Suppose you are asked to be the substitute teacher for a high school physics class. Suppose part of your assignment is to explain to the students all about the subatomic structure of a typical macroscopic object, such as a wooden table. Here is a speech that you are likely to find yourself making at some point during your lesson.

This thesis argues for the significance of G.W Leibniz’s concepts of ‘expression’, ‘force’ and ‘perspective’ to the writings of Walter Benjamin and Gilles Deleuze. By triangulating the philosophical projects of Benjamin, Deleuze and Leibniz, as has not yet been done, the thesis opens up new perspectives and provides new readings of all three. Designating a structure of relations in which every simple substance or monad serves as a ‘living mirror’ of the universe, Leibniz’s concept of ‘expression’ denotes virtual inclusion or (...) immanence. His concept of ‘force’ denotes the self-incurred drive that motivates the monad to action, while his ‘perspectivism’ defines the monads individuality through their infinite points of view on the world. Deleuze and Benjamin, I suggest, appropriate Leibniz’s concepts as part of their respective critiques of epistemology, which target Kant’s conception of experience as a hierarchic relation of representation, allowing them to redefine experience as non-hierarchal, de-centred and embodied. At the same time, for both, Leibniz’s philosophy serves to criticize historicist views of chronological time. Leibniz’s perspectivism is reformulated by Deleuze and Benjamin as part of their respective critical theories of the image, culminating in their later formulations of the ‘dialectical’ and ‘crystal’ image, respectively. The conclusion however, highlights the diverging paths formed by their returns to Leibniz. Benjamin develops a politically effective ‘historical perspectivism’ in which the discontinuity of history enables ‘true historical time’ to replace chronological time. Deleuze, on the other hand, opts for an ahistorical pure form of temporality, his ‘mannerist perspectivism’ describing a continuous, perpetually repeated ‘becoming’. (shrink)

In this dissertation, I develop an interpretation of Leibniz on modality and free will. I do so for two reasons: first, I am attempting to revitalize the notion that Leibniz is the predecessor of contemporary modal semantics; second, I am using Leibniz's philosophical system to motivate responses to contemporary philosophical issues in modality and free will. In Chapter One, I argue that Leibniz's basic principles are plausible theoretical tools that ought to be used by contemporary philosophers in developing their philosophical (...) systems. In Chapter Two, I develop Leibniz's views on the nature of individuals. I argue that possible individuals are actually of the same sort as individuals in the actual world--possible individuals and actual individuals are complete creatures that do not differ ontologically from each other. In Chapter Three, I argue that Leibniz's views on possible individuals make him a modal realist and compare his view with contemporary modal realism in order to support this claim. I also argue that counterparts avoid many of the problems set for them by contemporary thinkers; I end with the ways that Leibniz's view differs from contemporary accounts. In Chapter Four, I argue that Leibniz provides two different analyses of modality. The first is an infinite analysis account; the second is a possible worlds account. I argue that these two accounts are compatible and amount to two different descriptions of the same theory of modality. I address objections to each account in order to show this. In Chapter Five, I argue that Leibniz is a compatibilist about free will. Importantly, I argue that it is precisely Leibniz's account of modality that allows for this compatibilism, as against a necessitarian like Spinoza. I then use Leibniz's account to challenge contemporary libertarians about free will on the basis of the principle of sufficient reason. I also show how Leibniz can help semicompatibilism avoid a worry concerning necessitarianism. At the end of the day, I claim that adopting elements of Leibniz's system can help us better understand modality and the freedom of the will and can be an aid in furthering contemporary philosophical theory. (shrink)