Speaker Series: Michael Della Rocca (Yale)

Michael Della Rocca teaches at the Department of Philosophy at Yale University. His primary interests are in early modern (17th and 18th century) philosophy, especially the rationalist philosophers Spinoza. Michael also has a significant (non-philosophical) interest in the Mets.

“Tamers, Deniers, and Me”

This paper critically examines a prominent and perennial strategy — found in thinkers as diverse as Kant and Shamik Dasgupta — of simultaneously embracing the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and also limiting it so as to avoid certain apparently negative consequences of an unrestricted PSR.  I will argue that this strategy of taming the PSR faces significant challenges and may even be incoherent.  I will develop these criticisms through detailed, direct engagement with both Kant and Dasgupta.  And for my (nefarious) purposes, I will enlist a generally derided argument by Leibniz for the PSR which will help us to see the connections between the PSR and a radical form of monism.