According to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (henceforth ‘PSR’), everything has an explanation or sufficient reason. This paper addresses three questions. First, how continuous is the contemporary notion of grounding with the notion of sufficient reason endorsed by Spinoza, Leibniz, and other rationalists? In particular, does a PSR formulated in terms of ground retain the intuitive pull and power of the PSR endorsed by the rationalists? Second, to what extent can the PSR avoid the formidable traditional objections levelled against it (...) if it is formulated in terms of ground? And finally, how might historical discussion of the PSR shed light on the contemporary notion of grounding? (shrink)

According to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (‘PSR’), every fact has an explanation for why it obtains. If the PSR is true, there must be a sufficient reason for why God chose to create our world. But a sufficient reason for God’s choice plausibly necessitates that choice. It thus seems that God could not have done otherwise, and that our world exists necessarily. We therefore appear forced to pick between the PSR, and the contingency of creation and divine choice. I (...) show that a third option remains open, and thus that it is possible to preserve the contingency of creation and divine choice even while endorsing the PSR. My solution depends on the coherence of a restricted modal realism. On this modal realism, there is more than one possible morally optimal created world, and for each such world there is an existing possibility in which God creates that world. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice consists in a wrong done to someone in their capacity as a knower. I focus on epistemic injustice—more specifically, testimonial injustice—as it arises in the Qur’an. Verse 2:282 implies that the worth of a man’s testimony is twice that of a woman’s testimony. The divine norm suggested by the verse is in direct conflict with the norms that govern testimonial justice. These norms require that women should not be judged less reliable simply because they are women. But a (...) divine norm that says that a woman’s testimony is worth less than a man’s also generates a puzzle for the norms that govern testimonial justice: when the divine norm that says that a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man’s testimony is endorsed and internalised by Muslim women who then assert it, testimonial justice seems to require that we should take these women’s testimony to be less reliable than men’s testimony. I will argue that the solution to the puzzle lies in recognizing that the application of Quranic norms to a given situation requires getting some relevant facts right, and is not purely a matter of one’s values. As such, asserted Quranic norms are not subject to the deference characteristically demanded by testimonial justice. (shrink)

It strikes many as obvious that negative facts—such as that Justin Trudeau is not the prime minister of Australia—are not fundamental: negative facts must ultimately be explained in terms of positive facts (for instance, that Justin Trudeau is the prime minister of Canada). I focus on a particular class of negative facts: contingent negative existentials (such as that there are no 10ft tall humans). If contingent negative existentials are not fundamental, then they must be explained. But the claim that contingent (...) negative existentials are explained is in tension with the widely held view that any universal generalization can be explained by its instances together with a totality fact (i.e. a fact to the effect that the instances exhaust the relevant domain). This is because a totality fact is itself a negative existential, and equivalent to a universal generalization. If the explanation for any contingent negative existential must appeal to another contingent negative existential, then—unless there are no fundamental facts—not all contingent negative existentials can be non-fundamental. I argue that we should give up the age-old mantra that only positive facts can be fundamental. I show that at least some contingent negative existentials are fundamental. I first make the case for including a totality fact in the explanans for a contingent negative existential and show that alternative accounts for explaining such facts are inadequate. I then undermine the standard arguments for subscribing to the view that there are no negative facts—including negative existentials—at the fundamental level. (shrink)

I show that Leibniz’s account of divine concurrence is constrained in a surprising way by his commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, where a sufficient reason for the existence of an entity or a state of affairs is understood to be the totality of requisites for its existence. I argue first that Leibniz endorses, in both his early and later metaphysics, the ‘totality of requisites’ conception of sufficient reason. I then show that this conception gives rise to a distinctive (...) and underappreciated logical redundancy problem. Finally, I show that the logical redundancy problem can be side-stepped if we attribute to Leibniz the view that the states of any created substance are caused by God in a single act. On this view, God’s concurrence with creaturely activity is irreducibly plural: the natural effects or states of any created substance are brought about together, as a collective. I show that there are both philosophical and textual grounds for attributing such a view to Leibniz. (shrink)

I show that unlike her rationalist predecessor Leibniz, Du Châtelet is committed to epistemic causal idealism about natural causes. According to this view, it is constitutive of natural causes that they are in principle knowable by us (i.e., finite intelligent beings). Du Châtelet’s causal idealism stems at least in part from the distinctive theoretical role played by the Principle of Sufficient Reason in her system (as presented in her _Institutions de physique_), as well as her argument for the Principle of (...) Sufficient Reason. I show that far from merely explicating Leibniz’s metaphysics, Du Châtelet develops a radical and novel rationalism that is in keeping with her core commitment to science. (shrink)

Can the human rights we recognize today be derived from the central Muslim text, the Qur’an? I will argue that they can, but that this requires reconceptualising the believer’s relationship to revelation. On the standard view, the believer is bound by all prescriptions in the Qur’an. By contrast, I will argue that the Qur’an prescribes two distinct kinds of norms—thin norms and thick norms—and only the latter have normative force here and now. With this novel framework for understanding Qur’anic norms (...) on the table, I address two barriers to grounding human rights in the Qur’an: the problem of omission, according to which there are rights that we want to recognize that are seemingly missing in the Qur’an, and the problem of rejection, according to which the Qur’an seems committed to rejecting some rights that we do want to recognize. I will argue that both problems can be overcome. (shrink)

Leibniz endorses the world apart doctrine, according to which a substance is that which is independent of all other things except God. However, I will argue that in what appears to be a radical departure from the causal version of the world apart doctrine, Du Châtelet—whose metaphysics appears to be Leibnizian from a distance—embraces the causal connectedness of created substances. I further show that Du Châtelet’s rejection of Leibniz’s claim that a substance is causally independent of all other created substances (...) can be traced back to a more fundamental antiLeibnizian commitment on Du Châtelet’s part concerning the in-principle accessibility of natural (i.e., non-divine) sufficient reasons by finite minds and to her commitment to a causal theory of intentionality. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was neither the first nor the last philosopher to engage in serious theorizing about propositions. But his work between 1903, when he published The Principles of Mathematics, and 1919, when his final lectures on logical atomism were published, remains among the most important on the subject. And its importance is not merely historical. Russell’s rapidly evolving treatment of propositions during this period was driven by his engagement with – and discovery of – puzzles that either continue to shape (...) contemporary theorizing about propositions, or ought to do so. Russell’s creative responses to these puzzles also laid the foundation for many later accounts (most obviously, contemporary ‘Russellian’ accounts of propositions). In this entry we provide an opinionated overview of Russell’s influential treatment of propositions, with a focus on the evolution of his views from 1903 to 1919. A growing secondary literature is dedicated to Russell’s changing views during this period, and their often complex or opaque motivations. We do not intervene overmuch in this ongoing scholarly discussion. Instead, our aim is to trace some of the central motivations for Russell’s evolving views, and highlight the extent to which these motivations remain relevant to contemporary theorizing about propositions. (shrink)