Johannes wrote:

The immediate physical explanation of why a notebook is on your desk right now is that it was there a moment before. From then we can go back to your purchasing it, some factory assembling it, a supernova explosion producing the heavy elements that went into it, and so on till Big Bang.

The metaphysical explanation of why the notebook, as well as the whole universe, exists, is that the Necessary Being, He whose essence is unbounded existence itself, sustains it into existence. 

Wouldn't the question of why the notebook exists right now require an immediate explanation other than why it got there? We aren't talking about how it got there, but why it exists at any given moment, which would include the time before I purchased it, when I purchased it, and before I put it on the desk, as well as any moment that it is on the desk.

And the concrete existence of the notebook at this very moment would still be a physical fact when we consider how the beginning moment of existence of the universe is also a physical fact, so it really seems like the atheist is still in the frying pan on this one.
 

Miguel wrote:

If by "stubbornly deny the argument" you mean irrationally deny the argument, then perhaps the atheist can do that. If you believe in X and X entails Y, and you haven't got the slightest idea how to reject Y without simultaneously rejecting X, then you have to accept Y. This same pattern could be defended in a matter similar to Della Rocca's own argument, I belive, and on its face this epistemological pattern seems fundamental to valid and coherent reasoning. Think about it: if you accept X, and X->Y but you reject Y, and you have no idea whatsoever how the entailment can be avoided without begging the question, what would the rejection of Y imply for the coherence of your beliefs and belief-formation?

Perhaps (though I'm not sure) one could still insist that if Y is so implausible so as to never warrant acceptance, then the entailment from X to Y can be resisted. But only if the entailment itself is not extremely plausible, and the fact we have no idea whatsoever how it can even be coherently resisted speaks in favor of the entailment being very probable. And prima facie this would put the burden of proof on the PSR denier to come up with an extremely strong reason to reject Y and that cannot be defused (if it can, then prima facie the entailment X->Y will be more plausible than the improbability of Y, given the background.).

What I meant by  "stubbornly deny the argument"  is that the atheist can always reject the conclusion because he can still hope that some day in the future, we may be able to find a principled reason that allows us to deny Y and still accept X. He can retreat to this option because, so far at least, we don't have an argument that would show how there really is no way to deny Y without also denying X


What I was proposing is that the best thing we could possibly do here would be to make an argument that decisively demonstrates how there is NO principled reason to deny Y and that there even CANNOT be a principled reason. This would be a decisive demonstration of PSR on par with proving Fermat's Last Theorem, which is why I find it the best and most direct way to make the argument succeed.
 

Last edited by aftermathemat (2/21/2018 1:09 pm)

Johannes wrote:

You seem trying to make the atheists' position stronger than it actually is, and more importantly, stronger than atheists themselves feel that it needs to be.

That there can be no principled reason to deny explicability to existence is, for me, an immediately evident notion, of which I don't see the need to come up with a discursive demonstration. So, while Della Rocca just "isn't optimistic that any such principled reason can even exist", I am quite certain that any such principled reason cannot exist. 

Would you mind saying exactly why it's an immediatly evident notion though? Because I am quite interested in why there cannot be a principled reason to deny explicability to existence.

I think it might be because the very necessity of finding a principled reason presupposes the PSR because the atheist has to draw the line between admissible explicability arguments and inadmissible explicability arguments, which is to accept that our drawing of the line must be explicable and not inexplicable. Though that may be answered by pointing out how giving no principled reason and insisting that the explicability arguments don't apply to existence only as a brute fact would be to beg the question.

Johannes wrote:

But no atheist thinks that they need to show that explicability CANNOT apply to existence. Rather, it is enough for them that theists do not show that explicability MUST apply to existence. Then, it all comes down to a bet. You bet it does, they bet it doesn't. 

I think that even if we grant the atheist that metaphysical explanation is different from physical explanation, we could still make arguments for PSR such as the possibility of things ceasing to exist for no reason entailing even if we limit brute facts to metaphysical facts. This would bring in a fundamental uncertainty into reality, and would make for a powerful argument for PSR on the basis of our intuitions, even if we limit brute facts to the metaphysical region (and even that is problematic).





 

Last edited by aftermathemat (2/21/2018 1:25 pm)

Johannes wrote:

I was referring to a priori immediate evidence, but I've just noticed that it is also immediately evident a posteriori. Because, what exactly is "to deny explicability to existence"?

To state that nobody can develop an explanation of existence? Clearly not, since Feser, just to name one philosopher, has written quite a few of them.

To state that any supposed explanation of existence is not a real explanation? Clearly not, since those explanations start from clear principles and follow the rules of logic.

Back to the a priori immediate evidence, "to deny explicability to existence" amounts to stating that existence is a brute fact. You cannot have a reason for stating a brute fact. The opposite is true: you can state that it is a brute fact that the evolution of the universe is described by mathematically expressible laws.

To deny explicability to existence is to say that the existence of anything has no explanation, and that explicability arguments for existence are false and should be rejected. So I think this should influence your a priori and a posteriori proofs of why there is no principled reason to say the existence of things has no explanation.

Johannes wrote:

There is overabundant physical evidence that things never cease to exist for no reason. You don't need the PSR to be certain of that. 

What I meant by the argument is that, if PSR is false, then things could cease to exist for no reason at any moment. The fact that things haven't ceased to exist up to this point is also a brute fact, so one cannot infer that things will continue to exist from previous experience.The argument basically shows that if PSR is false then we cannot expect that any thing will continue to exist in, say, the next 5 seconds, since it could just as easily cease existing. 

The argument is basically that our basic intuitions about things are completely wrong and should be rejected if PSR is false, since we cannot expect that things will continue to exist at all. The same can also be said for the expectation that things will actually stop existing, since we also cannot expect that.


In other words, we have to perpetually suspend judgement as to the continued existence of things if PSR is false, as well as take seriously the prospect of things (including the entire universe) actually ceasing to exist in the future, and at least take it as seriously as we do the possibility that things will continue to exist in the future.



 

Johannes wrote:

To state "that the existence of anything has no explanation" amounts to state that the existence of everything is a brute fact. You cannot have a reason for stating a brute fact.

Why exactly can't one have a reason for stating a brute fact? I mean, if PSR is false, then it is necessarily false, and it follows that if any contingent facts obtain, those relating to existence will necessarily be brute, and since one cannot have contingent facts without them existing contingently, it follows that if any contingent fact is true, it's existence will necessarily be a brute fact.