The OP offers a broad indictment of liberalism. But there is no clear argument. You've written a mood piece. The dissatisfaction is real, but the reasoning is thin. Liberalism is accused of being hollow, flattening, spiritually dead. But the case is assumed rather than made.

The critique depends on a conflation. Liberalism is equated with consumer capitalism, secularism, and moral relativism. But this is not self-evident. It’s not clear why Rawls’s political liberalism—or Nussbaum’s capabilities approach—must collapse into late-modern malaise. Both offer accounts of human flourishing. Both recognize the need for moral depth, social meaning, and institutional justice. These are not libertarian apologies for consumer choice.

At its core, the critique chafes at pluralism itself. It wants one truth, publicly affirmed and normatively binding. Liberalism refuses this. It does not deny truth—it refuses to coerce consensus. That refusal is treated here as decadence. But it is, in fact, a guardrail against authoritarianism. The demand that a culture publicly reflect a metaphysical or theological unity is a recipe for repression—of minorities, of dissenters, of difference. Liberalism protects that space. It allows communities to pursue deep, even ultimate, goods—so long as they don’t do so by coercion. That is not a bug. It is the point.

The deeper issue is metaphysical. Liberalism is faulted for not being a theology. It doesn’t offer a doctrine of eros, virtue, or transcendent meaning. But that’s by design. Liberalism is a political framework. It permits those deeper views—it doesn’t impose one. If that’s the flaw, then name the alternative. A confessional state? A return to teleology? A politics grounded in love? Perhaps. But that needs to be argued, not implied through nostalgia and allusion.

Without that, this is not a critique of liberalism. It’s a lament that liberalism isn’t something else.

Along with , I would like to understand your proposed alternative.

Your understanding of modal logic is on a par with your grasp of physics.

Right. I'll leave you to it, again. Enjoy.

On your logic, if someone goes looking for the Loch Ness Monster, then there must be a Loch Ness Monster.

Very good.

Meh.

It remains that the OP does not present anything like the "demonstration" indicated in the title.

I agree that the laws of nature are enforced by an entity called the Mind, — MoK

What twaddle. "Laws" of nature are just ways of talking about the way things are, ways that have been shown to work. They are not "enforced" - as if one were fined for braking the law of gravity... or sent to jail for creating a perpetuum mobile.

Yep. What nonsense.

SO both major parties have policies that will drive up house prices.

And this is how they fix housing affordability.

Fucksake.

Michaela Cash.


“Look here! we found a woman”

so who’s the next Linerl leader.


They got nothin’.

Perhaps you should read your own references. — tim wood

I also smiled when I saw @javra refer to that article. It's good work, and surprisingly sympathetic to what in the end is a bad idea.

I'mm quite happy with PSR as a methodological maxim: we can look for a reason. What's not guaranteed is that there must be a reason.

I still think the belief that there are causal explanations for phenomena is a perfectly rational principle. — Wayfarer

As do I. But you take things a step too far - as is your want.

That we look for, or expect to find, a reason simply does not imply that there MUST be a reason.

This is basic modality.

And again, it remains unexplained what it is that makes something a reason, and what makes that reason sufficient.

Yes, this sort of analytic work is a pain in the arse. It's meant to be, to goad you into thinking this through properly.

But isn't the greater part of both philosophy and science engaged in the search for reasons? When I was a kid, there was that famous B&W TV show, Julius Sumner Miller, called "Why is it So?" which was almost wholly concerned with explaining causal relations - the reasons why 'things are so'. The fact that there might be an element of chance or happenstance at the quantum level doesn't necessarily conflict with that; there might a reason for that as well! — Wayfarer

Bell's theorem, and the overwhelming experimental evidence since, strongly support the view that there are no local hidden variables. That is, the behaviour of particles like electrons isn't determined by any deeper, pre-existing local properties that we just haven't discovered yet.

You know that.

And the point here is not that Bell is correct. The point is that the Strong version of the PSR being used in the OP (and by ) says that we cannot even contemplate Bell being right without dismantling the entire edifice of epistemology, ontology, physics and science...

And yet we do.

The idea that PSR is a law of rationality or whatever is bullshit.

A full defense of the PSR is provided in this post under the section called "Argument in defense of the PSR". — A Christian Philosophy

Well no, it isn't.

There is a strong parallel between logic and the PSR. They are both first principles of metaphysics and epistemology. On the epistemology side, logic is associated with deduction, and the PSR is associated with induction/abduction. — A Christian Philosophy

Is this supposed to be an appeal to authority? PSR is not a principle of logic. Nor is it the case that in order for reason to take place, one must assume the PSR. Quite simply, we can look for a reason, but there is no guarantee either that we will find the right reason - whatever "right"" might be - nor that there must be a reason. Further, and infamously, induction is not logically grounded - see Hume and Popper and most of the subsequent work on scientific method. Abduction - forget it.

The "strong parallel" isn't there.

Notice that you have not actually set out the how in your claim that PSR is supported inductively. Were is the inductive (or abductive, whatever that might be) argument?

The trouble is that it remains unclear when a reason is sufficient, and what a reason is. Analysis of the PSR over the last hundred years has turned up problem after problem, as the quite sympathetic SEP article shows.

All this before we address the unintelligible notion of intelligent design.

There's much more going on in these arguments than has been discussed in your posts.

Here’s a simple question: why must everything have an explanation? Why can’t some things simply be the case?

were you to say that things might have a reason, I would agree.

But that is not what is being claimed.

you do not have to answer me.


And when you do not have an answer, that is probably a good idea.

To be sure, you are quite welcome to look for or make up a reason for any particular you like. Go for it.

It’s just hot air.

So in a trivial sense, for any whatever, you can make up some story and call that the sufficient reason for that whatever.


But that’s pretty uninteresting.


And I suspect it will not be enough for our Christian friend.

you’ve simply restated that everything must have a reason.

So your entire argument is that everything has a reason because everything has a reason.

Meh. Silly stuff.

no one has provided a reason to think that everything has a reason….


Show me to be mistaken. Set out why every whatever must have a reason.

After all, there must be a reason…

We might quite happily ask for and even look for a reason, all the while there not being any. There is simply no guarantee that there must be a reason.

Indeed, that seems to be what is the case.

If this were to in fact be the case, then, quite rationally, the only cogent conclusion is that all epistemology would eventually implode when analyzed: — javra

Why?

The movement of an electron to the right instead of to the left is inexplicable, and yet the world has not ended, explanations have not collapsed.

You seem to think that one absent reason implies that there can be no reasons at all. Why? Prima facie that just does not follow.

, the supposed principle of sufficient reason is not a principle of logic.

Again, your claim is that whatever occurs, there must be a reason, even if we don't know what that reason is, and don't have any evidence or justification to claim there is such a reason.

That is a bland, unjustified assertion.

Further, it is not a law of logic nor of rationality, and so we are not under any obligation to accept it. There are incidents for which it is reasonably and rationally supposed that there is not reason. Sometimes things just happen.

You have not given sufficient reason for us to accept he principle of sufficient reason.

The supposed principle is let down by three ambiguities. "What is it that it seeks to explain?" "What counts as sufficient?" And "What counts as a reason?".

again, it’s not that there are no justifications, but that they are not necessary. It’s perfectly Acceptable that somethings are just the case.

A very large part of this disagreement is that the idea of justification is so ambiguous

You’ll need to justify that. — Wayfarer

No, I don't. That's the point. Justification ends wherever we want. If you need a stronger account of that, see the various discussions concerning hinge propositions, status functions, haunted universe doctrines and so on. These are very far from relativise ideas.

It's not a matter of what I want. — Wayfarer

Seems to be just that. The belief that there must be a reason for each thing is wishful thinking on your part.

At least part of 's point is the opacity of intent. The intent with which the scissors are made is not a part of

There’s an objective distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic causation. Organisms are self-organizing and perpetuating in a way that artifacts are not. It’s an Aristotelian principle. — Wayfarer

Just a point about where I'm coming from. The law of gravity, sure, a mighty fine and useful law, and one of some we even depend on. But a reason? And to be sure, nothing falls, ever. Things follow geodesics in a curved space-time. The reason, then, or law if you will, is nothing but an idea - some ideas better than others, but just ideas. And ideas come into fashion and go out of fashion, usually slowly. And this all goes back to hinge propositions aka absolute presuppositions. — tim wood

Yep.

For what reason would you say that? — Wayfarer

Is it realy necessary to point out the difference between "There might be a reason" and "There must be a reason"?

PSR says the latter. That's another step too far...

Do you think Aussies lost political attitudes? Or did you simply become more neutral than ever? — javi2541997

Neither. Rather it's the two main parties who have become more neutral than ever... folk want politicians who will act, which is something the Lib/Nats and ALP have become incapable of doing.

5. Therefore, the behaviour of quantum particles is compatible with the PSR. — A Christian Philosophy

If every possibility is compatible with PSR, then PSR is methodologically useless. Kinda the point. WHat you are saying is that whatever occurs, there must be a reason, even if we don't know what that reason is and don't have any evidence or justification to claim there is such a reason. Bland faith.

Further, as pointed out above, physicist do not look for, nor expect to find, any cause for such results. They are not needed; and physics does not fail as a result of this failure of PSR. PSR is not needed, and indeed not useful.

‘things happen for a reason’ might be comforting, but need not be accurate.

So the challenge to those who think that a reason is a something: what exactly sort of something is it supposed to be? — tim wood

Hence the various issues with causation, noted previously. What we have is a description of what happens, variously modified to be a better and better. The apple drops, as noted, and accelerates at a uniform velocity, except when it's not an apple but a balloon full of hot air, which instead rises, and this too can be calculated quite well. We exclude the hot air balloon from the things that fall, and don't claim it as a falsification of the Laws of Gravity. Then the predictions and observations get very accurate, and folk start to ask how it could be that the descriptions we make up turn out to be so accurate, as if it were a mystery...

They are accurate becasue that's what we did. It's like being amazed that Philip's head screwdriver just happens to fit a Philip's head screw.

Modal collapse occurs when a possibility is taken as a necessity. If you were to suppose that some contingent natural law was true in every possible world, you might be able to build up a case for modal collapse. As it stands, it's a simple misapplication. That is, assuming that PSR is a necessary truth might lead to modal collapse. The OP has it arse about.

If everything has a reason it should also have a reason for failure too, and we would have to say that we also intended it to fail. — JuanZu

Interesting point. The intent is not a thing in the way that an object or event is. Again, the problem might be that overly simplistic Aristotelian approach.

The debate was pretty much a non-event. 44 Albo/35 Dutton/21 undecided.

Annabel Crab asked if that 21% "were undecided, or possibly watching something on their phones."

Sky news is somewhat dumfounded, looking for anything to support the conservatives... "Albanese edges out Dutton, but fails to win over majority of voters at leaders’ debate"

Again, a hung parliament looks the most likely outcome.

Anyway, no one was watching.

Too many issues...

See 6.37. Looks contrary to causal determinism to me.

Natural laws describe, rather than explain - don't you agree? Sure, there are patterns and regularities in how things happen. Bit it doesn't follow at all that every... whatever... has a sufficient reason.

"God did it" applies to everything - it is compatible with any occurrence. And so explains nothing.

And further, the PSR is a haunted universe doctrine, unfalsifiable and unprovable. A piece of myth.

Can you set out your point more clearly?

Seems to be explained in the context. Natural laws are not logical laws.

An electron passes through a double slit. It moves to the right. It might have moved to the left. There is no sufficient reason that explains it having moved to the right. Therefore the PSR does not hold.

The usual response is denial, as .

But I want to be clear about the reply I'm giving: it is not that there are counter-instances to the PSR; although I think there are. Rather the argument is that there is nothing impossible, inconceivable, or irrational involved in denying the PSR. The PSR supposes that there must in every case be a sufficient reason, that there is no alternative. And yet, we have a case in which the explanation given is possible, indeed actual, and hence conceivable, and rational.

The PSR claims that for every fact or event, there must necessarily be a sufficient reason. But there are possible (indeed actual) cases—like quantum outcomes—for which we can rationally conceive of there being no sufficient reason. These cases are coherent, intelligible, and not contradictory. Therefore, the PSR is not a necessary truth of reason.

So first debate coming up - on Sky, ffsake. , presumably, will not be watching. Nor will I, because fuck Sky.

But you can find a defense of the PSR in this post. (I also added the link in the OP for clarity). — A Christian Philosophy

There's too much confusion in that OP and the subsequent thread to make much of interest. That you think of "defending" the PSR is curious. At the very least, the idea is controversial, certainly not generally accepted. It simply will not do to take it as granted.

That someone wants there to be an explanation simply does not imply that there must be one. It remains that there might well just be stuff, without explanation.

Might leave it there.

So, truth is more than a propositional notion, it's deeply tied to our actions, both physical and linguistic. — Sam26

Again, sure. This sort of thing is already in 'meaning as use" motif. I'm not aware of his having addressed Tarski directly, and certainly Davidson's view is after and reliant on Wittgenstein.

Unfortunately I don't have access to the Floyd articles on the topics that concern you. The tension between us might be similar to that between prose and proof that she discusses. It's pretty unlikely that W. did not grasp the formal argument, as some have suggested. But it might be mistaken to supose that the tension between formalism and prose is strictly either-or. Gödel uses a notion of "truth" that is independent of proof, while Wittgenstein looks more to some form of constructionism; another tension that you will need to deal with in your new project.

I'll put my previous argument to you again, since it seems to me that it is central, but perhaps not as obvious as I had thought. Briefly and dogmatically...
1. The world is all that is the case. This I take as a view that W. kept throughout his thinking.
2. In the Tractatus, W. argues that there are important aspects of the world that are shown, but not said.
3. In PI, W. adds that there are also things we do, and that these include what we do with words - that it is what we do with words that is important, not abstract and private "meanings".
4. In OC, W. adds that there are some things that we say which ground what we do, including our use of words. These are effectively not about the world, but rather set up the language we use. This is best understood in the terms Anscombe later set out, as a difference in direction of fit.

Now the difficulty faced by the recent fad of reading Wittgenstein as suggesting that there are non-propositional truths is that it is difficult to give instances of things that are true and yet unstatable. And this is a pretty direct consequence of (1) - that the world is all that is the case - the world is what can be stated to be true.

Truth is more than a propositional notion in that it is how the world is, of course - but that is repeating the difference between "the cat is on the mat" and that the cat is on the mat; between making noises and making assertion, between saying and doing.

I don't see that you have provided a notion of truth that is adequate to these tasks, and i think this is so not becasue you have not done enough with "truth", but that you have tried to do too much.

here needs to be a backlash on a certain type of opinions and thinking that we see in the MAGA cult. In which people look down on them with far more aggression. Really making "being a MAGA follower" something no one wants to associate with. Make it shameful socially, an unwelcomed status because they stand for something that nearly destroyed the nation. An enemy of the nation. That no media or influencer will want to be associated with promoting or legitimizing. — Christoffer

Spot on!

I see truth as more than propositional truth. — Sam26

Sure you do. But of course that means you can't say what that more is. And yet you seem to claim to.

The "more" is something like what we do, including what we show. But that can be put into proposition form.

The world is all that is the case. Truth is built in and assertable. Having "hinges" outside of propositions breaches this basic and central tenant, this most central of Wittgenstein's hinge propositions. Here, he is not making a mere observation or assertion but setting up the philosophical game he played throughout his life. He is setting out the extent of the world. Now you want things that are outside the world, that are the case but not true, or true but not the case.

That's inconsistent.