The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) Kindle Edition

Tough one to stick with. I had some moments of clarity, but other times was completely lost. I put it down thrice.

I'm not worthy of this work. I didn't have the chance to go to university, and am merely a curious person who can read.
My opinion of this book is ignorant at best. I love it.
(Spoiler) Nothing comes from nothing. God made the universe and everything in it has a purpose and it couldn't exist at all if it weren't exactly as it is. He exists outside time. This dense jargon proves it. They're pretty sure they have it this time.
If you don't or won't accept that premise, and prefer to consider the universe a series of random accidents which culminated in this unlikely but hardly unique world of purposeless self aware beings struggling to establish and enhance their personal comforts, this book won't convince you otherwise. Which is actually semi tragic, as that's what it intends.
I agree with Pascal, no one gets faith by reasoning. That's not what reasoning is for. Discernment isn't mental.
This book is better than me, and the writer is smarter and more educated than I'll ever be. I'm glad he wrote the thing, it's a better world with this book in it. It isn't preposterous.

Alexander Pruss in my eyes is probably the most underrated philosopher in the world today, this book shows us why.

I first learned about Pruss through his essay in "The Blackwell Companion To Natural Theology" and with all due respect to William Lane Craig, I find Alexander's cosmological argument to be a tad bit more compelling than the Kalam Cosmological argument (though the KCA is still an excellent argument for the existence of God).

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) can be traced all the way back to the Greek philosopher Parmenides' 2nd argument against becoming. Pruss does an excellent job giving the history of the PSR that has been spoken about from prominent philosophers such as Parmenides, Thomas Aquinas, G.W Leibniz, David Hume and Immanuel Kant.

Parmenides states "What need would have driven it later rather than earlier, beginning from the nothing, to grow?"

Parmenides uses the PSR to argue for his 'ex nihilo nihil principle' here. Pruss shows us how the ex nihilo nihil principle is not in the first instance to be perceived as a principle about explanation or causation. In fact, in one of its cosmological forms, it says that a universe with an empty past will not have a nonempty present or future.

Pruss then goes over the chains of causes such as the The Hume-Edwards Principle and shows where it fails.

The book is broken up into 3 major parts in which Pruss goes greatly into detail of describing each important factor of the PSR and its significance. Pruss brings up topics such as Modal Fatalism, Free-Will, Quantum Mechanics, Thomist Arguments, Modal Arguments, Explanation of Negative states of affairs, Inductive skepticism, the Nature of Possibility and the importance of Inference to the best explanation (or the only explanation).

Here is the layout:

Part 1 - The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the causal principle

Part 2 - Objections to the PSR

Part 3 - Justifications of the PSR

It is books like this that make me want to go back to college to finish up a degree in philosophy, and I believe the time is growing near :)

An Excellent book that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in the Metaphysics of existence, Meta-Ethics, or just interested in philosophy!!!