“What’s your thinking on the principle of sufficient reason?” Roland repeated.
“Yes, I heard what you said,” I replied. “I mean, why are you asking?”
“Oh...” He paused and took a long deep breath, held it for a moment, and then released it again slowly. “It’s related to the points I was making about the metaphysics of time, and about the mechanistic philosophy, as well as my... my animadversions, let’s say, regarding analytic method. It just occurs to me that there’s a distinct tendency among Anglo-American philosophers and dabblers in philosophical issues to think of the principle of sufficient reason principally as a claim about causality in the narrow, modern sense. Admittedly, even Leibniz talked that way at times, and of course for him the rational authority of the sciences was an issue of paramount importance. But it does strike me as odd that there are so many who find it difficult to recognize that reasons and causes—at least, causes as we think of them now—are not necessarily the same thing.”
“Well, quite,” I said.
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