Notes for 9/3/2026

 9/3/2026
Is there always a reason for everything?

[Philosophy Club every Wednesday, 5-6 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave"). BioEthics Club Tuesdays 4:30-5:30 in CAS 436.] 
Another version of cosmological argument




Suppose we divide things that exist into two groups: Those that exist because of something else, and those that exist because of themselves (allowing self-causation, ontological self-explanation, or necessary existence).

[Side note: it used to be common for people to think that something has to keep things in existence. (sustained/continuous creation).]
 
1.    Everything that exists is either a dependent being or a necessary being. 
2.    The universe exists.
3.    The universe is either a dependent being or a necessary being. [from 1 & 2]
4.    It is impossible that only dependent beings exist.
5.    Therefore, there has to be at least one necessary being. [from 1 & 4]
6.    The universe can’t be a necessary being. (First, because the universe can be conceived not to have existed, and second, because the universe changes – and necessary beings must be unchanging). [from 2, 3, and 4]
7.    Something other than the universe is a necessary being. [from 5 & 6]
8.    That thing can only be God.
9.    Therefore, God exists.





Two traditional lines of criticism for this argument:

First, the main justification for thinking there can’t be only dependent beings has been the rejection of infinite explanatory/causal regresses.
“If explanation is infinitely regressive, then nothing is really explained.”


…. A > B > C 

This view is codified in the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” (PSR):
-    There must be a reason for EVERYTHING.
-    For any given truth, there must be an explanation as to WHY it is true (rather than not). 

Philosophers have generally divided all true statements into two classes: analytic truths and synthetic truths. 
A claim is analytically true if it is true in virtue of meanings or definitions or the concepts involved (example: all squares have 4 sides). A synthetic truth is one that is true in virtue of the facts we find in the world. 

There are also necessary truths (could not possibly be false) and contingent truths (true but could have been false).

[Are all analytic truths necessary? Are all synthetic truths contingent?]


Is PSR true?

Could “brute facts” exist?


Story: Once upon a time there was absolutely nothing. Then, for no reason at all, the universe existed. The end.



Another possible criticism is to accept the PSR but allow infinite explanatory regresses.

Is it true that if the series of things is infinitely regressive that something is still unexplained.

The objection is that even in an infinitely regressive series, the series AS A WHOLE remains unexplained.

Fallacy of composition?

(Mistaking a whole for something over and above the totality of its parts)

If each member of an infinitely regressive series is completely explained by its predecessor, then there is no member of the series that goes unexplained. And that’s all that we need to explain the whole series.

The concept of God involves multiple attributes:
-    Necessary existence
-    Perfect goodness
-    Unlimited power
-    Perfect knowledge
-    …


Necessary existence IMPLIES these other attributes.
But how to justify that?

Is the concept of Necessary existence coherent? 

W.V.O. Quine: The concept of necessity can’t be applied to THINGS.

Relates to famous criticisms of the so-called “ontological argument” for God’s existence (especially Immanuel Kant)