Theorem of sufficient reason

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The principle of sufficient reason (Latin principium rationis sufficientis) is the general principle in the history of logic and philosophy , formulated differently and also used in different functions: Every being or knowing can and / or should be traced back to another in an appropriate way become.

Helmut Spinner traces the principle of adequate justification back to Parmenides . He introduced legal thinking into epistemology and used this principle not as a requirement for positive justification, but rather negatively as a justification-avoidance principle, similar to the legal principle of burden of proof distribution.

The principle of Aristotle was set up in an express form . At least since Plato and Aristotle, categories of logic in philosophy were elevated to the definition of an ontology . By assuming that the order of thought and being have a common ground, the representatives of rationalist metaphysics agree that forms of thought and being coincide. While, like Spinoza, they traced the relationship between cause and effect back to the ground-consequence relationship, Kant early on distinguished between the ground of being and the ground of knowledge. Following Christian August Crusius , Immanuel Kant preferred the term sentence of the determining reason .

“For the word 'sufficient' is, as he fully makes clear, ambiguous, because it is not immediately apparent how far it goes; but to determine means to posited in such a way that every opposite is excluded, and therefore means that which is certainly sufficient to understand a thing in this way and not otherwise. "

Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz elevated the principle of sufficient reason (French: raison suffisante ) in monadology , or raison déterminante in theodicy , to a fundamental principle of his philosophy. Alongside Leibniz's principle of contradiction, the proposition is one of the two principles on which human reasoning is based.

“In terms of sufficient reason, we find that no fact [fait] can be considered true or existing and no statement [enonciation] can be considered correct without a sufficient reason [raison suffisante] for it to be so and not otherwise , although these reasons may not be known to us most of the time. "

In his theodicy Leibniz characterized the principle as a "determining reason" as a law with validity before all experience, according to which

"[...] nothing happens without a cause or at least a determining reason [raison déterminante], i. H. something that can serve to justify a priori why something exists rather than not exists and why something exists just as it does in a different way. "

In short: Nothing happens without a reason (Latin: nihil fit sine causa ; from Cicero to the 17th century).

Schopenhauer

The “principle of reason” is representative as a common generic term, as the common root of all kinds of relations as they appear in the world imagined. Schopenhauer assigns these relational relationships to four different classes, in each of which certain objects interact in different ways, i.e. there is a different form of the principle of reason.

As the first class, Schopenhauer summarizes the class of "descriptive, complete, empirical ideas ", in which the "principle of the sufficient reason for becoming" prevails. Put simply, this class provides the physical layer of science is, in which the principle of cause and effect occurs: For something is , it needs a cause which at it acts .

The second class, on the other hand, comprises the concepts by which Schopenhauer means the products of reason, that is, language. In this class, the “principle of sufficient reason for knowing” prevails. For abstract thinking, which is carried out in terms, always operates with judgments which, if they are true, express a knowledge. Thus, the second class of objects represents the linguistic-formal level of ideas, in which the principle of reason essentially describes the relationship between premises and conclusion or between the reason for knowledge and consequence .

Schopenhauer equates time and space with the third class of performances . These are to be considered here in their purely formal form, while they actually appear in the first class, but there in their union as a material product (for Schopenhauer, time combined with space is matter and thus causality). The relationship between position (in space) and sequence (in time) is found between the parts in space or in time. This proportionality, which forms the basis of all being, is what Schopenhauer ascribes to the “proposition of the sufficient reason of being”.

Finally, Schopenhauer names a final class whose ideas relate to a single object, namely the “subject of willing”: Man regards the inner process of volition in him as something objective, he regards himself as a willing subject. Within this object there is again causality, however not an "external" one as in the first class, but an "internal one": The cause corresponds to the motive and the effect corresponds to the action . The associated sentence is the "sentence of sufficient reason for action".

Schopenhauer assigns a "subjective correlate" to each class, through which the respective principle of reason is presented to us: The first class consists of the understanding , the second through reason , the third through pure sensuality and the fourth through the inner sense or the self-confidence .

swell

  1. ↑ Helmut F. Spinner: Justification, Criticism and Rationality. Vol. I. Vieweg Braunschweig 1977. ISBN 3-528-08376-X . P. 128f
  2. ↑ Hans Albert: Critical Reason and Human Practice. Reclam Stuttgart 1977, p. 35
  3. ↑ Wolfgang Röd: The Philosophy of Modern Times 3rd Part 1: Critical Philosophy from Kant to Schopenhauer. Munich 2006, p. 10 f.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Röd: The Philosophy of Modern Times 3rd Part 1: Critical Philosophy from Kant to Schopenhauer. Munich 2006, p. 25
  5. ↑ Immanuel Kant: New Enlightenment of the First Principles of Metaphysical Knowledge, in: Works, Bd. I, Frankfurt / M. 1st edition 1977 (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 186), p. 427
  6. ^ GW Leibniz: Monadology , § 32; quoted according to the German-French Suhrkamp edition 1998, p. 27
  7. ^ GW Leibniz: Theodizee , §44; quoted according to the German-French Suhrkamp edition 1999, p. 273
  8. ↑ cf. § 17 in About the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason
  9. ↑ cf. § 17 - § 25
  10. ↑ cf. § 26 - § 34
  11. ↑ cf. § 35 - § 39
  12. ↑ cf. § 40 - § 45
  13. ↑ cf. § 42

literature

  • Hans-Jürgen Engfer: Art. Principium rationis sufficientis , in: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, Vol. 7, 1325-1336.
  • Martin Heidegger : The principle of reason. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-608-91076-6 .
  • Arthur Schopenhauer : About the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason. Diogenes 1977. ( pdf )
  • Joachim Gerlach: The principle of sufficient reason: From A. Schopenhauer to H. Kuhlenbeck. In: Würzburger medical history reports 8, 1990, pp. 369–379.

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