Just my two cents; but, the logical atomists, I think, correctly assumed that things can exist as atomistic elements/objects of the world. One could simply not go down further. However, this too is problematic as it brings about forth the Sorites paradox, of sorts. Namely, when do the combination of logical constituents of the world (objects) obtain as sufficient? So, hence the above again.

Thoughts?

This post was in part inspired by what @StreetlightX has to say in the older PoSR thread, here. I've just been putting it off in addressing the issue in another thread, which I hope this one is sufficiently apt at starting such an analysis if I've articulated the problem clearly enough.

The one thing I'd add to my earlier comments to make the stakes a little clearer is that questions of sufficiency are, at base, questions of modality - that is, of necessity and contingency. If you're asking 'why this rather than that (or literally anything else), you're asking what force of necessity was in play to bring about the thing in question. If, one imagines, there might be many reasons why something is as it is, the criterion of sufficiency asks after the necessity that things played out exactly as they did, and not otherwise (again, the importance of the 'and not otherwise' cannot be understated).

How does one then avoid the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy under such a state of affairs?

Could you spell out how you think such a concern would be relevant? Trying to see where your question is coming from.

So, namely if we have modalities we are concerned with, and as you stated:

If you're asking 'why this rather than that (or literally anything else), you're asking what force of necessity was in play to bring about the thing in question. — StreetlightX

Then, how are we to know what causes led to what event given uncertainty about said (necessary) sufficient reasons. Thins rings of Hume's problem of induction, if that helps.

I bring up the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy due to such a problem of induction about certain events given a sufficient reason for their (unknown?) cause if a sufficient reason can at all be arrived at.

How are we to know what causes led to what event given uncertainty about said (necessary) sufficient reasons. — Posty McPostface

Hm, this seems to me to be a different question. Remember, the question is not over which reasons are in play, but over the status of such reasons, whatever those reasons may be. Post hoc... concerns bear upon the former line of inquiry, not the latter.

I think the difference is superficial. Surely, a reason for why an event happened the way it did is pertinent to the topic at least. Anyway, how would you answer the question about the difficulty in determining one reason from another for some event?

I think the difference is superficial — Posty McPostface

If you don't keep the distinction firmly in mind then, as happened in your last thread, the specificity of sufficiency is entirely lost. So -

Anyway, how would you answer the question about the difficulty in determining one reason from another for some event? — Posty McPostface

- I still don't understand the relevance of this question.

If you don't keep the distinction firmly in mind then, as happened in your last thread, the specificity of sufficiency is entirely lost. — StreetlightX

I still don't think I understand what you're saying. If so, let's return to the OP. What do you think about the questions posed in the OP?

Perhaps part of the issue is just how strange the idea of a 'sufficient reason' is. Here is a passage that might help, taken from Deleuze's lectures on Leibniz:

"The causality principle states that everything has a cause, which is very different from every thing has a reason. But the cause is a thing, and in its turn, it has a cause, etc. etc. I can do the same thing, notably that every cause has an effect and this effect is in its turn the cause of effects. This is therefore an indefinite series of causes and effects.

What difference is there between sufficient reason and cause? We understand very well. Cause is never sufficient. One must say that the causality principle poses a necessary cause, but never a sufficient one. We must distinguish between necessary cause and sufficient reason. What distinguishes them evidently is that the cause of a thing is always something else. The cause of A is B, the cause of B is C, etc..... An indefinite series of causes. Sufficient reason is not at all something other than the thing. The sufficient reason of a thing is the notion of the thing. Thus, sufficient reason expresses the relation of the thing with its own notion whereas cause expresses the relations of the thing with something else."

I noticed that in your OP you qualifiy SR with the term 'epistemically' ('epistemically sufficient reason'), and that your questions in your later posts seem to ask about questions of 'knowledge' and 'how we know'. Epistemological questions are not traditionally within the ambit of discussions of the PSR (although maybe something like: 'how can we know the PSR is the case?'). So you seem to be trying to relate the PSR with questions of knowledge, but it's unclear to me how exactly you're trying to make this relation stick. I think there's some kind of confusion over what the PSR is for you (I suspect you think it is something else than it is, and are asking the wrong kinds of questions of it), but then I can't be sure.

The causality principle states that everything has a cause, which is very different from every thing has a reason.

But it seems reasonable to believe everything has a cause. Only by considering causes to be reasons can the PSR be justified. I see no justification to believe there are necessarily non-causal reasons.

As long as your use of the PSR ends up supporting determinism, you're using it correctly.

That is my sense as well, but then the second clause of Leibniz' formulation is unjustified: that a first cause has a reason (necessity of its existence).

Leibniz formulation implies brute facts can't exist, but that seems unjustified.

Only by considering causes to be reasons can the PSR be justified. — Relativist

Not in the least. Leibniz, for instance, will cash out the PSR in logical, rather than causal terms, and there is nothing prima faice 'unjustified' about this.

Please elaborate. Why should we think there are reasons without basing the reasoning on causation?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Why expect nothingness in the absence of a reason?

Why should we think reasons can only be causes? I'm not saying that they're not - only that, it requires some work to establish an identity between the two. Moreover, given that there is a rich and long literature of debate regrading that identity, I'm pretty disinclined to take for granted your rather presumptive and unargued-for assertion.

Certainly, Leibniz did not think that reasons are causes, and given that he was among the principle formulators of the PSR, it seems unproductive to try to understand it on the basis of assuming, without any argument sans your incredulity, that identity.

"Why should we think reasons can only be causes? "

I didn't suggest there can't be non-causal reasons, I questioned the justification for believing there are necessarily reasons. If I'm right that the justification is based on the presence on causal reasons, then it is unjustified to claim there are necessarily reasons when there are no causes.

Western philosophy is steeped in a theistic world view, so the mere fact of a rich literature carries no weight. That's not to suggest there might not be good justifications imbedded therein, but what are they?

(BTW, your link didn't work)

Why expect nothingness in the absence of a reason? — Relativist

I was alluding to Leibniz's cosmological argument.

If I'm right that the justification is based on the presence on causal reasons, then it is unjustified to claim there are necessarily reasons when there are no causes. — Relativist

If. But there is no argument against an if.

I was alluding to Leibniz's cosmological argument. — frank

I know, and I was relating an objection: it depends on the assumption that nothingness should somehow be expected in the absence of a reason. A state of affairs of "nonexistence" is incoherent.

I used "if" to avoid asserting a negative ( "there is no justification..."). I acknowledge there may be justification of which I am unaware.

A belief in X is rational only if it is justified. What is the justification for believing there are necessarily reasons for everything? The only justification I'm aware of is causation, and that is not sufficient because that only establishes the necessity of causal reasons.

A state of affairs of "nonexistence" is incoherent. — Relativist

Why incoherent?

A state of affairs is something that exists, so it entails the "existence of non-existence." This is (broadly) logically impossible.

Alternatively, to suggest there could have been nothingness implies the proposition "there is nothing" is true in some metaphysically possible world. "Is" is a statement of being (existence), so this again reduces to the self-contradictory term, "non-existence exists".

I'm not, at this point, trying to justify the PSR at all. I'm just trying to give a flavour of what it might involve. It may well be the case that the PSR does not hold. But that is not, at this point, what interests me.

" To those who don't regard causation as such though, to those who think causation itself must be explained, something other must be doing that work. "
That's circular reasoning: why assume causation must be explained, unless one first believes everything has an explanation?

By contrast, we have an empirical basis for believing causation. It may not be ontologically primitive, but it seems an epistemologically justifiable belief that is not circular.

What distinguishes them evidently is that the cause of a thing is always something else. The cause of A is B, the cause of B is C, etc..... An indefinite series of causes. Sufficient reason is not at all something other than the thing. The sufficient reason of a thing is the notion of the thing. Thus, sufficient reason expresses the relation of the thing with its own notion whereas cause expresses the relations of the thing with something else. — StreetlightX

So, thank you for taking the time to address this issue of causes. I seem to be interested in what that 'something else' is. What do you take it to mean?