Principles Of Sufficient Reason: Selected Questions
Abstract
In graduate school at the University of Dallas, I was exposed to a school of phenomenologists who defend the principles of sufficient reason. This famous invention of Leibniz is an all-purpose replacement for the causal principles known and explored in the Middle Ages. It guarantees that every proposition, if true, and every fact has a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise. The crucial question is whether free choice is compatible with this “principle.” This essay explores several versions of it and argues that most of them are, indeed, incompatible with liberty and with several theological truths emphasized in the Thomist tradition. Continue reading “Principles Of Sufficient Reason: Selected Questions”