To achieve the common origin of "I" and nature, Schelling takes a new approach to the philosophy of nature; demonstrating the falsity of dualism between "I" and nature and showing how nature cannot be reduced to a mechanistic series of causes and effects. By integrating Leibniz's principle of inner purposiveness, Spinoza's monism, and the Kantian concept of teleology, he interprets an organic idea of nature as a totality and founds "I" on the ground of this organic nature. Schelling turns to (...) Leibniz's vitalistic philosophy for presents a self-organizing scheme of nature, and he uses the intensive doctrine of substance to overcome the dualism of modern philosophy. In this view, the parts are to be deduced, in a purely analytic way from the whole, and each unit must include an infinite plurality, so the difference between subject and object is in degree, not in type; Nature is all alive, and no real object is entirely inorganic but is only in a lower degree of organic. In Schilling's point of view, the highest degree of organization of the infinite is the creativity of the artist, who is the culmination of all the organic forces of nature. The main question of this essay is about the fundamental role of Schelling's organic interpretation in his aesthetic essence. in this regard, while the impact of Leibniz's vitalistic approach is analyzed, the reinforcement of the activity of "I" in Schilling's system of thought is examined. (shrink)

Leibniz propôs mais de um conceito para descrever filosoficamente a substância. Ironia instrutiva, esta pluralidade que tem por fim uma explicação unificada da realidade culminou em uma definição dos componentes fundamentais do mundo – as mônadas – como unidades que abrigam a multiplicidade. Estas substâncias, bem como a sua função essencial de se exprimirem mutuamente, apenas se tornam plenamente inteligíveis quando observamos os conceitos anteriores, de que a filosofia madura de Leibniz herdou algumas intuições. Guiando-nos pelas obras-chave do filósofo e (...) físico alemão, procuraremos retraçar esse percurso intelectual, a fim não de esboçar um hipotético sistema seu, mas de _unificar_ o tratamento que ele dispensou à _unidade_. Tal hipótese de leitura concorda fundamentalmente com aquela sustentada por Michel Fichant, mas traz pontuais acréscimos ou desacordos, que serão indicados neste artigo. (shrink)

The recent scholarly promotion of Pierre Gassendi to a key position in the formative modern period raises doubts about the portrayal of Descartes as “the father” of the post-Scholastic philosophical conceptualization. I defend the Cartesio-centric account against Thomas M. Lennon’s elliptical alternative. The defense necessitates a reassessment of the root nature of Descartes’s contribution—specifically of the interplay between philosophy and science, the latter being the crucial extraphilosophical component of the new practico-cognitive ensemble. This raises questions about the “philosophically” of Descartes’s (...) activity, and with that questions about the quality of modernity. By way of explaining Gassendis nonoriginative position, his attitude toward the post-Scholastic Humanist thought that Descartes simply repudiated is examined. (shrink)

One of Leibniz’s most original ideas is his conception of the living individual as a hierarchical network of living beings whose relationships are essential to the proper functioning of its organic body. This idea is also valid to explain any existing order in nature that depends on the set of relationships of living beings that inhabit it. Both ideas are present in the conception of the natural world that Leibniz presents in his Monadology through his idea of biological infinitism. According (...) to this idea, nature consists of infinite theatres where living beings unfold their vital functions. Through this idea Leibniz defines both the biological complexity of nature and the living individual, which is in turn a portion of nature that unfolds from an infinite set of inferior living beings. The thesis that I defend in this work is that this Leibnizian understanding of the living individual and the natural complexity that includes infinite hierarchical levels of individuality has a marked ecological sense, as we would say today. This Leibnizian metaphysics of individuality that we could call biological is also interesting in light of the recent studies in the philosophy of biology. (shrink)