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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2022
The principle of sufficient reason (PSR) says that every contingent truth has an explanation. It is widely thought that if one strengthens "explanation" to "contrastive explanation," then the PSR entails modal fatalism – the view that no proposition is contingent. In a theistic context, this would force full theological determinism: of creaturely behavior by God and of divine behavior by the divine nature. I discuss about a dozen accounts of what could be meant by “contrastive explanation.” Some of them support these arguments and some do not. I argue, however, that we should not extend the PSR to contrastive explanation in any of the senses given.
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