Schnieder, Benjamin
Senior Fellow: October 2016–March 2017
Research Project: The Structure of Reasons and Grounds: Scepticism and the Principle of Sufficient Reason
One of the most influential arguments in favour of scepticism relies on the structure of reasonhood: in order to classify as knowledge, a belief must be supported by a reason. In order to lend robust support to a belief, however, a reason must itself be supported by another reason. But since we have finite minds, any sequence of reasons we can entertain comes to a halt somewhere and terminates in a reason which is itself unsupported by any further reason. This seems to show that none of our beliefs enjoy the sort of support that is required for the belief to count as knowledge. The current project explores the basic assumptions behind this argument by diving deeper into theories of reasons and their structure. The topic will be approached with a focus on the traditional debate about the so-called Principle of Sufficient Reason, examining contributions from philosophers such as Baruch de Spinoza, Christian Crusius, Salomon Maimon, and Bernard Bolzano.
Benjamin Schnieder is professor for theoretical philosophy at the University of Hamburg, where he is also the director of the Phlox research group.