Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Explanation, Entailment, and Leibnizian Cosmological Arguments

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Metaphysica

An Erratum to this article was published on 12 November 2009

Abstract

I argue that there are Leibnizian-style cosmological arguments for the existence of God which start from very mild premises which affirm the mere possibility of a principle of sufficient reason. The utilization of such premises gives a great deal of plausibility to such types of argumentation. I spend the majority of the paper defending three major objections to such “mild” premises viz., a reductio argument from Peter van Inwagen and William Rowe, which proffers and defends the idea that a necessary proposition cannot explain a contingent one. I, then, turn to an amelioration of the Rowe/van Inwagen argument which attempts to appeal to an entailment relation between explanans and explanandum that is fettered out in terms of relevance logic. Subsequent to dispelling with that worry, I tackle objections to the utilization of weak principles of sufficient reason that depend essentially upon agglomerative accounts of explanation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Gale and Pruss (1999). I am not attempting any kind of amelioration of the Gale–Pruss paper.

  2. For a stringent defense of S-PSR, see Pruss (2006); Smith (1995a).

  3. For the Oppy–Fitch proof see Oppy (2000); and the Pruss deduction within Gale and Pruss (2002); cf. note 42 below.

  4. For the metaphysics of “books on worlds” see Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity, 45, 46.

  5. See also Alexander Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason 99, 100.

  6. As Pruss has pointed out.

  7. See van Inwagen (1983).

  8. Pruss gives a very similar layout of the argument found in (Pruss 2006, 97).

  9. This “possible” way out vexes me greatly when I think about O’Connor’s work. O’Connor actually affirms the possible truth of agent causation and should therefore lend his support to the rejection of premise (26) I’m about to explicate.

  10. Timothy O’Connor, Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency 81

  11. Timothy O’Connor, Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency 82.

  12. Mares (2002). I should also add that this thesis denies the closure assumptions of the probability calculus; “p” in this case is not strictly a probability function.

  13. Coffa (1973); Also see Hanson (1959); Scriven (1962)

  14. Mares (2002). Remember that the semantics for relevant logics are world based as with modal logics, although on the truth of the Routley–Meyer semantics to be discussed below, the accessibility relation deals singularly with a unary operator, necessity. (Mares and Meyer 2001).

  15. For a list of the rules of inference for relevant logic, see Ibid., 613–619, 622–623.

  16. See Meyer and Routley (1972, 1973)

  17. Let it be said that I assume k-semantics for modal logic. This is opposed to C-semantics according to which, a fixed set of worlds W just is all worlds, or interpretations, which are logically possible in a given language. The necessity operator on this semantics is a logical constant in that it is logically fixed. A sentence on this semantics is necessarily true, iff it is true in W (or all worlds). See Carnap (1946). On K-semantics the necessity operator is not constant in this way. The necessity operator (in my argumentation) is localized around metaphysically possible worlds, or what Alvin Plantinga calls, worlds that are broadly logically possible. See Schurz (1999).

  18. So they say: If I (T, t) = true and t ≤ s, then I (T, s) = true. See Edwin D. Mares & Robert K. Meyer, “Relevant Logics,” 288.

  19. Heavily dependent upon Ibid.

  20. See Priest et al. (2004).

  21. Gale (1991); Forrest (1996); Alexander Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason, 42-44.

  22. Alexander Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason, 121. q’s not explaining itself is a different worry since q in this case would be a necessary being’s activities.

References

  • R. B. Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953)

    Google Scholar 

  • Sylvain Bromberger, “Why-question,” in Robert G. Colodny (ed.), Mind and Cosmos (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966), 86–111

    Google Scholar 

  • Rudolf Carnap, “Modality and quantification,” in Journal of Symbolic Logic 11 1946: 34

    Google Scholar 

  • A. Church, “The weak theory of implication,” in A. Menne, A. Wilhelmy, and H. Angsil (eds), Kontrolliertes Denken, Untersuchungen zum Logikkalkül und zur Logik der Einzelwissenschaften (Munich: Kommissions-Verlag Karl Alber, 1951), 22–37

    Google Scholar 

  • J. Alberto Coffa, Foundations of Inductive Explanation PhD Dissertation (Pittsburg, PN: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973)

  • J. Cornman, Skepticism, Justification and Explanation (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980)

    Google Scholar 

  • William Lane Craig, “Sobel’s acid bath for theism: a review essay of Jordan Howard Sobel’s logic and theism,” in Philosophia Christi 8:2(2006): 484

    Google Scholar 

  • Kevin Davey and Rob Clifton, “Insufficient reason in the ‘new cosmological argument,” in Religious Studies 37(2001): 486–487

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garrett J. DeWeese and Joshua Rasmussen, “Hume and the Kalam cosmological argument,” in James F. Sennett and Douglas Groothuis (eds.), In Defense of Natural Theology: A Post-Humean Assessment (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 140, 141

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartry Field, Saving Truth from Paradox (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 386

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Peter Forrest, God without the Supernatural: A Defense of Scientific Theism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 92

    Google Scholar 

  • Patrick Francken and Heimir Geirsson, “Regresses, sufficient reasons, and cosmological arguments,” in Journal of Philosophical Research 24(1999): 285–304

    Google Scholar 

  • Richard M. Gale, On the Existence and Nature of God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 254, 255

    Google Scholar 

  • Richard M. Gale and Alexander R. Pruss, “A new cosmological argument,” in Religious Studies 35 1999: 461–476

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Richard M. Gale and Alexander R. Pruss, “A response to Oppy, and to Davey and Clifton,” in Religious Studies 38 2002: 90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bob Hale and Crispin Wright, “Nominalism and the contingency of abstract objects,” in Journal of Philosophy 89 1992: 111–135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • N.R. Hanson, “On the symmetry between explanation and prediction,” in Philosophical Review 68 1959: 349–358

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carl Hempel, “Deductive-nomological vs. statistical explanation,” in Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell (eds.), Scientific Explanation, Space, and Time vol.3 Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962), 98–169

    Google Scholar 

  • Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, “Studies in the logic of explanation,” in Aspects of Scientific Explanation and Other Essays in the Philosophy of Science (New York: Free Press, 1965), 245–296

    Google Scholar 

  • Christopher Hill, “On a revised version of the principle of sufficient reason,” in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 63(1982): 236–242

    Google Scholar 

  • Richard H. Jones, Reductionism: Analysis and the Fullness of Reality (London: Associated University Press, 2000), 145ff

    Google Scholar 

  • Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

    Google Scholar 

  • Keith Lehrer, Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974)

    Google Scholar 

  • C. S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study (New York: Collier, 1960)

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwin D. Mares, “Relevance Logic,” in Dale Jacquette (ed.), A Companion to Philosophical Logic (Malden, Blackwell, 2002), 609, 622

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwin D. Mares & Robert K. Meyer, “Relevant Logics,” in Lou Goble (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Philosophical Logic (Malden: Blackwell, 2001), 287

    Google Scholar 

  • Robert K. Meyer and R. Routley, “The semantics of entailment II,” in Journal of Philosophical Logic 1 1972: 53–73

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robert K. Meyer and R. Routley, “The semantics of entailment,” in H. Leblanc (ed.), Truth, Syntax and Modality (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1973)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ernest Nagel, The Structure of Science; Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1961)

    Google Scholar 

  • Timothy O’Connor, Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 43–66

    Google Scholar 

  • Timothy O’Connor “Libertarian Views: Dualist and Agent-Causal Theories,” in Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 337–354

    Google Scholar 

  • Timothy O’Conner, “Freedom with a human face,” in Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29: 2005: 207–227

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Timothy O’Connor, Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency (Malden: Blackwell, 2008), 80

    Google Scholar 

  • Graham Oppy, “On ‘a new cosmological argument’,” in Religious Studies 36 2000 347, 348

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Basic Books: 1959)

    Google Scholar 

  • Graham Priest, J.C. Beall and B. Armour-Garb (eds.), The Law of Non-Contradiction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Alexander Pruss, “The cardinality objection to David Lewis’ modal realism,” in Philosophical Studies 104(2001): 167–176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alexander R. Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • James Ross, Philosophical Theology (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), 295–304

    Google Scholar 

  • William Rowe, “Rationalistic theology and some principles of explanation,” in Faith and Philosophy 1(1984a): 357–369.

    Google Scholar 

  • William Rowe, “Rationalistic theology and some principles of explanation,” in Faith and Philosophy 1984b: 357–369.

  • Wesley C. Salmon, “Scientific explanation: how we got from there to here,” in Wesley C. Salmon, Causality and Explanation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 303

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • G. Schurz, “Tarski and carnap on logical truth—or: what is genuine logic?” in J. Wolenski and E. Köhler (ds.), Alfred Tarski and Vienna Circle (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999), 77–94

    Google Scholar 

  • Michael Scriven, “Explanations, predictions, and laws,” in Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell (eds.), Scientific Explanation, Space, and Time vol.3 Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962), 170–230

    Google Scholar 

  • Keith Simmons, Universality and the Liar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Quentin Smith, “A defense of a principle of sufficient reason,” Metaphilosophy, 26:1 & 2, 1995a: 97–106, January/April

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quentin Smith, “A defense of a principle of sufficient reason,” Metaphilosophy, 26:1 & 2, 1995b: 98, January/April

    Google Scholar 

  • Quentin Smith, Kalam cosmological arguments for atheism, in Michael Martin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 192–194

    Google Scholar 

  • Jordan Howard Sobel, Logic and Theism: Arguments for and Against Belief in God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 389–393

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Peter van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 202–204

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Christopher G. Weaver

    Present address: Department of Philosophy, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, 60115, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chicago State University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Christopher G. Weaver

  2. Purdue University North Central, Westville, IN, USA

    Christopher G. Weaver

Authors
  1. Christopher G. Weaver
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher G. Weaver.

Additional information

An erratum to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12133-009-0052-4

About this article

Cite this article

Weaver, C.G. Explanation, Entailment, and Leibnizian Cosmological Arguments. Int Ontology Metaphysics 10, 97–108 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12133-008-0042-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12133-008-0042-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation