principleofsufficientreason, of heiddeger

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The Principle of Sufficient Reason

Aaron Harrison #30688333

PHL277 tutor-Lubica Ucnik

02/06/08


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In Lecture Five of The Principle of Reason, Heidegger discusses the principle of sufficient

reason, which has long been common knowledge but was first articulated by Gottfried

Leibniz as the principle "nothing is without reason". He provides two main objections to this

principle. One is an objection to the consequences of the principle of sufficient reason.

Heidegger criticises the modern view of the world, which the principle of sufficient reason

helped to shape, as limiting and historically concealed. The other objection is structural.

Heidegger claims that the principle of sufficient reason can be formulated in two conflicting

ways and that the principle of sufficient reason ultimately contradicts itself as it cannot

provide a reason for itself. I will put forward one weakness in Heidegger's interpretation of

the principle of sufficient reason. It seems that Heidegger formulates the principle of

sufficient reason in such a way that it constitutes a stronger claim than the principle of

sufficient reason is actually intended to make. This does weaken Heidegger's structural

argument though by the end his objection still stands.

Heidegger identifies strict and vulgar formulations of the principle of sufficient reason. The

vulgar formulation is "nothing is without reason". The strict formulation is "nothing exists

whose sufficient reason for existing cannot be rendered"1. Following the strict formulation,

Heidegger says that the principle of sufficient reason tells us that for a reason to sufficiently

explain an object it must "securely establish an object in its stance"2, that is, completely

explain where the thing came from, why and how it came to be. In other words, reason must

explain the causes and conditions of possibility of a thing for humans to be able to say what a

thing is. Heidegger further reformulates the strict formulation into "nothing is without a

1. Heidegger, 1996, p.32

2. ibid. p.33

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why". The "why" is just a metaphor so that he can juxtapose the principle more clearly with a

line of Angelus Silesius' poetry ("the rose is without a why"), nevertheless, this reformulation

emphasises the "demand-character" of the principle of reason3. The demand-character is the

characteristic of our cognition to search for reasons for everything that exists. When we are

confronted with a thing, we always wonder "why?".

Heidegger's first criticism to the principle of sufficient reason is one of consequences. The

principle of sufficient reason has been taken up universally and characterised our era in a

limiting and historical concealing way. Heidegger warns us that the principle of sufficient

reason and the philosophy of Leibniz should not be pigeon-holed as an irrelevant relic of the

pre-Enlightenment era but should be considered the driving force of modernity4. Among his

criticisms of the modern era, Heidegger names the dogmatic and limiting view of nature. In

part because of the principle of sufficient reason, a thing in the ''natural" world is taken to be

only, in Heidegger's words, "a material concentration of mass in motion within the pure

space-time order"5. It is a fact in support of Heidegger that when we hear this definition we

understand it to mean "thing" or "object". There is nothing in our materialist world-view

which is not a material object in space-time. Heidegger seems to be in agreement with

Werner Heisenberg when he characterises the modern view of nature as that which we can

study by scientific means, in contrast to the pre-modern view that nature is that which is

given to us without mediation6. For modernity nature is made up of atoms and the only way

3. ibid. p.34

4. ibid. p.33

5. Heidegger, in Chevalley, 1992, p.347

6. Heisenberg, 1972, p.124

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to adequately observe nature is through complex scientific technology7.

Patocka characterises modernity in a similar way. Patocka refers to the dominating world-

view as Cartesianism. This is the view in which the only 'existing' things are material things

which can be formalised into mathematical laws8. The world of experience is generalised into

"shapes and concepts"; rough generalisations which make the world easier to understand.

From these generalisations we develop precise theorems to predict the movements and

relationships between things in the world. We then take this precision to be an adequate and

objective characterisation of the world, while forgetting that this precision came out of the

imprecision of pre-generalised experience9. Our sensual experience is, in a way, fed into a

calculator. The formalised product of calculation, rather than the raw experience, is taken to

be the 'true' world. The natural world becomes, for us, merely what is observable, predictable

and formalisable. This scientific world-view emerges when humans decide that physical

being is the only type of being. The world is reduced to merely one aspect of what it is.

The notion that the material world is the primary world is too limiting. It is also "historically

concealed"10. It is merely one possible way of treating the world. It ignores that "what

presents itself as 'natural' is always historical, and that therefore the essential determination of

the thing has not been such for all time"11. What we humans take to be the deepest aspect of a

thing, what we take to be the natural world, is only how the thing is revealed in this era. The

essential being of a thing is revealed in different ways in different periods of history. The

7. ibid. p.125

8. Patocka, 1976, p.286

9. ibid. p.289

10. Heidegger, p.33

11. Chevalley, p.345

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principle of sufficient reason is treated as a universal truth and is not recognised as it should

be, and as all human truths should be, as a historical phenomenon, changing as humans

change.

The principle of sufficient reason is identified as what is behind this modern world-view.

"Nothing is without reason" is interpreted as "everything has a cause". Leibniz defines the

principle of sufficient reason as the principle that "a reason can be given for every truth, or,

as it is commonly said, that nothing happens without a cause"12. Because the principle of

sufficient reason is taken to be universal, all things are subsumed under a principle of

physical causation. The principle of sufficient reason is true of everything. Therefore,

everything has a cause. Causation is a physical process. Therefore, everything is caught up in

a physical process. This further solidifies the scientific materialistic world-view that every

thing is just "a material concentration of mass in motion within the pure space-time order".

The principle of sufficient reason is therefore responsible for the predominant world-view:

one which is limiting our possible and multiple ways of treating the world and one which

conceals the merely historically revealed nature of "nature".

Heidegger goes on to criticise the principle of sufficient reason on structural grounds. It is

internally incoherent. Heidegger shows that the two ways the principle of sufficient reason

can be formulated - the strict formulation "nothing is without a why" and the vulgar

formulation "nothing is without reason" - are conflicting. Both formulations are supposed to

be universal. The vulgar formulation is true of everything: everything has grounds. However,

the strict formulation has a much more restricted domain. Not everything has a "why", that is,

12. Frankel, 1994, p.60

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not everything has the demand-character of reason. To illustrate, let us consider the

difference between a human and a rock. For both the human and the rock there are grounds.

Everything has something that makes it what it is; its essential being13. This satisfies the

vulgar formulation of the principle of sufficient reason. But what of the strict formulation?

Does the rock have a why? Does the rock have the demand-character of reason? No. The rock

has no why. A rock just is. It asks no questions. The rock does not search for the ground of its

being. Humans on the other hand, we must ask why. One of our essential characteristics is the

searching for grounds, the "demand-character" of reason. According to Heidegger, "we

humans cannot come to be who we are without attending to the world that determines us - an

attending in which we at the same time attend to ourselves"14. In other words, the difference

between a human and a rock is that a rock has no concern for the world, its being is only

caught up with itself; on the other hand, a human must have concern for the world, the human

searches for grounds in other things and simultaneously is grounding itself. The ground of

human being is the searching for grounds. The reason for the human being is reason15. The

problem with the principle of sufficient reason is, so far, that all things fall inside the

jurisdiction of one formulation of the principle of sufficient reason, but only humans (or

conscious beings) fall inside the jurisdiction of the other formulation. This is a contradiction

for a principle which is supposed to be universal in both formulations.

But Heidegger does not stop there. He says that we must ask the further question "where does

the demand-character of reason come from such that some things have it while others do

13. Backman, 2005, p.175

14. Heidegger, p.37

15. Allers, 1960, p.367

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not?" We must ask this of the principle of sufficient reason itself. According to Leibniz, "the

reason for a truth consists in the connexion of a predicate with the subject, that is, that the

predicate is in the subject"16. In the proposition "the rock came from space", the truth of the

rock-coming-from-space is contained in the subject, the rock. It is the same with the principle

of sufficient reason itself. The ground of the principle of sufficient reason must be contained

in the principle of sufficient reason. We come to realise though, that "the principle of reason

states nothing about reason. The principle of reason states nothing directly about the essence

of reason"17. According to the principle of sufficient reason, everything must have a reason.

Since the principle of sufficient reason is a "thing" it too must have a reason. However, it

does not. Therefore, the principle of sufficient reason does not hold for all things. This is the

main point of Heidegger's structural criticism of the principle of sufficient reason.

Heidegger's critique is persuasive. One possible weakness is his interpretation of, what he

calls, the strict formulation18 of the principle of sufficient reason: "nothing exists whose

sufficient reason for existing cannot be rendered". Heidegger reformulates this principle

"nothing is without a why". As explained above, the "why" for Heidegger, means the

demand-character of reason, the searching for reasons. Humans have this "why", but not

other things like rocks or flowers. The step from Leibniz's formulation to Heidegger's is

suspicious. Leibniz's formulation emphasises the fact that reasons are not just for something

but also for someone. Reasons are always rendered by someone. This formulation seems to

emphasise not only the ontological idea that things always have reasons for existing but also

16. Leibniz, 1973, p.172

17. Heidegger, p.39

18. According to Allers, Heidegger refers to reddendae rations sufficientis as the strict formulation and claims that Leibniz

also treated it as the strict formulation, although he provides no evidence for this. 1960, p.366

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the methodological idea that reasons, if they exist, can always be found out and given. The

principle, reformulated once again with more complexity, is this: if something exists, there

will be a sufficient reason for it, and this reason will be able to be known and stated. On my

reading, this formulation of the principle of sufficient reason does not state that everything

searches for reasons, or that everything has the demand-character of reasoning, which is

clearly false considering that only conscious things can search for reasons. The emphasis of

this formulation of the principle of sufficient reason is on a methodological point that all

reasons are able to be learned. Heidegger says that the strict formulation indicates that

everything searches for reasons but it seems this formulation actually contains a much less

significant claim. This weakness in Heidegger's argument disturbs his idea of the conflict

between the two formulations of the principle of sufficient reason. The second formulation

does not pretend to have jurisdiction over unconscious things like rocks and flowers except

insofar as the reasons for their existence can be known and stated by conscious beings.

This weakness, however, leaves his main point, that the principle of sufficient reason does

not have a ground, relatively untouched. It is still the case that the principle of sufficient

reason does not provide reasons for itself and so Heidegger's criticism still stands. This

objection also does not create problems with Heidegger's objection that the principle of

sufficient reason has characterised modernity in a limiting and historically concealed way. It

may even lend this support to this objection because the tone of the strict formulation

becomes one of scientific optimism. It states that all reasons can be learned, and in the case of

Leibniz, presumably by scientific investigation.

Heidegger offers two kinds of objections to the principle of sufficient reason. The principle of

sufficient reason has helped shape a modernity which ignores the actual historically revealed

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character of what we take to be natural. Modernity is also limited to a materialistic world-

view partly because the principle of sufficient reason has universally subsumed everything

under the principle of physical causation. Heidegger also finds that the principle of sufficient

reason contradicts itself. It claims that everything has a reason, and yet reason itself has no

reason. Although Heidegger weakens his argument by interpreting the principle of sufficient

reason to be saying that everything searches for answers, his objections ultimately stand.

Modernity relies on a principle which has not been good to us and which is internally

inconsistent.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Allers, R. (1960). Heidegger on the Principle of Sufficient Reason.Philosophy andPhenomenological Research, 20(3), 365 -373.

Backman, J. (2005). The Absent Foundation: Heidegger on the Rationality of Being.Philosphy Today, 49, 175 - 184.

Frankel, L. (1994). From a Metaphysical Point of View: Leibniz and the Principle ofSufficient Reason. In R. Woolhouse (Ed.), Gottfried WIlhelm Leibniz: Critical

Assessments. London: Routledge.

Heidegger, M. (1996). Lecture Five (R. Lilly, Trans.). The Principle of Reason. (pp. 32 - 40).Indianapolis: Indiana State University.

Heisenberg, W. (1972). The Representation of Nature in Contemporary Physics (O. T.Benfrey, Trans.). The Discontinuous Universe. New York: Basic Books.

Kisiel, T. (1992). Heidegger and the New images of Science. In C. Macann (Ed.),MartinHeidegger: Critical Assessments. London: Routledge.

Leibniz, G. W. (1973). Metaphysical Consequences of the Principle of Reason c.1712. In G.H. R. Parkinson (Ed.),Leibniz: Philosphical Writings. London: J M Dent & Sons.

Patocka, J. (1976). Cartesianism and Phenomenology (E. Kohak, Trans.).Jan Patocka:Philosphy and Collected Writings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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