Ultimate Explanation and Necessary Being: Describing and Analyzing Timothy O'Connor’s View Point

Abstract

Usually, an explanation regarded as the answer to Why questions and therefore the ultimate explanation is to be the answer to the question of “why there is anything rather than nothing?”. In this article after clarifying the notion of explanation and ultimate explanation, first of all, the rational role of seeking for ultimate explanation is confirmed and then argued that an ultimate explanation, by principle, never obtained in the realm of scientific explanations. Scientific explanations, although fruitful and inevitable, deal with contingency and this remains the intelligible question of why there is so. Demanding an ultimate explanation can only be satisfied in the realm of metaphysics, as the ultimate question is also a metaphysical question. The most acceptable kind of such an explanation is to explain contingency with necessity. During the process of this article, the focus is on O'Connor’s ideas and his thoughts are described and analyzed through the investigation of the problem of ultimate explanation. We found some useful ideas in O’Connor’s approach especially his treatment with the problem of ultimate explanation and using it as a proof for God existence regarded as a kind of Leibnizian cosmological argument. But his special notion of agent causation that he uses to conquest the objection of modal collapse doesn't seem to be acceptable.

Keywords

• ultimate explanation
• cosmological argument
• timothy (tim) o'connor
• principle of sufficient reason (psr)
• necessity