Acknowledgments |
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xiii | |
Part I The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Causal Principle |
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3 | (17) |
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1.1. The Significance of the PSR |
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3 | (7) |
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1.2. A Restriction to Contingent Truths |
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10 | (3) |
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13 | (3) |
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1.4. What Are We Talking About? |
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16 | (4) |
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2 Reflections on Some Historical Episodes |
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20 | (21) |
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20 | (6) |
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26 | (2) |
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28 | (3) |
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31 | (6) |
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37 | (4) |
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3 The Causal Principle and the PSR |
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41 | (34) |
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41 | (17) |
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3.2. The ex Nihilo Nihil Principle, the PSR, and the CP |
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58 | (4) |
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3.3. Resisting the Extension to Necessary Truths |
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62 | (2) |
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3.4. Resisting the Restriction to Positive States of Affairs |
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64 | (2) |
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3.5. A Survey of Some Principles |
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66 | (9) |
Part II Objections to the PSR |
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4 A Modern Version of the Hume Objection |
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75 | (7) |
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75 | (1) |
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4.2. A Possibility Principle |
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76 | (1) |
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4.3. A Stronger Possibility Principle |
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77 | (1) |
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78 | (1) |
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4.5. Physicists Are Not Merely Logicians |
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79 | (3) |
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5 The Anti-theological Argument That There Are No Necessary Beings |
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82 | (15) |
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5.1. Cosmological Arguments |
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82 | (2) |
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5.2. Necessary Beings and Absurdity |
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84 | (1) |
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5.3. Rescher's Alternatives to Invoking the Existence of a Necessary Being |
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85 | (5) |
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5.4. Is the Notion of a Necessary Being Absurd? |
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90 | (3) |
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5.5. Philosophy of Mind Objections |
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93 | (2) |
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95 | (2) |
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97 | (29) |
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6.1. Van Inwagen's Argument |
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97 | (2) |
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6.2. The Existence of the Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact |
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99 | (4) |
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6.3. The Nature of Explanation |
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103 | (23) |
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126 | (34) |
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7.1. How to Explain Free Actions? |
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126 | (6) |
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132 | (6) |
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7.3. Objections to Libertarianism |
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138 | (4) |
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142 | (5) |
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7.5. An Incredulous Stare |
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147 | (1) |
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7.6. Contrastive Explanations? |
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148 | (7) |
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7.7. The Modesty of This Account and Some Alternatives |
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155 | (3) |
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158 | (2) |
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160 | (11) |
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8.1. The Problem of Indeterminism |
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160 | (1) |
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8.2. Rejecting Indeterminism |
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161 | (7) |
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8.3. Indeterminism and PSR |
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168 | (1) |
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8.4. Particles Coming into Existence ex Nihilo |
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169 | (2) |
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9 Turning Leibniz against the PSR |
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171 | (13) |
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171 | (4) |
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9.2. A Defense of the TPII |
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175 | (2) |
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177 | (1) |
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178 | (6) |
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10 What Survives the Criticisms of the PSR? |
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184 | (5) |
Part III Justifications of the PSR |
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189 | (20) |
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11.1. A Definition of Self-Evidence |
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190 | (1) |
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11.2. The Objection from Smart People Who Disagree |
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190 | (1) |
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11.3. But Isn't the PSR Easy to Understand? |
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191 | (2) |
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11.4. Two Ways Not to Understand |
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193 | (3) |
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196 | (2) |
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11.6. Smart People Who Accept the PSR but Not as Self-Evident |
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198 | (1) |
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199 | (1) |
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11.8. Mathematical Analogies |
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200 | (5) |
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11.9. What Self-Evidence Could Be |
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205 | (2) |
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207 | (2) |
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12 Three Thomistic Arguments |
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209 | (22) |
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12.1. First Thomistic Argument: The Regress of Existence |
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209 | (8) |
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12.2. Second Thomistic Argument: The Interdependence of Existence and Essence |
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217 | (12) |
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12.3. Third Thomistic Argument: Substance-Accident Ontology |
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229 | (2) |
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231 | (18) |
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231 | (1) |
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13.2. Sullivan's Argument for the CP |
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232 | (2) |
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234 | (5) |
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13.4. Causality and Counterfactuals |
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239 | (9) |
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248 | (1) |
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14 Is the Universe Reasonable? |
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249 | (3) |
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15 Explanation of Negative States of Affairs |
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252 | (2) |
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252 | (1) |
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15.2. The Defectiveness Objection |
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252 | (1) |
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15.3. The Nomic Necessity Objection |
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253 | (1) |
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16 The Puzzle of the Everyday Applicability of the PSR |
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254 | (26) |
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254 | (1) |
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16.2. An Abundance of Objections |
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255 | (7) |
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262 | (5) |
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16.4. Laws of Nature and the CP |
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267 | (13) |
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17 Inference to the Best or Only Explanation |
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280 | (15) |
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17.1. Can Inference to Best or Only Explanation Be Rational without the PSR? |
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280 | (1) |
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17.2. Preference for Explanatory Theories |
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281 | (2) |
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17.3. The Sherlock Holmes Principle |
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283 | (2) |
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17.4. Alternatives to the PSR That "Do the Job" |
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285 | (10) |
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295 | (4) |
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19 The Nature of Possibility |
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299 | (22) |
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299 | (2) |
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19.2. A Formalist Account |
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301 | (1) |
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302 | (10) |
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19.4. Platonism: The Main Extant Realist Alternative to Lewis |
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312 | (4) |
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19.5. An Aristotelian Alternative |
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316 | (5) |
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321 | (2) |
Bibliography |
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323 | (8) |
Index |
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331 | |