A Critical Comparison between Leibnitz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Rule of Prior Necessity in the Islamic Philosophy

This article goes to explain Leibnitz’ principle of sufficient reason and to compare it to the rule of prior necessity in the Islamic philosophy. Along with the principle of contradiction, the principle of sufficient reason constitutes Leibnitz[1] principles of metaphysics. His phrases on the issue are inconsistent, which gave rise to different interpretations on Leibnitz view. From one side, Leibnitz considers all true propositions as analytic thus necessary, and from another side he proposes concepts such as conditioned and ethical necessities and divides true propositions into truths of reason and those of fact. Accordingly, Leibnitz withdraws from his position of necessitarianism. In the Islamic philosophy, there is the so-called rule of “prior necessity” much similar to Leibnitz’s principle of sufficient reason, though more general than the above rule. We aim to study the Islamic philosophy and modern Western philosophy comparatively. Our method is to refer to library references and making use of Internet and software such as “E. Islamic theosophy library”. [1]. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz.