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152. - Principle of Sufficient Reason

from P

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Michael Della Rocca
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (hereafter: the PSR) is the principle according to which each thing that exists – or each fact that obtains – has an explanation. A commitment to some form of the PSR is one way to define what it is to be a rationalist.

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 440 - 443
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Della Rocca, M. (2015). Interpreting Spinoza: The real is the rational. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 53, 525–35.Google Scholar
Garber, D. (2015). Superheroes in the history of philosophy: Spinoza, super-rationalist. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 53(3), 507–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, D. (1979). Spinoza’s ‘ontological’ argument. Philosophical Review, 88, 198–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lærke, M. (2014). Les études spinozistes aux États-Unis: Spinoza et le principe de raison suffisante (‘PSR’ en Anglais), représentations, concepts, idées. Archives de Philosophie, 77, 721–26.Google Scholar
Lin, M. (2018). The principle of sufficient reason in Spinoza. In Rocca, M. Della (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza (pp. 133–54). Oxford University Press,Google Scholar
Lin, M. Being and Reason: An Essay on Spinoza’s Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. Chapter 7.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, Arthur O. (1936). Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Melamed, Y., and Lin, M. Principle of sufficient reason. In Zalta, E. N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/sufficient-reasonGoogle Scholar

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