Abstract
Most commentators have assumed that while Émilie Du Châtelet’s Foundations of Physics (1740) is an important and original work that demonstrates her commitment to Leibnizian metaphysics and the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), Du Châtelet herself does not have an original argument for either a commitment to the PSR or its truth. I argue against this widespread assumption by showing that implicit in the Foundations is an argument for a commitment to the PSR from the possibility of scientific reasoning. This argument takes as its starting point our commitment to scientific reasoning, and in particular to abductive reasoning in science. It then shows that the PSR is a presupposition of such reasoning. Thus, insofar as we are committed to abductive—and more generally, scientific—reasoning, we are also committed to the PSR. I show that this argument in Du Châtelet is both original and distinct from any argument for the PSR presented by Leibniz. I further argue that the argument provides a significant insight into the way in which Du Châtelet’s views about substance differ from Leibniz’s.
