Chapter 1.
Pruss 2006, 31–37, 75–96. See Plantinga 1974.
Feser and Pruss offer accounts of van Inwagen’s argument. My formulation builds on Feser 2014, 140–141. Pruss has a more complex formulation (2006, 97–125).
Pruss 2006, 97–125. For an overview of quantum mechanics and its challenges to the modern worldview, see Polkinghorne 2012 and Kallio 2008. James argues that a strong form of the Principle of Reason forms a dilemma for determinists: a determinist cannot hold on to a moral point of view, because the necessitation of human action makes moral action impossible (see 1979). Pruss instead argues that free choices are an Arche. See Chapter 7.1.2.
Pruss 2006, 126–183.
For Hume’s problem of luck, see Chapter 2.3.2.1, Hume 1949, Chapter 8, Mele 2014, Pruss 2006, 142.
For Pruss’ overviews of his arguments, see Pruss 2007, 2006, 321–322. See also Plantinga 1974, Ch.10.
Pruss 2006, 189–208, pi 116. Cf. Chapter 5. Knuuttila comments on the text that Pruss is anachronistic for two reasons. First, Aristotle holds that sufficient reasons work on the level of formal and final causation but are imperfectly realized in matter. Second, Aristotle didn’t have possible worlds semantics or iterated modal operators.
Pruss 2006, 209–229, Feser 2014, 36–38, Met. vii 7–8, Putnam 1994, Chapter 5.1.2. The arguments are Scholastic.
Pruss 2006, 299–320. Juti (2001, 295–296) characterizes potentiality by appealing to causal possibility. Aristotle does not have a theory of possible worlds (as Knuuttila points out), so the argument is neo-Aristotelian.
Pruss 2006,231–254, 2007, 299–306. For the counterfactual theory of causation, see Hume 1949, Chapter 7.
Pruss 2006, 250–253. The example of a barking dog comes from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.
This section is based on Pruss’ summary (2007, 297–299). See also 2006, 254–299. Poteat 1985, 91.
H 207 / N iii, 283, Heidegger 1996/1971, Dickson 1995, 282, Bayer 2002, 239–247, Tahko 2015, 104–105.
Quoted in Pruss 2006, 22. Cf. my translation in Chapter 2.2.4.3 from Heidegger 1971, 127: “Understanding and Being are namely one and the same thing”.
Heidegger 1996, 63–65/1971, 110–115.
Heidegger 1996, 105–110/1971, 175–186. “Seeing one in the many” is a key feature that Leibniz’s version of psr shares with the classical one: see Monadology in Leibniz 1989.
Cat. 5, Met. v: 8. Tahko 2015, 93–105. See also Heidegger 1996/1971, Juti 2001, 15–25, 51–52.
See Chapter 3.3.1, Juti 2001, 20–25, Heidegger 1996/1971, chs. 9–10.
pi 97. G. H. von Wright connects the Tractatus with a tradition of ideal language philosophy that starts with Leibniz in his preface to the Finnish edition of On Certainty (Varmuudesta. Porvoo: wsoy, 1971).
Cum Deus calculat fit mundus. Heidegger 1996, 101/1971, 169–170, Neiman 2015, 27, Pruss 2006, 28–31, Leibniz 1989, Chapter 2.3.1.
Heidegger 1996/1971, chs. 9–10, H 210, KrV. Kant distinguishes understanding (the ability to use concepts) and reason (the ability to make inferences) (Caygill 1995, 346–350). I use “reason” for both here.
KrV A 84–130/B 116–169. My account of the Deduction builds on Caygill 1995, 151–153, and resembles Heikki Kannisto’s (1998) and Henry Allison’s interpretations.
See Dickson 1995, 305–318, zh 5, 264–265, pi 104 and its interpretation in Baker & Hacker 1980.
See Bayer 2002, 312, Moustakas 2003, Burtt 2016, esp. 64–95. For a contemporary example, see Ladyman 2007.
The chapter builds links between Neiman 2015 and Heidegger 1971/1996.
This section synthetizes Chapters 2.2.4.3 (psr as rationalistic reductionism), 2.2.5 (the General Argument), 3.3.1 (rational ground and the problem of metaphysics), and builds on Juti 2001, Heidegger 1996/1971, and Neiman 2015.
This discussion builds on Dickson’s and Kondylis’ comments on conceptual gaps in Dickson 1995, 1–14, Chapter 3.1.2.3, Juti’s characterization of the interplay of matter/form and senses/reason-dualisms as a fundamental problem of metaphysics (2001, 20–25, 51–52), Heidegger’s interpretation of the Principle (1996/1971) and Neiman 2015.
Heidegger 1996, 18, 111–113/1971, 39, 185–188.
Prov. 8:31, translated in von Rad 1988, 150.
See Heidegger 1996/1971, Chapter 13. pi 371–373, zh 7, 169. See Chapter 4 and 5.1, 5.2, Bayer 2002, H 96–110, 205–218/ N iii, 283–289, von Rad 1988, Garver 1994, 217–235, Hintikka 1997.
See Chapter 6.1, Pruss 2006, Heidegger 1996/1971. For Kant as a critic of atomistic sense-data, see Taylor 1995, Chapter 2. For language-games as categories of being, see Garver 1994, 61–72. See also Dickson 1995, Bayer 2002.
Heidegger 1996, 45/1971, 83–84.
For the free will defence, see Chapter 2.3.2.3, Plantinga 1974, Chapter 9.
Yitzhak Melamed and Daniel Lin argue that psr is in fact a family of principles (2016). A.C. Grayling (1994) mentions that Schopenhauer noted the confusion between logical reasons and causes, and distinguished between moral, mathematical, causal and logical reasons. Heidegger (1996) then took up these themes, and I follow in this tradition.
Neiman 2015, 322.
See Chapter 2.2.5, Heidegger 1996/1971, Neiman 2015, 314–328, Rossi 2010.
See Hume 1949, Chapter 7, Pruss 2006, 31–36, 75–81, Chapter 2.2.4.
See Chapter 2.2.4 and Sayre-McCord 1995 for the is/ought gap.
See Chapter 2.2.4, 3.1.3, Dickson 1995, 1–15.
For metaphysical use of the concept of reason, see H 210/N iii, 285, pi 116.
Chapter 6.1.1, Pruss 2006, esp. 184–186.
The example is inspired by an example Taneli Huuskonen once used in a set theory class.
Pruss 2006, 160–170. Leonard Susskind (2014) even claims that the mystery of quantum mechanics follows from the failure of reductionism and distributivity: one could know everything about the whole without knowing its parts. See
See Chapter 5.2 for functional intertwinings, and Ellis 2008 for multiple realizability.
See Chapters 5.1, 5.2., Pruss 2006.
See Chapter 2.2.4, Grayling 1994, Dickson 1995, 1–15, pi 66–67, 116, 107, Heidegger 1996/1971.
Cf. H 211/N iii, 286: “If then a chief question indeed still remains – how is the faculty of thought possible?”
Chapters 4.1, 4.3, 5.2.2, 6.1, 6.2.1, pi 373, Heidegger 1996/1971.
zh 5, 448, quoted in Dickson 1995, 318. zh 5, 254, H 206–208/N iii, 283–284, See also Hamann’s letters to Jacobi in 1787 (zh 7, 161–178). Dickson 1995, 281–283, Bayer 2002, Chapter 3.3.2.
oc, Hein 1983, Snellman 2018. oc 402. Cf. Poteat 1985, zh 7, 173: “What you call being in your language, I’d rather call the Word”.
oc 18.
oc 92–105, pi 242, Hintikka 1973, Hertzberg 1978, Chapter 4.2.4.
pi 197, oc 145–146, 474–475.
oc 475–476, 505, 504–512, Hein 1983, Snellman 2018.
See Chapter 4.1. For primary and secondary language-games, see Hintikka 1986. See also Chapter 4.3, Hetzberg 1978.
H 210/ N iii, 285, Bayer 2002, 239–247, 296–312.
pi 96. See also pi 116: “What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use”.
See Chapter 4.3, Garver 1994, 61–72, 217–235, Chapter 5.1.
For reidentification, see 5.1. For functional terms, see Chapter 5.2. For essences, see pi 371–373, Met. V:8, Tahko 2015.
These arguments bring together the critique of metaphysical categories (Chapter 4.3, 5,1 Hintikka 1973, Garver 1994, 61–72, Strawson 1959), the objectivity of language-games as a Lichtung (Chapters 3.2., 4.1, 4.2, pi 371–373, Garver 1994, 217–235, zh 7, 161–178) and the Principle of Reason (Pruss 2006, Heidegger 1996/1971, see also Bayer 2002, 312).
The example builds on H 216–218/N 288–289, pi 197, Bayer 2002, Chapters 4.2, 5.2, Floridi 2010, Chapter 15, Heidegger 1996/1971. See Dickson 1995, 305–318.
See Chapter 4.2.3.
See De an. iii, Feser 2014, 137–146 for a neo-Aristotelian account of concepts and psr. For the themes of language as a response to reality and the autonomy of grammar, see Chapter 3.3.2.
For natural correspondences, see Chapter 4.2.3. For language-games as a Lichtung, see Chapters 4.1, 5.1. For language as a response, see Chapter 3.2.2, 4.1, H 108–109/N iii,32. For the related Adamic game, see Chapter 4.1. See Putnam 1999, 22–24.
Putnam 1994. For the autonomy of grammar, see Chapter 4.1, pi 497, zh 7, 164–173. Cf. Glock 1996, 45–50.
zh 5, 265. For the contingency of necessity in Hamann, see Chapter 3.3.2, Bayer 2002, 156–175. See Garver 1994, 232.
See Chapter 5.1.2, zh 7, 169, Garson 2018, Mainzer 2004, cf. Baez & Stay 2011.
See Chapter 4.2.3 for grammatical principles and general facts in the process of identification. The examples come from Hamlet and Putnam 1975. For the debate about metaphysical possibilities, see Morganti & Tahko 2017. Note also that different models, metaphysical metaphors and practices of reidentification lead to different views of essences.
See pi 108, Floridi 2010, Chapter 15.
See pi 197–202. For modality and games, see Garson 2018.
See Poteat 1985, Strawson 1959, Chapter 5.1. The themes of logic, sense-making and different musical models for the meaningfulness of facts were introduced in Chapter 2.2.4.
An elementary diagram is the set of all the true atomic sentences and substitution-instances of a model. See Hodges 1997, 48–49.
Poteat 1985, 78–81. The term “statistic theory” comes from Knuuttila, see Juti 2001, 255–257. For the Greek version of the psr, see Heidegger 1996/1971, Ch.10. For positivist statistic theories of modality, see Hume 1949, Chapter 7, Ladyman & Ross 2007, Chapter 6.
See Poteat 1985, 82–88. The theory of possible worlds and functional essences, or abstract super-concepts and scientific essences is motivated by Pruss (2006), Tahko (2015) and Leibniz (1989). Wittgenstein subverts this picture in pi 527–528: the logic of music functions like the logic of language. Then the logical spaces and functional terms must be set in a context resembling a language-game or function according to the logic of speech-acts. See Chapter 6.2.2.2.
Poteat 1985, 91–92. See Chapter 2.2.4.2, 6.1.2, tlp, esp. 1.21, Hume 1949.
Poteat 1985, 93–132, Strawson 1959, 59–86. Cf. Peirce’s theory of (object → sign → interpretant) in ep 2.
See Chapter 5.1.2. The dependence of games on responses is an aspect of the autonomy of language (Chapter 4.1.).
zh 5, 264–265, see Dickson 1995, 304–318.
The chapter title is an allusion to Phillips’ The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God (2004) and Bayer’s “Die Frage nach Vernunft als Frage nach Gott” (2002, 389–391).
See Poteat 1985, 104–131, 2 Sam. 9- 1 Kings 2, Chapter 4.1, Whybray 1968, von Rad 1988, 56–62.
See Chapter 4.1.
2 Sam. 9–1 Kings 2. See Whybray 1968, von Rad 1988, 58–62.
See Heidegger 1996, 28/1971, 55–56, Pruss 2006, Neiman 2015, Leibniz 1989, Chapter 2.3.
For antinomies of reason, see KrV A 405–567/B 432–595, Caygill 1995, 75–78, zh 5, 264. Neiman 2015, Pruss 2006.
See Pruss 2006, Heidegger 1996/1971, Chapter 6.1.2, Nagel 2012, 16–17.
zh 5, 264. See oc, Kuhn 1970, KrV A 508–523/B 535–551, Caygill 1995, 129–130.
See Evans 2010, Chapter 7.3.2.1, ep 2, 434–448, Prov. 8, von Rad 1988, Perdue 2007, Ochs 2004.
See Whybray 1968. For essentially ordered series, see King 2006, Feser 2014, 148–154.
For the psr and the search for an ultimate unification, see Tahko 2015, Chapter 7, Nagel 2012, 16–17, and for physicalistic scientism as an unification of loosely linked special sciences via reduction, Ziman 2000, 321–326.
For necessary-world Spinozism and creation theology, see Bayer 1991a, 1–8. For the computer metaphor, see Mainzer 2004, and it is also discussed by Feser. For cash values of religious terms, see Paulsen 1999.
Wiertz raised up the question of pre-metaphysical language-games in the thesis defence (2.10.2020), and the possibility of a reflective equilibrium in emails. For Thomism and evil as an anomaly, see st 1:2.
See Chapter 4.3.3, Morganti & Tahko 2017. For the Trinitarian redefinition of earlier Greek concepts, see Jenson 1997, 90–114.
Snellman 2019. For Taoism, see Smart 1998, 110–119. For humanistic meaning, see Appelqvist 2008 and Neiman 2015, 224–227. For biblical critiques of the special problem, see Perdue 1991 and Wright 2006.