Sufficient Reason (Principle of)

SUFFICIENT REASON (PRINCIPLE of). — It expresses the “rationality of the real,” insofar as every thing, both in the sphere of being and in that of becoming, obtains its ontological determination and its change of state by virtue of a sufficient reason in the sense of an adequate foundation and justification.

The principle Leibniz (v.). contradiction (v.), the principle of sufficient reason underlies our reasoning as a criterion of what is to be judged true or false: by it, “it is judged impossible that any fact should be true or exist, and that any proposition should be true, unless there is a sufficient reason why it should be so and not otherwise” (Monadologia, § 32; Italian trans., Bari 1912, p. 220. Cf. also: Ep. V. CLARISSE; Essais de théodicée, § 44, where it is made the foundation of optimism [v.]; Nouveaux essais, II, 21, § 13 ... “que rien n'arrive sans raison”). The principle received its systematic development in the philosophy of C. Wolff (v.) with rigorous

coherence according to the formula that enjoyed considerable success in Enlightenment rationalism: “Nihil est sine ratione sufficiente cur potius sit quam non sit, hoc est, si aliquid esse ponitur, ponendum etiam est aliquid, unde intelligitur, cur idem potius sit quam non sit” (Philosophia prima sive ontologica, § 70, Frankfurt and Leipzig 1736, p. 47. In §§ 71–80 follows its application to the various problems of the sciences and philosophy). Crusius challenged Leibniz-Wolff’s conception of sufficient reason in the work: De usu et limitibus principii rationis determinantis, vulgo sufficientis (Leipzig 1743, especially §§ V–XVI). The SCHOPENHAUER, ARTHUR (v.) in his early work: Ueber die vierfache Wurzel des Satzes vom zureichenden Grunde, § 14. It also found favor among some neo-Scholastics (J. Geyser, R. Garrigou-Lagrange), who regard it as the proximate causality (v.).