Formulation
The principle has a variety of expressions, all of which are perhaps best summarized by the following:
- For every entity x, if x exists, then there is a sufficient explanation for why x exists.
- For every event e, if e occurs, then there is a sufficient explanation for why e occurs.
- For every proposition p, if p is true, then there is a sufficient explanation for why p is true.
A sufficient explanation may be understood either in terms of reasons or causes for like many philosophers of the period, Leibniz did not carefully distinguish between the two. The resulting principle is very different, however, depending on which interpretation is given.
Note that the principle of sufficient reason can't be applied to Axioms within a logic construction like a mathematical or a physical theory. Axioms are propositions accepted as having no justification possible within the system. The principle declares that all propositions considered to be true within a system should be deducible from the set axioms at the base of the construction (with some theoretical exceptions: see Gödel's theorem).
Read more about this topic: Principle Of Sufficient Reason
Famous quotes containing the word formulation:
“Art is an experience, not the formulation of a problem.”
—Lindsay Anderson (b. 1923)
“You do not mean by mystery what a Catholic does. You mean an interesting uncertainty: the uncertainty ceasing interest ceases also.... But a Catholic by mystery means an incomprehensible certainty: without certainty, without formulation there is no interest;... the clearer the formulation the greater the interest.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“In necessary things, unity; in disputed things, liberty; in all things, charity.”
—Variously Ascribed.
The formulation was used as a motto by the English Nonconformist clergyman Richard Baxter (1615-1691)