QuestionsWhy is there something rather than nothing?The universe is just there, and that's all
Why is there something rather than nothing?A brute fact

The universe is just there, and that's all

"The universe is just there" (Russell)

Bertrand Russell 1872 · 1970Clarify thought with logic, doubt dogmas.
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What it claims

The universe needs no cause: it is just there, and that is all. The question "why something rather than nothing?" has no answer to be sought beyond it.

Why

What is true of each member is not true of the whole, and nothing shows that the universe as a whole has a cause.

The same idea through history
David Hume1779Cleanthes already holds that once the parts are explained, the whole is too.Bertrand Russell1927In "Why I Am Not a Christian", Russell criticises the first-cause proof.
Bertrand Russell1948On the BBC, facing Father Copleston who defends Leibniz's argument, Russell denies that the whole universe needs a cause.
In short

"The universe is just there, and that's all" is an argument by Bertrand Russell (Russell-Copleston debate, BBC, 1948, 1927) on the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" (answer: a brute fact). Its claim: The universe needs no cause: it is just there, and that is all. The question "why something rather than nothing?" has no answer to be sought beyond it. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Russell-Copleston debate, BBC, 1948
Valid with an implicit premise

In 1948, on BBC radio, the Jesuit Father Frederick Copleston defends Leibniz's argument from contingency: why something rather than nothing? The philosopher Bertrand Russell answers that this question assumes what has to be proved. The notion of cause comes from observing particular things; nothing shows that it applies to the whole universe. Every man has a mother, but the human race has none. For Russell, the universe is just there, and that is all.

P1We derive the notion of cause from our observation of particular things.
P2What is true of each member of a collection is not necessarily true of the collection: every man has a mother, but the human race has no mother.
P3Russell sees no reason to suppose that the total has any cause.
P4 · implicit premiseWhen we have no reason to believe that the whole has a cause, we are not obliged to look for one: this is the burden of proof, which Russell leaves to his opponent.
Therefore the universe needs no cause: it is just there, and that is all. The question "why something rather than nothing?" has no answer to be sought beyond it.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a world where the notion of cause comes from particular things and where we have no present reason to believe the whole has a cause, yet where we must still go on looking: the conclusion does not follow.
Valid with P4. Russell does not state it as a rule: he only asks "give me a ground and I'll listen to it". Without P4, from "no reason to believe the whole has a cause" one would not yet conclude that we can give up looking for one. Copleston disputes exactly this step (he says "there is no cause" should be said at the end of the inquiry, not the beginning) and the analogy of the mother (P2).
Analogy. Every man has a mother. Must we conclude that the human race, taken as a whole, also has a mother? No: it is "a different logical sphere". This is Russell's own example.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

F
Frederick Copleston 1948 · attacks premise 2

Copleston sees no parity with the mother. He is not saying that, because each object has a cause within nature, the whole series has one too. He says that the series of natural causes, even infinite, is an insufficient explanation of the series: it therefore has a cause of another order, which transcends it.

Russell replies
Bertrand Russell 1948 · Russell's reply
Russell replies that this always assumes that not only every particular thing in the world, but the world as a whole, must have a cause. He says he sees no ground whatever for that assumption and asks to be given one.
F
Frederick Copleston 1948
Copleston offers a dilemma: the series of events is either caused or not. If caused, its cause lies outside the series. If not, it is sufficient to itself, so it is what he calls necessary. But it cannot be necessary, since each member is contingent and the total has no reality apart from its members. So it must have a cause.
See the rest of the debate (1)
Bertrand Russell 1948
Russell answers that, as for things having no cause, physicists assure us that individual quantum transitions in atoms have no cause. He concludes that a mind can conceive what Copleston says the human mind cannot.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: is there a reason to ask for the cause of the whole, and is the mother analogy sound? Copleston in turn wonders whether the absence of cause in atomic physics is more than a provisional inference; Russell replies that it at least shows it can be conceived. The two men do not come to an agreement.
F
Frederick Copleston 1948 · attacks premise 4

Copleston finds it dogmatic to say that one should not look for a cause: saying there is none should come at the end of the inquiry, not the beginning. And if the total has no cause, in his view it must be its own cause, which seems impossible to him.

Russell replies
Bertrand Russell 1948 · Russell's reply
Russell replies that the total need not be its own cause: what he is saying is that the concept of cause is not applicable to the total.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: are "having no cause" and "falling outside the notion of cause" the same thing? Copleston says not and judges the question legitimate; Russell says the notion does not apply to the whole. Open point: no widely accepted answer.
Leibniz 1714 · attacks premise 3

Leibniz answers in advance that an endless sequence of contingent things settles nothing: we are no farther forward however far we go, for the same question always remains. There is therefore a reason to be sought for the whole.

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1714, after the author's death (1970).
The debate goes on (our summary) Russell does not cite this passage in the 1948 debate. Copleston says he used Leibniz's argument "because it seems to me a brief and clear formulation" of the metaphysical proof; Russell answers him on the principle of sufficient reason.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Core disagreement: the principle of sufficient reason. For Leibniz and Copleston it obliges us to seek a reason for the whole; for Russell it is a demand that cannot be met and ought not to be made.