What Exactly Is a "Brute Fact"?
A philosopher friend recently contended that the brute fact view is hard to parse. I politely disagreed: I don’t think there’s much mystery to what the brute fact view entails.
To posit a brute fact is to posit unintelligibility, which is to say that there is a presumably coherent question that lacks an adequate answer. In other words, there is a question that can be reasonably and coherently asked about something—some gap in its intelligibility—that isn’t accounted for by the information inherent to the thing itself (traditionally speaking, not accounted for by the principles of its nature), and which nothing else supplies.
I gave the example of Rover, the dog, existing. According to Aquinas, Rover is a metaphysical composite of an essence element (his what-ness) and an existence element (his is-ness). I told my philosopher friend that while Aquinas thinks it necessary to search for a cause of Rover’s existence—because Aquinas argues that the distinction between essence and existence is real, and thus Rover’s existence is not accounted for by his essence—skeptics are sometimes content to leave the matter as a brute fact. Rover exists, and that’s the end of it. His essence does not account for his existence, and neither does anything else. He just exists, and that’s all. Go have dinner now, please.
In response, my friend suggested that maybe the brute fact view is that Rover has enough to account for his existence due to his intrinsic character. I pushed back: that’s not a brute fact position but an essentialist one. It explicitly claims that Rover can explain his own existence. The question of Rover’s existence, in other words, need not find an answer in anything beyond Rover but finds an answer in Rover himself. That is not a brute fact position. It is—though I would contend an incorrect position—not a brute fact position.
A good example of a brute fact is what Bertrand Russell once said of the universe: “It is just there, and that’s all.”1 As far as I know, Russell never claimed that the universe could explain its own existence (say, by its necessity, which I argue in my book and elsewhere, is quite untenable, but that’s another matter entirely); he simply held that it existed as a brute fact. Surely, it makes sense to ask why the universe exists—just don’t expect to find any good answer to that question. There is none! That is a brute fact.
As I argue in my book, brute facts are dangerous little things. My view is that there’s no such thing as “Oh, it’s just a little bruteness, so what’s the harm?” I maintain that any bruteness, especially concerning the existence of things, invites a host of rather catastrophic consequences, particularly in relation to skepticism. Therefore, if possible, it would be ideal to find a worldview that can provide a complete answer to every coherent question that can be asked. Classical theism, I contend, is that worldview, a point wonderfully argued by Bernard Lonergan in his magisterial volume Insight. Specifically, God, as the absolutely simple, unrestricted act of understanding itself, contains within Himself the correct answers to the complete set of questions that can be coherently asked about reality, and is the only sort of theoretical entity that could possibly do so.
Bertrand Russell, "Debate on the Existence of God," debate with Father F.C. Copleston, BBC Radio, January 1948. Reprinted in The Existence of God, edited by John Hick (New York: Macmillan, 1964). https://archive.org/stream/TheExistenceOfGod_201702/The-Existence-of-God-John-Hick_djvu.txt
I haven't got the time to explore every angle of this question but I believe there is logic that destroys the "brute facts" that people raise. Namely, the basic question of why anything exists?
The only reasons I can see for the answer to this question are:
(1) - the brute fact always existed or the argument from infinite regress. Essentially this denies any reason for the brute fact.
(2) - the brute fact popped into existence out of nothing. This essentially begs the question why?
(3) - there is a self existent entity, whose essence includes self existence that started the dominos toppling. (this is your explanation which I agree with since it is the only logical answer. Maybe there is a better way to express it - if one wants to call it a brute fact, I am comfortable with that.)
I am open to any other explanation but have not seen any. One of the more laughable series of comments by intellectuals who espouse atheism are the ones given on Closer To Truth. The author of this site has pursued the answer to the basic question since he was a young boy.
Now Russell says the universe is a brute fact, does he mean (1) or (2) because he could not possibly mean (3)
Both (1) and (2) lead to nonsense and maybe Russell never saw the argument why it does. Maybe on some long boring plane trip I will read the debate with Father Copleson to see what he actually says. I just got back from such a trip but didn't have the text of the debate with me.