Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

For generations of scholars the emergence of the notion of human subjectivity has marked the shift to philosophical modernity. Mainly traced back to Descartes’s founding of philosophy on the Cogito and to Kant’s ‘Copernican Revolution’, the rise of subjectivity has been linked to the rise of the modern age in terms of a reconsideration of reality starting from an analysis of the human self and consciousness. Consequently, it has been related to long-standing issues of identity, individuation and individuality as a (...) foremost topic on the agenda of the philosophers. Only in recent times, however, have comprehensive studies on early modern theories of subjectivity and individuality become available to scholars. […] Since the complexity of these topics and of their historiographical treatment is increasing, the only way to shed light on them is to intensify the debate itself. As a multi-authored collection of essays, the present issue of Society and Politics is not aimed at addressing or endorsing a particular position in these debates: rather, it questions and calls attention to the issues of subjectivity and individuality in their historical development, encouraging the debate on topics recently analysed. (shrink)

When I began to think about a book on Kant and the life sciences, the idea that Kant would ever have been influenced by the ideas coming out of this field seemed impossible to believe. In fact, I spent an entire Summer determined to prove that my thesis was wrong. The problem was, I kept finding evidence in support of it (fully one third of Kant’s Organicism is devoted to a glut of historical research filling up the endnotes, research stemming, (...) for the most part, from an initial disbelief in my own hypothesis). Most of the scholars who had considered this connection before me had had their training in the history of science. My situation was different, I had been trained in philosophy. I knew my Descartes but I had never read Harvey; I had written on Locke but I had never heard of Ray…. (shrink)

This is an article-length summary of the argument in my book, Kant's Organicism: Epigenesis and the Development of Critical Philosophy (University of Chicago Press, 2013; 2015).

In the 20th century, Leibniz studies flourished in Italy, as attested by the large number of scholarly articles and translations of his main works. Articles on Leibniz’s philosophy were published in the Archivio di Filosofia, which has long been the journal of the Italian Philosophical Society. This paper examines articles on Leibniz published in Italy, and notably in the Archivio di Filosofia. It is divided into three parts. The first one examines Italian research on Leibniz from 1900 to 1930. The (...) second one takes into account articles on Leibniz published in Archivio di Filosofia from 1930 to 1945. The last part is dedicated to Leibnizian studies published in the same journal after 1945. (shrink)

The attention paid in the Giornale critico della filosofia italiana to the major exponents of seventeenth-century philosophical rationalism, from its foundation by Giovanni Gentile in 1920 until 1979, reveals important changes that provide us with interesting information on Italian Neo-idealism. The small number of articles on Descartes can be interpreted as the result of an overall approach – sanctioned by Gentile – different from that of Hegel, who considered Descartes as the founder of modern philosophy. For Gentile, Descartes represents a (...) stage in the history of philosophy spanning from Humanism to Spinoza, and, in a more particular Italian perspective, from Campanella to Vico. This interpretative scheme persisted also under the direction of Ugo Spirito, when Cartesianism continued to receive little theoretical and historical attention, with the exception of Eugenio Garin’s contributions. In the years from 1945 to 1979, the Giornale critico emphasized instead the interest for Spinoza, a very important author for Gentile, up to the double monographic issue published on the occasion of the third centenary of Spinoza’s death (1977). In turn, the lack of interest for Leibniz was constant and evident from the small number of articles published from 1920 to 1979, which were furthermore not particularly connected with the international, coeval Leibniz scholarship. (shrink)

The article presents the various phases in which one of the most eminent journals of the history of philosophy, the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (1888–), dealt with Leibniz’s philosophy and his intellectual legacy. In particular, this study compares the main moments of historiographical interest and disinterest for this subject to the specific attitudes of the journal during the long 20th century.

This paper argues that Wolff’s rejection of Leibnizian monads is rooted in a disagreement concerning the general notion of substance. Briefly, whereas Leibniz defines substance in terms of activity, Wolff retains a broadly scholastic and Cartesian conception of substance as that which per se subsists and sustains accidents. One consequence of this difference is that it leads Wolff to interpret Leibniz’s concept of a constantly striving force as denoting a feature of substance separate from its static powers, and not as (...) their replacement. For Wolff, powers are essential possibilities of acting in subjects suited for independent existence. Force is a further ingredient that provides a reason for the contingent operation of powers. Unlike Leibniz, Wolff conceives force narrowly as a principle of actuality, which he calls the nature of substance, as distinct from its principle of possibility, or essence. (shrink)

In this paper, the author will attempt to analyze some of the basic concepts in Leibniz’s Monadology from the perspective of the contemporary philosophy of the mind. The aim of the paper is to suggest that the traditional understanding of Leibniz as a pluralist or parallelist, though not completely untrue, is not always completely revealing and fruitful concerning its possible value for the philosophy of the mind. By analyzing some of the core concepts, the author will attempt to approach the (...) mind-body problem from a rather different angle, suggesting that the mind-body problem is to be regarded as an epistemological one, that is, it concerns how we know and speak of matter and nature. (shrink)

The early modern period was the natural historical habitat of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, i.e., the demand that everything must have a cause, or reason. It is in this period that the principle was explicitly articulated and named, and throughout the period we find numerous formulations and variants of the PSR and its closely related ‘ex nihilo nihil fit’ principle, which the early moderns inherited from medieval philosophy. Contemporary discussions of these principles were not restricted to philosophy. “Nothing will (...) come of nothing; speak again” old King Lear tells his daughter Cordelia at the beginning of Shakespeare’s celebrated tragedy, and in early modern science, conservation principles were the order of the day. Within philosophy, Malebranche stipulates that there cannot be an effect without a cause, and Berkeley motivates his idealism by an appeal to ‘ex nihilo nihil fit.’ Were we to try to provide an exhaustive survey the various formulations of the PSR in this period – including the weaker ones – we would be writing an encyclopedia. In fact, one wonders whether any early modern thinker was willing to accept a wholesale rejection of the PSR, i.e., a view which states that no fact requires an explanation. Moreover, the view that many – perhaps most – facts require an explanation seems to be tacitly assumed even by us today, in both our theoretical and colloquial discourse. For these reasons, this chapter will focus on two early modern philosophers who advocated very strong (i.e., virtually exceptionless) versions of the PSR: Benedict de Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz. Following a brief overview of Descartes’s restricted endorsement of the PSR, I will turn to discuss the central features of the PSR in the writings of Spinoza (§2) and those of Leibniz (§3). In the cases of each of these philosophers, we will examine carefully: (i) their main statements of the PSR, (ii) the scope they assign to the principle (i.e., what requires an explanation and what counts as an explanation), (iii) the modal strength they assign to the principle, (iv) the main implications they draw from the principle, (v) exceptions to the principle, and, finally, (vi) the justification of the principle. In §4, we will study a principle, complementing the PSR, namely, the assertion that everything and every fact must have an effect (or as Leibniz would put it: “nothing is sterile”). (shrink)

Leibniz is often cited as an authority when it comes to the formulation and answer strategy of the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Yet much current research assumes that Leibniz advocates an unambiguous question and strategy for the answer. In this respect, one repeatedly finds the argument in the literature that alternative explanatory approaches to this question violate Leibniz’s intention, since he derives the question from the principle of sufficient reason and also demands a causal explanation to (...) the question. In particular, the new research on non-causal explanatory strategies to the Leibniz question seems to concern this counter-argument. In this paper, however, I will argue that while Leibniz raises the question by means of the principle of sufficient reason, he even favours a non-causal explanatory strategy to the question. Thus, a more accurate Leibniz interpretation seems not only to legitimise but also to support non-causal explanations to the Leibniz question. (shrink)

Die Zeiten, in denen Kausalität das Charakteristikum von Wissenschaftlichkeit war, scheinen sich ihrem Ende zu nähern. Seit dem Beginn unseres Jahrhunderts ist eine seit langem schwelende Krise des herkömmlichen Kausalitätsverständnisses in den Naturwissenschaften unübersehbar zum Ausdruck gekommen. Dessen ungeachtet halten jedoch viele Wissenschaftstheoretiker an Kausalitätsvorstellungen als vermeintlich unverzichtbarem Analyseinstrument fest. In Kritik dieser Tendenz zur Verkennung eines grundlegenden Bedeutungsverlustes wird der historische Verdrängungsprozess von Kausalitätsvorstellungen unter den Stichworten der Entfinalisierung und Entsubstantialisierung nachgezeichnet. Aus der Perspektive geschichtlicher Rekonstruktion handelt es sich (...) bei den gegenwärtigen Vorstellungen um den letzten Rest einer unvergleichlich reichhaltigeren ursprünglichen kausalen Begrifflichkeit. Am Beispiel der heute wohl weitverbreitetsten, auf C. G. Hempel zurückgehenden Vorstellung werden die wichtigsten Merkmale der kausalen Relation diskutiert. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich, dass für das naturwissenschaftliche Kausalitätsverständnis, soweit es sich auf einen Begriff bringen lässt, in der Tat ein reduzierter Sinngehalt der Kategorie der Verursachung in kausalen Erklärungen, eine begrenzte Anwendbarkeit sowie ein reduzierter Geltunganspruch typisch sind. Die Grenzen naturwisseschaftlicher Kausalitätsvorstellungen betreffen deren' strenge begriffliche Fassung, nicht jedoch ihre Brauchbarkeit als heuristische Forschungsmaxime in Situationen, in denen unerwartete Phänomene auftreten oder Phänomene ausbleiben, mit denen man zuvor fest gerechnet hat. Für diese Situationen ist die Überlegung, was der Fall gewesen wäre, wenn eine Ursache nicht eingetreten wäre, in besonderer Weise bezeichnend. Welche Relevanz dieser Kausalitätsvorstellung zukünftig zukommen wird, hängt wesentlich vom Charakter der weiteren Wissenschaftsentwicklung ab. (shrink)

Our examination explicates not only how Leibniz’s emphasis on force or power squares well with (and most probably largely stems from) his endorsement of certain central Aristotelian tenets, but also how the concept of force is incorporated into his mature idealist metaphysics. That metaphysics, in turn, generates some thorny problems with regard to the concept of passivity; and so we shall also ask whether and how Leibniz’s monadology, emphasizing the activity as much as it does, is able to encompass the (...) passivity of created substances. (shrink)

The advance of mechanism in science and philosophy in the 17th century created a great interest to machines or automata. Leibniz was no exception - in an early memoir Drôle de pensée he wrote admiringly about a machine that could walk on water, exhibited in Paris. The idea of automatic processing in general had a large role in his thought, as can be seen, for example, in his invention of the binary code and the so-called Calculemus!-model for solving controversies. In (...) metaphysics, the idea of an automata was expressed most clearly in the 1695 article New System of the Nature of Substances and their Communication, and the ensuing correspondence with, among others, Foucher, Bayle, Lamy, Jaquelot and Masham. In the article Leibniz discusses the soul as a spiritual machine in the context of pre-established harmony, arguing that God can "give to a substance at the outset a nature or internal force which could produce in it an orderly way (as in spiritual or formal automaton; but a free one, in the case of a substance which is endowed with a share of reason) everything that is going to happen to it, that is to say, all the appearances or expressions it is going to have, and all without the help of any created thing." The basic idea of Leibniz's spiritual machine is that the soul or entelechy is an autonomous and spontaneous unity, consisting of internal active force and producing its own perceptions (both confused and distinct). It is a self-moving machine, driven by its perceptions and appetites, but it follows (without being conscious of it) a lawful series or programme created by God. The entelechy remains the same despite undergoing an infinite number of changes. To Foucher he explained that each state of the individual substance is a consequence of its preceding one, "as if there were only God and the substance in the world". Despite this, the spiritual machine is related not only to God, but through the pre-established harmony to bodies or natural machines. However, as it is not dependent on them, the spiritual machine is superiot to natural machines. In this paper I concentrate on three moral themes related to the spiritual machine: moral deliberation, moral identity and the goal of moral action. All these themes are more or less implicit in the New System, but are discussed in more detail in the ensuing correspondence after the publication of the article. Finally, the themes are given an extended discussion especially in the second book of New Essays on Human Understanding (1704, published 1765), written partly at the same time as some of the correspondence and unpublished related material. I will first give an overview of Leibniz's position concerning the spiritual machine or automaton in the New System and then go on to explore the three moral themes one by one, as they feature in the subsequent correspondence and in the New Essays. I will show that the three topics are essential to the function of the spiritual machine – to Sophie Charlotte Leibniz wrote: "...let us say that everything in bodies happens mechanically, or in accordance with laws of motion, and that everything in the soul happens morally, or in accordance with perceived good or evil." There are many texts that anticipate the views in the New System (notably the unpublished memoir De Affectibus of 1679) and Leibniz continued to discuss its themes later on (in addition to correpondence, for example, in Theodicy of 1710 and Monadology and Principles of Nature and Grace of 1714). Here I focus on the short-term development of Leibniz's views on the topic (around 1695-1705), but I argue that his basic view of the spiritual machine did not change much after finishing the dialogue with Locke in 1704. (shrink)

In Leibniz’s New Essays stands out, within many important topics, his doctrine of innate ideas, which supposes the division between sense knowledge and innate knowledge and implies the distinction between truths of reason and truths of fact. That doctrine is particularly relevant for Leibniz’s philosophy, but implicitly entails the epistemological difference between belief, on one hand, and certainty, on the other. In this paper I outline, according to my interpretation, how Leibniz explains that humans can have certainty about innate ideas. (...) This topic is important because if Leibniz demonstrates the possibility of having certainty of those ideas, then, it is feasible to believe in its existence. However, if his explanation is unsatisfactory his metaphysical doctrine would be seriously weakened and, at the same time, both skepticism and Locke’s empiricist doctrine would be reinforced. (shrink)

The rigor and precision of Leibniz's "possible world" evolved into the concept of Turing machine, and with the birth of the first computer and the physical realization of Turing machine, human cognitive and intelligent activities were optimistically considered by cognitive scientists to be convertible into computational programs for simulation by machines. Cognitive science then formed the research agenda of "cognitive computationalism", and our Chinese scholars have responded to this general view that "the essence of cognition is computation" and that the (...) human brain and computers are merely formal systems for manipulating and processing symbols in their respective fields. Professor Hong Dingguo used the concepts of "manifest order" and "hidden order", Professor Jin Gulun used the philosophical categories of "constitutive theory" and "generative theory", and Liu Yuesheng used the concept of "cognition". Professor Hong Dingguo reinterpreted the relationship between the "real world" and the "possible world" by using the concepts of "manifest sequence" and "hidden sequence", Professor Jin Wulun used the philosophical categories of "composition theory" and "generation theory", and Professor Liu Yuesheng used the generalized information paradigm of "structural information" and "exchange information". "This provides a profound elucidation of the nature of cognitive logic and the process of human cognitive activities becoming symbols through coding and puts forward theoretical limits. The current theoretical dilemma and practical difficulty of cognitive science lies in the fact that it has developed algorithmic concepts in the Turing sense that can only model the explicitly sequential part of cognitive and intellectual activity, forming a constitutive atomic abstraction, or in our terms, classical "structural information", which cannot fully explain the inner mechanisms of human mental activity and its embodied flexibility, selectivity and self-emergence. Wu Xuemou's pan-system theory does not simply rely on logic and Turing machine algorithms, but models human intelligence by treating structural information as a complex large system composed of a collection of elements and a collection of relations (exchange information: five mutual eight chips), in order to break through the narrow path of seeking only the local consistency of the system as currently done; while Wang Dekui's exploration of the three-spin biological and physical path and Huang Zhanji's abandonment of the artificial means of logic to seek the large logical natural mechanisms and Mr. Zhou Liquan's proposal of a schema for successful communication using natural language on the basis of concepts such as context and implicit connotation ("Logic — A Theory of Correct Thinking and Successful Communication"), all reflect the milestones of Chinese scholars who seek to address the deeper issues of cognitive science. We believe that along this series of explorations, combined with new results in recent years in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation, a new research agenda in cognitive science will emerge. (shrink)

Leibniz thinks that every created substance is causally active, and yet causally independent of every other: none can cause changes in any but itself. This is not controversial. But Leibniz also thinks that every created substance is existentially independent of every other: it is metaphysically possible for any to exist with or without any other. This is controversial. I argue that, given a mainstream reading of Leibniz’s essentialism, if one accepts the former, uncontroversial interpretation concerning causal independence, then one ought (...) also to accept the latter, controversial one concerning existential independence. This is a new way to defend the ‘existential independence’ interpretation. Moreover, this defense provides a new approach for defending the broadly ‘non-logical’ interpretive camp in the longstanding debate over Leibniz’s views on incompossibility, against perhaps the strongest objection leveled by advocates of the opposing broadly ‘logical’ interpretation. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationships between perception, representation and appetition in Leibniz's later metaphysics, and defends four theses. First, for Leibniz perceptions are not the carriers of content, but they are identical to representational content. Second, Leibniz's appetitions are the carriers of content and he should be taken at his word when he declares, "Thought consists in conatus". Third, while it is true that for Leibniz representational content is determined by a species of mapping or function from representation to what (...) is represented, this is not the only component that determines representational content for Leibniz. The correspondence in terms of which Leibniz characterizes representation includes an ontological component, namely a lineage or trace from representation to represented object via God's creation, and appetitions constitute this trace. Finally, Leibniz's account of how ideas represent and how perceptions represent are distinct, and derivation plays a key role in how ideas represent. (shrink)

Luiz Henrique Lopes dos Santos, em seu texto sobre "Leibniz e a questão dos futuros contingentes”, argumenta em favor de seu diagnóstico segundo o qual, no fundo, a principal diferença entre as doutrinas de Espinosa e Leibniz reside no fato de que o primeiro, diferentemente do segundo, não sabia lógica. Este texto procura objetar à sua posição, respondendo às críticas do autor à posição de Espinosa quanto à liberdade divina. Procurarei mostrar que, sob o aspecto preciso da articulação aí estabelecida (...) entre a distinção vontade/entendimento e a questão dos possíveis jamais realizados, ela não poderia estar disponível para a metafísica de Espinosa, não por ele ter ignorado um princípio básico da lógica modal, como alega o autor, mas porque ele compreende diferentemente o estatuto ontológico da unidade das coisas individuais e, portanto, dos agentes humanos. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders Leibniz’s conception of the nature of possible things and offers a novel interpretation of the actualization of possible substances. This requires analyzing a largely neglected notion, the reality of individual essences. Thus far scholars have tended to construe essences as representational items in God’s intellect. We acknowledge that finite essences have being in the divine intellect but insist that they are also grounded in the infinite essence of God, as limitations of it. Indeed, we show that it (...) is critical to understand that this dependence on God’s essence is prior to the dependence on God through divine ideas. Here it is crucial to distinguish questions concerning the ontological status of essences from questions concerning their reality. This yields a fresh view of Leibniz’s theory of creation, which takes seriously his claim that the same thing is first a mere possibility but after creation an actually existent substance. (shrink)

La traducción al latín de la obra de Maimónides Moreh Nevukhim | Guía para Perplejos, ha sido la obra judía más influyente en los últimos milenios (Di Segni, 2019; Rubio, 2006; Wohlman, 1988, 1995; Kohler, 2017). Ésta marcó el comienzo de la escolástica, «hija del judaísmo nutrida por pensadores judíos, » según el historiador Heinrich Graetz (Geschichte der Juden, L. 6, Leipzig 1861, p. xii). Impresa por la primera imprenta mecánica de Gutenberg, su influencia en Occidente se extendió hasta el (...) Quinto Concilio de Letrán (1512-1517) « donde se instó a los eruditos a eliminar las dificultades que parecían dividir el conjunto de la teología y la filosofía (Leibniz, Teodicea, 11 ). » Durante siglos, la Guía revolucionó el currículo de estudios de la instrucción escolar al reintegrar en el ámbito de la fe las leyes del pensamiento (la cuarta de las cuales se convirtió en el principio de la razón suficiente de Leibniz). La colección completa de las notas que exponen las ideas de la Guía incluye todos los pasajes seleccionados y reescritos por Leibniz. Esta primera traducción bilingüe completa y anotada de los manuscritos originales en latín sirve como una puerta de entrada a la fe conforme a la Razón. -/- « El excelente libro del rabino Moisés Maimónides, Guía para perplejos, es más filosófico de lo que había imaginado y merece una lectura atenta. El autor, distinguido por su inteligencia filosófica, fue versado en matemáticas, en el arte de la medicina, y también en el conocimiento de las Sagradas Escrituras. » — GW LEIBNIZ, 1685. Antología de Leibniz de la Guía de Maimónides, Capítulo III. (shrink)

La traduction latine du livre de Maïmonide Moreh Nevukhim | Guide des égarés, a été l'ouvrage juif le plus influent des derniers millénaires (Di Segni, 2019 ; Rubio, 2006 ; Wohlman, 1988, 1995 ; Kohler, 2017). Elle marqua le début de la scolastique, fille du judaïsme élevée par des penseurs juifs, selon l'historien Heinrich Graetz (Geschichte der Juden, L. 6, Leipzig 1861, p. xii). Imprimée par la première presse mécanique de Gutenberg, son influence en Occident s'étendit jusqu'au Vème concile du (...) Latran (1512-1517) « où les savants furent encouragés à lever les difficultés qui semblaient diviser l'ensemble de la théologie et de la philosophie — (Leibniz, Théodicée, 11 ) ». Pendant des siècles, le Guide a révolutionné le programme d'instruction scolaire en réintégrant dans le domaine de la foi les lois de la pensée (dont la quatrième est devenue le principe de la raison suffisante de Leibniz). Cette collection complète de notes qui expose les idées du Guide fournit tous les passages sélectionnés et réécrits par Leibniz. Cette première traduction complète bilingue annotée des manuscrits originaux en latin sert de porte d'entrée à la foi conforme à la Raison. -/- « L'excellent livre du Rabbin Moïse Maïmonide, le Guide des égarés, est plus philosophique que je ne l'avais imaginé et mérite une lecture attentive. L'auteur, distingué par son intelligence en philosophie, était versé dans les mathématiques, l'art médical, et aussi dans la connaissance de Saintes Écritures. » — G. W. LEIBNIZ, 1685, Anthologie de Leibniz du Guide de Maïmonide, Chapitre III. (shrink)

This chapter offers an interpretation of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s idealism. Despite Leibniz’s frequent claim that the universe ultimately boils down to monads, he also sometimes appears to say that the world’s fundamental furniture includes extended, corporeal substances. Here, I examine Leibniz’s views about the relationship between monads and the material world, especially in connection with material bodies and corporeal substances.

Rosi Braidotti has recently argued that the emerging scholarship on posthumanism should employ what she calls nomadic thinking. Braidotti identifies Gilles Deleuze’s work on Spinoza as the genesis of posthumanist ontology, yet Deleuze’s claims about nomadic thinking or nomadology come from his work on Leibniz. I argue that for posthumanist thought to theorize subjectivity beyond the human, it must use nomadology to overcome ontology itself. To make my argument, I demonstrate that while Braidotti is correct about Spinoza’s influence on Deleuze, (...) his work on Leibniz is necessary to adequately conceptualize nomadology. I employ Deleuze and Guattari’s figure of the Thought-brain as a model for conceptualizing posthumanist subjectivity that they claim goes beyond the subject itself. (shrink)

This paper addresses some issues of Leibniz’s metaphysics to show the relationship between religion, God, and the conception of eternal truths, and with that to reveal that Leibniz’s philosophy is a coherent and intertwined whole. His idea of religion is set out briefly, then his metaphysics is analyzed, in particular creation and what are the eternal truths. The paper ends with a commentary on some quotations from the New essays that make evident that these truths require the existence of God. (...) // Se abordan algunas cuestiones de la metafísica leibniziana para mostrar el vínculo entre la religión, Dios y la concepción de las verdades eternas, y con ello poner de manifiesto que la filosofía de Leibniz es un todo engarzado y coherente. Se expone sucintamente su idea de religión, se analiza su metafísica, en particular la creación y lo que son las verdades eternas, y finalmente se comentan algunas citas de los Nuevos ensayos que evidencian que dichas verdades exigen la existencia de Dios. (shrink)

Why is there something rather than nothing? I don’t know. But ‘nothing’ may not be the correct default state. It may be that the existence of possibilities requires fewer (weaker) assumptions. In this case, arguably, we should start with the existence of possibilities and not ‘nothing’. In this case, there exists the possibility of (for example) red qualia. But the possible existence of a red quale does not delineate what it is the possibility of if the possibility contains only a (...) reference to red. Instead, the possibility must contain an actual instance of red to delineate what it is the possibility of. But, if possibilities are the weakest and (therefore) starting assumption, and the possibility of a red quale must itself contain an instance of red, then red exists necessarily. This argument would work for all qualia. Further, it could be that physical things and physical laws are (in some sense) instances of qualia. Incidentally, this would solve the problem of evil: pain, too, is made of qualia. These considerations align with some suggestions by Leibniz. (shrink)

This chapter explores the relationship between the views of Leibniz and Berkeley on the fundamental nature of the created universe. It argues that Leibniz concurs with Berkeley on three key points: that in the final analysis there are only perceivers and their contents (subjective idealism), that there are strictly speaking no material or corporeal substances, and that bodies or sensible things reduce to the contents of perceivers (phenomenalism). It then reconstructs his central argument for phenomenalism, which rests on his belief (...) in the infinite division of matter, his doctrine of the ideality of relations, and the traditional principle of the convertibility of being and unity. Finally, it explores Leibniz’s belief that a body having its being in one perceiver can be “founded” on other perceivers, and considers Berkeley’s reasons for opposing such a view. (shrink)

Este artículo examina el rol del concepto de simplicidad cognitiva en la perspectiva de Leibniz sobre las presunciones. El tratamiento de Leibniz acerca de la conexión entre simplicidad y presunción puede aportar algo significativo a los enfoques contemporáneos sobre la plausibilidad de las presunciones. Esto se explica porque, a diferencia de los enfoques contemporáneos centrados en el lado pragmático de la simplicidad cognitiva, Leibniz ha procurado basarla en aquello que ocurre con mayor facilidad en la realidad. El filósofo se apoya (...) en los trabajos de los primeros juristas modernos que recomiendan presumir lo que corresponde a la naturaleza humana. Además, da un giro novedoso a esta idea invocando la noción de facilidad, que fundamenta en el marco de su ontología de los “requisitos”. En la toma de decisiones políticas, el precepto de Leibniz es que se deberían formar presunciones a favor del curso de acción que tiene menos requisitos en comparación con otros cursos alternativos. Asimismo, su presunción en favor del carácter justo de una acción está estrechamente relacionada con su concepción de facilidad. El resultado de estas consideraciones conducirá a superar la dicotomía existente entre simplicidad cognitiva y simplicidad ontológica. (shrink)

En muchos aspectos ejerció Hobbes, con su pensamiento en las antípodas del cartesianismo, una duradera influencia en Leibniz. Pero aunque Leibniz, como Hobbes, pretende mecanizar la mente, no admite la negación hobbesiana de la sustancia inmaterial, su disolución en el cuerpo. Por el contrario, quiere salvar el concepto de mente. Para lograrlo le da la vuelta al argumento de Hobbes. Si este último define la mente en términos de cuerpo, Leibniz va a considerar el cuerpo a partir de la mente.

In this paper we inquire whether Leibniz’s metaphysics of the body has undergone a signifi cant change in the last twenty years of his life. Th is metaphysical conception seems incompatible with the late monadological conclusions. Yet, to explain the body in terms of monadic subordination makes soul and body inseparably united. Far from there being two incompatible ontologies in Leibniz’s late philosophy, we fi nd a seamless connection between what is monadic and what is organic: a single point of (...) view that includes the order of bodies and that of monadic substrates, and a system that accounts for all levels of reality. Ultimately, our topic is whether Leibniz was a realist metaphysician, an idealist one, or whether in the philosophy of his maturity he tried to reconcile the two tendencies. résUMé : Dans cette étude la question est de savoir si la vision de Leibniz sur la métaphysique du corps a subi un changement important dans les vingt dernières années de sa vie. Il s’agit là d’une conception métaphysique qui semble incompatible avec les conclusions monadologiques tardives. Pourtant, expliquer le corps en termes de subordination monadique, rend l’âme et le corps inséparablement unis. Loin d’être deux ontologies incompatibles dans la philosophie de maturité de Leibniz, on y trouve une connexion sans faille entre ce qui est monadique et ce qui est organique : un point de vue unique qui comprendrait l’ordre des corps et celui des substrats monadiques, un système qui rendrait compte de tous les niveaux de la réalité. Finalement, le sujet de discussion consiste à savoir si Leibniz a été un métaphysicien réaliste, un idéaliste, ou bien s’il a essayé de réconcilier les deux tendances dans sa philosophie de la maturité. (shrink)

Through the reconstruction of Leibniz's theory of the degrees of knowledge, this e-book investigates and explores the intrinsic relationship of imagination with space and time. The inquiry into this relationship defines the logic of imagination that characterizes both human and non-human animals, albeit differently, making them two different species of imaginative animals. -/- Lucia Oliveri explains how the emergence of language in human animals goes hand in hand with the emergence of thought and a different form of rationality constituted by (...) logical inferences based on identity and contradiction, principles that are out of reach of the imagination. The e-book concludes that the presence of innate principles in human animals transforms the way in which they sense-perceive the world, thereby constantly increasing the distinction between human and non-human animals. -/- Keywords: human and non-human animals, Leibniz and Locke on ideas, Leibniz on bodies, Leibniz on conceivability, Leibniz on degrees of knowledge, Leibniz on degrees of perception, Leibniz on innate ideas, Leibniz on modality, Leibniz on similarity and congruence, Leibniz on space and time, Leibniz’s philosophy of language, theory of types. (shrink)

O que é a «harmonia universal»? Uma causa, um efeito, um estado-de-coisas? Como Leibniz escreve a este respeito numa carta a Magnus Wedderkopf, a última razão para o intelecto divino e, consequentemente, a vontade de Deus, é a harmonia. Porém, como razão última, nada existe para lá da própria harmonia. Segundo o raciocínio leibniziano, a harmonia pode assim ser perspetivada não só como um estado-de-coisas, mas também como causa da própria organização das coisas. Muito embora a harmonia possa ser perspetivada (...) de diferentes modos, que manifestam uma unidade entre si, o foco desta análise incide justamente sobre a possibilidade de «perceber», «percecionar», ou melhor, «compreender» a harmonia universal. (shrink)

I discuss an objection by Margaret Wilson against Robert Brandom’s interpretation of Leibniz’s account of perceptual distinctness. According to Brandom, Leibniz holds that (i) the relative distinctness of a perception is a function of its inferentially articulated content and (ii) apperception, or awareness, is explicable in terms of degrees of perceptual distinctness. Wilson alleges that Brandom confuses ‘external deducibility’ from a perceptual state of a monad to the existence of properties in the world, with ‘internally accessible content’ for the monad (...) in that state. Drawing on Leibniz, I develop a response to Wilson on Brandom’s behalf. (shrink)