Explaining the contingent universe
The contingent universe comprises everything that’s contingent: everything that ever exists but could have failed to exist, including every star, planet, animal, plant, microbe, and atom. Had the infinite history of the universe been different enough, which it could have been, none of those things would exist. Why, then, do any of them exist at all? I say that we can answer that question by citing the activity of earlier and earlier contingent things, and only contingent things, ad infinitum.
Many philosophers disagree. They claim that you can’t explain the existence of contingent things unless you cite the activity of something noncontingent ‒ something that had to exist. They argue by analogy: Even if every human arose from earlier humans, going back forever, that wouldn’t explain why any humans have ever existed. At some point, you would have to cite the activity of something nonhuman.
I say they’re right about humans but wrong about contingent things, even though all humans are contingent things. These philosophers have identified a correct principle of explanation: You can’t explain why a kind of thing has instances at all unless you cite the activity of something not of that kind. That’s why you can’t explain why humans exist unless you cite something nonhuman, such as the prehuman species Homo erectus. But they’re misapplying the principle because, unlike the noun “human,” the noun “contingent thing” doesn’t denote a kind of thing.
“Why doesn’t it?” is a question I’ll take up in my next post.
