Chapter 4 Chapter 3. Shortcomings of the Old Proof and Key Points of the New Proof

Section 15 does not cover cases within the old meaning established by this principle From the general remarks in the last chapter, we have recognized two distinct applications of the principle of sufficient reason, though this recognition has been a slow process and has often been mired in error and confusion.These two applications are: one applies to judgments, which, if true, must have a ground; the other applies to changes in material objects, which must always have a cause.We find that in both cases the principle of sufficient reason has an essential property that prompts us to ask why.Moreover, it prompts us to ask whether all the circumstances of why are contained in these two relations?Suppose I ask: why are the three sides of this triangle equal?The answer is, because the three angles are equal.So, is the equality of the angles the cause of the equality of the sides?No, because we are not concerned here with change, and therefore with effects that must have a cause. —Is it merely a logical basis?No; for the equality of the angles is only a proof of the equality of the sides, the basis of the judgment: pure concepts alone are never sufficient to explain why the sides are necessarily equal if the angles are equal;What we are concerned here, therefore, is not the relation between concepts and judgments, but the relation between sides and angles.The equality of angles is not the direct but indirect ground by which we know that the sides are equal; for it is the reason why a thing is so (in this case the sides are equal): the angles are equal, the sides must also be equal.What is involved here is a necessary connection between angle and side, not a direct necessary connection between two judgments. —Or if I were to ask again why the event that was to happen did not happen, it would never be a question of the impossibility of the event that happened, so why the past is absolutely irretrievable and the future inevitable, which is neither Nor does it belong to any of causality to allow purely logical grounds in virtue of pure abstractions, since the law of causality only governs events that occur in time, and not time itself.The present throws the moment before that into the abyss of the past, not through the law of causality, but directly through its pure being, which is inevitable.It is impossible to make it intelligible or clearer by means of pure concepts; on the contrary, we know it quite directly and instinctively, just as we know the difference between left and right and everything based on it: for example, left Gloves don't fit right on the right hand, etc.

Therefore, just as all these cases to which the law of sufficient reason applies cannot all be reduced to ground and inference, cause and effect, so it is not sufficient to treat the law of resolution in such a classification.However, the law of unity requires us to assume that these cases cannot be infinitely different, but that they can be reduced to a certain number of species.Before we attempt this classification, it is necessary to determine what is the peculiar character of the principle of sufficient reason in any case; for the concept of genus is always determined before that of species.

verse 16 The root of the principle of sufficient ground The perception that expresses itself through the inner and outer sensibility, as well as the intellect and reason, can be divided into subject and object, and nothing else.To be the object of the subject is the same thing as to be our representation.All our representations are interdependent in a regular connection, which is determined a priori, and it is this innateness which prevents any representation from being independent and free from the whole to become our object.It is in the universality of the principle of sufficient reason that this connection is expressed.Although it may be inferred from the preceding explanation that this connection may assume different forms according to different kinds of objects, and these forms are in turn expressed differently by the principle of sufficient reason; expression, and is expressed in a general abstraction by the principle of sufficient reason.These relations on which it rests are the roots of what I have called the principle of sufficient reason, and these relations will be elaborated in this monograph.From the point of view of the law of unity and the law of decomposition, these relations can be divided into different species that are quite different from each other if we investigate further.They can, however, be grouped into four, since anything that can be an object to us—that is, all our representations—falls into four categories.These objects will be illustrated and examined in the next four chapters.

We shall see that the principle of sufficient reason appears in different forms in each class; but, just as it allows formulation in the above-mentioned form, it will appear in all forms with the same law and derivatives of the above-mentioned roots. Express yourself.