Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from August, 2021

An epistemological challenge to ontological bruteness

My latest article, 'An epistemological challenge to ontological bruteness' was just published in the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion ! Abstract It is often assumed that the first stage of many classical arguments for theism depends upon some version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) being true. Unfortunately for classical theists, PSR is a controversial thesis that has come under rather severe criticism in the contemporary literature. In this article, I grant for the sake of argument that every version of PSR is false. Thus, I concede with the critics of PSR, that it is possible that there is, at least, one fact that is ontologically brute. I then proffer an epistemological challenge to ontological bruteness. Specifically, I argue that whenever a knowledge seeker, S, perceives some unexplained fact, F, it is never reasonable for S to believe F is ontologically brute. I conclude that, even if PSR is false, it is more reasonable to believe that the key