Miguel wrote:

"The second (implicit in some of your comments) was based on the not insignificant dispute over its status in epistemology."

What do you mean by that?

I mean that there is a dispute over the validity of self-evidence in epistemology. It was, historically, taken very seriously by the Rationalists. I think nowadays most epistemologists consider it to be in rough shape, though. You should check it out some day if you have the time and inclination.

I just saw this comment, reading back through:

But if there is, then that's part of the dilemma. Abandon PSR and lose "everything" is not an option someone should want to take. If, however, this is wrong, then the arguments (like the IBE one) are not circular.

I thought I should reply.

Given the supposition, this argument itself is going to rely on the PSR and so also isn't probative. The argument I'm running against you is parallel to the one [redacted by author, 12 - 20 - 2018]. You might find the article informative. Everything there applies here except the rejoinder he gives at the end.

(You might find it insane that I question truth, but I conduct philosophy as inquiry (in Greek: skepsis) into reality. I think it's part of the philosopher's task to scrutinize everything.)

John West wrote:

I just saw this comment, reading back through:

But if there is, then that's part of the dilemma. Abandon PSR and lose "everything" is not an option someone should want to take. If, however, this is wrong, then the arguments (like the IBE one) are not circular.

I thought I should reply.

Given the supposition, this argument itself is going to rely on the PSR and so also isn't probative. The argument I'm running against you is parallel to [redacted by author, 12 - 20 - 2018]. You might find the article informative. Everything there applies here except the rejoinder he gives at the end.

(You might find it insane that I question truth, but I conduct philosophy as inquiry (in Greek: skepsis) into reality. I think it's part of the philosopher's task to scrutinize everything.)

 
If I understand you, I wasn't saying the argument was *probative* in that sense. It's about how to justify (not explain) our understanding of chance events against chaos, our common explanatory practices and preference for explanatory power in the absence of PSR. Someone could accept that PSR is required to justify science and IBE in general and then suspend judgment about germ theory, vaccines, nutrition, etc. I assume people won't suspend judgment about these kinds of things (even if they could, in principle). They get a defeater for any estimation of likelihoods they might apply to these facts. That makes sense to you? I'd give it as a reason to accept PSR, not as an argument that "proves" PSR

(About truth in the link, shouldn't PNC coupled with correspondence theory be sufficient to establish truth exists? Since PNC is a direct insight into the very fabric of reality. We know with absolute certainty, almost divine insight, that PNC is true. Perhaps using it as an argument would again presuppose truth, but if we simply use the "correspondence" meaning and see the self-evidence of PNC, we will be directly seeing there is truth. We make no inference, we just have a direct insight into being.)

Last edited by Miguel (7/02/2018 11:20 pm)

Calhoun wrote:

Can you explain how this is supposed to count against psr or show that brute facts exist?

What possible reason could God have for preferring one perfectly resembling trope to another? (By hypothesis, they're the exact same in every way except numerical identity.)

It's a variation on a Leibnizian objection against Newtonian space. 

Because to me, all this seems to be showing is that we don't know a particular reason there could be for actualization of one world over the other.

I've considered that it might be a resilient epistemic brute fact before, but I think that there is “toughing it out” and then there is just being obstinate.

I'm not making the modal collapse objection. I'm making the indiscernible worlds objection. Dan makes the latter a follow-up to the former in his Five Proofs review, but they're distinct objections.

I don't see how God's reason for choosing w or v could be statistical or indeterministic. (I'm not even clear on what that means.) The libertarian free choice reply is a good one (though, as I mentioned, leads to problems of its own).

Other potential replies include necessitarianism and extreme modal realism.