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CA Without the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)

Two philosophers, Bernard D. Katz and Elmar J. Kremer, have formulated a cosmological argument that does not rely on the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR).

Formulation​

The argument is based on the Principle of Epistemic Explanations; given that (i) there is a possible explanation of the fact that and (ii) any possible explanation of then entails , then it is reasonable to believe that is true.

  1. The proposition that there is a unique necessary being who brought about the existence of everything other than itself by willing that the other beings exist, would, if true, explain why there are contingent beings.
  2. There is a possible explanation of the fact that there are contingent beings.
  3. There is no proposition consistent with the claim that there are only contingent beings which, if true, would explain why there are contingent beings.
  4. Any possible explanation of the fact that there are contingent beings entails that there is a necessary being. (1, 2, 3, PPE)
  5. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that there is a necessary being.

Principle of Epistemic Explanations (PPE)​

The general idea behind the Principle of Epistemic Explanations is: if some is possible, and any possible explanation of entails , then it is reasonable to believe that is true.

Notice that can be anything as long as it's possible. For example, let be the fact that "vampires exist". If there is a possible explanation of the fact that vampires exist, and that explanation entails the existence of certain beings that suck blood, then it is reasonable to believe that there are beings that suck blood. Just because is possible, that doesn't mean that is actual.

That aside, there are other problems with this argument. For example, the second premise, "There is a possible explanation of the fact that there are contingent beings", falls into a symmetry problem - we can make a premise "There is no possible explanation of the fact that there are contingent beings", and there is no reason that one would be logically favored over the other.

The third premise, put simply, states that in order to explain the existence of contingent beings, one cannot invoke an explanation that only includes contingent beings. That's just not true - one could simply posit the following: "There are necessarily some contingent beings." This would be a possible explanation of the existence of contingent beings, and it does not entail the existence of a necessary being. This then falsifies the fourth premise, and hence, the conclusion.