Leibniz’s views on modality are among the most discussed by his interpreters. Although most of the discussion has focused on Leibniz’s analyses of modality, this essay explores Leibniz’s grounding of modality. Leibniz holds that possibilities and possibilia are grounded in the intellect of God. Although other early moderns agreed that modal truths are in some way dependent on God, there were sharp disagreements surrounding two distinct questions: (1) On what in God do modal truths and modal truth-makers depend? (2) What (...) is the manner(s) of dependence by which modal truths and modal truth-makers depend on God? Very roughly, Leibniz’s own answers are: (1) God’s intellect and (2) a form of ontological dependence. The essay first distinguishes Leibniz’s account from two nearby (and often misunderstood) alternatives found in Descartes and Spinoza. It then examines Leibniz’s theory in detail, showing how, on his account, God’s ideas provide both truth-makers for possibilities and necessities and an ontological foothold for those truth-makers, thereby explaining modal truths. Along the way, it suggests several refinements and possible amendments to Leibniz’s grounding thesis. It then defends Leibniz against a pair of recent objections by Robert Merrihew Adams and Andrew Chignell that invoke the early work of Kant. I conclude that whereas Leibniz’s alternative avoids collapsing into yet another form of Spinozism, the alternatives proposed by Adams, Chignell, and the early Kant do not. (shrink)

In Sein und Zeit Heidegger makes several claims about the nature of ‘assertion’ [Aussage]. These claims are of particular philosophical interest: they illustrate, for example, important points of contact and divergence between Heidegger's work and philosophical movements including Kantianism, the early Analytic tradition and contemporary pragmatism. This article provides a new assessment of one of these claims: that assertion is connected to a ‘present-at-hand’ ontology. I also indicate how my analysis sets the stage for a new reading of Heidegger's further (...) claim that assertion is an explanatorily derivative phenomenon. I begin with a loose overview of Heidegger's position and then develop a sharper formulation of the key premises. I go on to argue that existing treatments of the supposed link between assertion and the ‘present-at-hand’ are unsatisfactory, and advance a new, ‘methodological’, interpretation of that link. Finally, I sketch the implications of my interpretation for the further claim that assertion is explanatorily derivative. (shrink)

O presente manual tem como intenção constituir um guia para uma disciplina introdutória de filosofia da linguagem. Foi elaborado a partir da leccionação da disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I na Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto desde 2001. A disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I ocupa um semestre lectivo e proporciona aos estudantes o primeiro contacto sistemático com a área da filosofia da linguagem. Pretende-se que este manual ofereça aos estudantes os instrumentos necessários não apenas para acompanhar uma (...) iniciação ao campo da filosofia da linguagem mas também para o estudo e a investigação autónomos posteriores. Para isso é percorrido um trajecto que conduz das intuições pré-teóricas acerca de linguagem, de que todos dispomos, até um conhecimento disciplinar específico, histórico e temático, da filosofia da linguagem. Em termos práticos, são considerados como precedentes da disciplina de Filosofia da Linguagem I – mesmo se, pelo existem actualmente precedências em sentido estrito – as disciplinas de Lógica I e II e de Filosofia do Conhecimento I e II. Os programas dessas disciplinas nos últimos anos estiveram presentes por trás da elaboração do manual. (shrink)

In this paper I examine G. W. Leibniz’s view on the debate between occasionalists, mere conservationists, and concurrentists. Although commentators agree that Leibniz wants to reject occasionalism and mere conservationism, there is considerable disagreement about whether Leibniz is committed to a theory of divine concurrence that differs from occasionalism and mere conservationism in principled ways. I critically assess three interpretations of Leibniz’s theory in this paper. The first two (those of Robert Adams and Sukjae Lee) differ with respect to important (...) details, but they both assume that Leibniz straightforwardly affirms the continual creation doctrine. I argue that a coherent Leibnizian theory of divine concurrence cannot be constructed on the ontological framework that the continual creation doctrine provides. The third interpretation that I consider holds that Leibniz is willing to affirm the continual creation doctrine only to the extent that it provides an acceptable way of characterizing the dependence of finite substances on God at the level of appearances. It is suggested that Leibniz’s deep metaphysical view of creation and conservation is that in a single act God creates and conserves substances that are non‐spatial and atemporal at the deepest level of metaphysical rigor. I argue that this alternative account of creation and conservation provides a promising ontological framework that can support a coherent theory of creaturely activity that does not collapse into occasionalism or mere conservationism. (shrink)

Leibniz frequently argued that reasons are to be weighed against each other as in a pair of scales, as Professor Marcelo Dascal has shown in his article "The Balance of Reason." In this kind of weighing it is not necessary to reach demonstrative certainty – one need only judge whether the reasons weigh more on behalf of one or the other option However, a different kind of account about rational decision-making can be found in some of Leibniz's writings. In his (...) article "Was Leibniz's Deity an Akrates?" Professor Jaakko Hintikka has argued that Leibniz developed a new vectorial model for rational decisions which is better suited to complicated decisions, where values are complementary to each other. This model, related closely to his work in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, is a heuristic device which helps in finding rational combinations - and in an ideal case an optimum - between plural inclinations to the good. I shall argue that Leibniz applies more or less implicitly both of these models in his practical rationality. In simple situations he applied the pair of scales model and in more complicated situations he applied the vectorial model. (shrink)

The editors of this volume, in their introduction, take Jonathan Bennett’s A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics as the exemplar for the eleven essays collected here, hailing Bennett’s book as setting “new standards for philosophical research on Spinoza”. Bennett’s work is indeed a worthy model. Aside from its more generic virtues, such as learnedness and conceptual rigor, perhaps what is most distinctive about Bennett’s treatment of Spinoza is his method, which he calls the “collegial approach.” This method proceeds by studying “the (...) texts in the spirit of a colleague, an antagonist, a student, a teacher—aiming to learn as much philosophy as one can from studying them.” Bennett has, employing this approach, produced a large number of useful works on early modern philosophers, and his efforts concerning Spinoza are among the best of them. But does Bennett’s example provide any unity for this collection? A number of these essays, Della Rocca’s and Manning’s, for example, indeed take what could be fairly described as a collegial approach to the study of Spinoza. Still others, however, such as Kulstad’s, place more emphasis on historical scholarship than the collegial approach prescribes. This matters, however, very little. Exemplary as Bennett’s work is, the study of the history of early modern philosophy has, in recent years, benefited from the work of scholars using a wide variety of methods. I think it fair to say that the essays collected in this volume, not at all to their detriment, reflect this diversity. (shrink)

Officially, for Kant, judgments are analytic iff the predicate is "contained in" the subject. I defend the containment definition against the common charge of obscurity, and argue that arithmetic cannot be analytic, in the resulting sense. My account deploys two traditional logical notions: logical division and concept hierarchies. Division separates a genus concept into exclusive, exhaustive species. Repeated divisions generate a hierarchy, in which lower species are derived from their genus, by adding differentia(e). Hierarchies afford a straightforward sense of containment: (...) genera are contained in the species formed from them. Kant's thesis then amounts to the claim that no concept hierarchy conforming to division rules can express truths like '7+5=12.' Kant is correct. Operation concepts ( ) bear two relations to number concepts: and are inputs, is output. To capture both relations, hierarchies must posit overlaps between concepts that violate the exclusion rule. Thus, such truths are synthetic. (shrink)

The research programme of the philosophy of information (PI) proposed in 2002 made it an independent area or discipline in philosophical research. The scientific concept of ‘information’ is formally accepted in philosophical inquiry. Hence a new and tool-driven philosophical discipline of PI with its interdisciplinary nature has been established. Philosophy of information is an ‘orientative’ rather than ‘cognitive’ philosophy. When PI is under consideration in the history of Western philosophy, it can be regarded as a shift of large tradition. There (...) are three large traditions at large, known as Platonic, Kantian and Leibniz-Russellian. In the discussion of the position of the possible worlds, we have modal Platonism and modal realism, but both of the theories are made in the framework of Western philosophy. In this essay, it is argued that possible worlds could be seen as worlds in information, which is then an interpretation of modal information theory (MIT). Our interpretation is made on the basis of Leibniz’s lifelong connection with China, a fact often overlooked by the Western philosophers. Possible world theory was influenced by the Neo-Confucianism flourishing since the Song Dynasty of China, the foundation of which is Yijing. It could be argued that Leibniz’s possible world theory was formulated in respect to the impact of the thoughts reflected in Yijing, in that one of the prominent features is the model-theoretic construction of theories. There are two approaches to theory construction, i.e., axiom-theoretic and model-theoretic. The origin of the former is from ancient Greece and the latter from ancient China. And they determined the different features of theoretic structures between the oriental and occidental traditions of science and technology. The tendency of the future development of science and technology is changing from the axiom-theoretic to the model-theoretic orientation, at least the two approaches being complementary each other. To some extent, this means the retrospective of tradition in the turning point of history, and some of the China’s cultural traditions might become the starting points in formulating the future Chinese philosophy of science and technology. (shrink)

This article offers a reconstruction of Derrida’s critique of Leibniz. It suggests that in attempting to fit Leibniz into his conception of the history of metaphysics and the all-embracing notion of logocentrism that underwrites it, Derrida presupposes two regimes of logocentrism: one subjective, the other theological. Subsumed into this second mode, Derrida casts Leibniz as a progenitor of structuralism and the new sciences and technologies of information in order to expose their logocentric foundations. However, in doing so, he ends up (...) sidelining the aspect of Leibniz’s ideas that anticipates the specificity of the new epoch of writing he claims to historicise. The article goes on to argue that to grasp this specificity one must look beyond the “expressivist” schema of exterior representation, which Derrida draws from Husserl’s theory of meaning, and instead look to Leibniz’s own formal-combinatorial concept of expression, which exceeds Derrida’s critical framework. (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)

Leibniz is unclear about the nature of pleasure. In some texts, he describes pleasure as a perception of perfection, while in other texts he describes pleasure as being caused by a perception of perfection. In this article, I disambiguate two senses of “perception of perfection”, which clarifies Leibniz’s considered position. I argue that pleasure is a perception of an increase in a substance’s power which is caused by a substance’s knowledge of a perfection of the universe or God. This reading (...) helps clarify the nature of Leibnizian happiness. Happiness is a cognitive process (akin to a mood), constituted fundamentally out of pleasure, which is grounded in increases in a substance’s power. A rational substance will sustain its happiness so long as it is more powerful than it is weak, and it is engaging in activities that increase its power. (shrink)

Starting from an analogy with Quine’s two dogmas of empiricism, I offer a critique of two dogmas of analytic historiography: the belief in a cleavage between the justification of a ph...

In this paper, I develop an original view of the structure of space—called infinitesimal atomism—as a reply to Zeno’s paradox of measure. According to this view, space is composed of ultimate parts with infinitesimal size, where infinitesimals are understood within the framework of Robinson’s nonstandard analysis. Notably, this view satisfies a version of additivity: for every region that has a size, its size is the sum of the sizes of its disjoint parts. In particular, the size of a finite region (...) is the sum of the sizes of its infinitesimal parts. Although this view is a coherent approach to Zeno’s paradox and is preferable to Skyrms’s infinitesimal approach, it faces both the main problem for the standard view and the main problem for finite atomism, leaving it with no clear advantage over these familiar alternatives. (shrink)

Nei Pensieri sulla vera valutazione delle forze vive Kant stabilisce il concetto di “mondo” per mezzo di una definizione wolffiana. Nonostante questa recezione, Kant non condivide con Wolff e i wolffiani principi fondanti della cosmologia in quanto sapere metafisico. Il contributo chiarisce come Kant metta in evidenza l'inadeguatezza della definizione wolffiana rispetto a problemi basilari della cosmologia, come la possibilità di dimostrare l'unicità del mondo e l'unità dell'universo. A differenza di precedenti interpretazioni, il contributo sostiene che Kant prova a ovviare (...) a questa inadeguatezza proponendo un riesame del concetto di luogo e una nuova concezione delle relazioni esterne della sostanza. In riferimento a questo tema il contributo offre una nuova interpretazione delle riflessioni di Kant sulla dimensionalità dell'estensione mostrandone la rilevanza per comprendere la sua prima concezione dello spazio. (shrink)

Not unlike many contemporary philosophers, Leibniz admitted the existence of temporary truths, true propositions that have not always been or will not always be true. In contrast with contemporary philosophers, though, Leibniz conceived of truth in terms of analytic containment: on his view, the truth of a predicative sentence consists in the analytic containment of the concept expressed by the predicate in the concept expressed by the subject. Given that analytic relations among concepts are eternal and unchanging, the problem arises (...) of explaining how Leibniz reconciled one commitment with the other: how can truth be temporary, if concept-containment is not? This paper presents a new approach to this problem, based on the idea that a concept can be consistent at one time and inconsistent at another. It is argued that, given a proper understanding of what it is for a concept to be consistent, this idea is not as problematic as it may seem at first, and is in fact implied by Leibniz’s general views about propositions, in conjunction with the thesis that some propositions are only temporarily true. (shrink)

This paper explores the theory of freedom that Emilie du Châtelet advances in her essay “On Freedom.” Using contemporary terminology, we can characterize this theory as a version of agent-causal compatibilism. More specifically, the theory has the following elements: (a) freedom consists in the power to act in accordance with one’s choices, (b) freedom requires the ability to suspend desires and master passions, (c) freedom requires a power of self-motion in the agent, and (d) freedom is compatible with moral necessity (...) but not with physical necessity. While these elements may at first appear disparate, the paper shows that they fit together quite well. The resulting theory is a surprising combination of doctrines that appear to be based on Samuel Clarke’s libertarian account of free will and doctrines that are reminiscent of the compatibilist accounts of John Locke, Anthony Collins, Gottfried Leibniz, and Thomas Hobbes. (shrink)

The analysis of logical predication has long philosophical tradition in which one of the central subjects of study is the analysis of the logical form of the proposition. We contemporaneously can say that the way more well-finished of logic predication is propositional function. Historically, the propositional function arises as a logical analysis of the proposition scheme resulting from the convergence of mathematics and logic between the XIX and XX centuries. Two of the main responsible for this convergence were Gottlob Frege (...) (1848 - 1925) and Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). Influenced by Frege's ideas and direct heir of Russell, having been a disciple of this in Cambridge, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 - 1951) has become, in view of the originality of his thought, one of the most discussed and commented thinkers of the twentieth century, especially with the publication of his work entitled "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" (1921). It's in this work that Wittgenstein more considers himself debtor from Frege and Russell, having left explicit mention to them. Then the question that guides the development of this thesis is: what is the meaning of the propositional function of Frege and Russell in the Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1921)? Our goal is, in this sense, to investigate the meaning of the concept of propositional function in the Tractatus (1921). Our starting point is to understand the meaning of the propositional function in Frege and Russell to understand its meaning in the Tractatus (1921). We will focus our analysis on what Wittgenstein calls "propositional variable" (Satzvariable), term that best approximates, in our view, of the propositional function of Frege and Russell. In this sense, our interpretative question was formulated as: what is the meaning of the concept of propositional variable in the Tractatus (1921)? We defend the thesis that the role of the propositional function in Frege and Russell corresponds to the role of the propositional variable in Wittgenstein. (shrink)

This paper offers an introduction to Hermann Cohen’s Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode, and recounts the history of its controversial reception by Cohen’s early sympathizers, who would become the so-called ‘Marburg school’ of Neo-Kantianism, as well as the reactions it provoked outside this group. By dissecting the ambiguous attitudes of the best-known representatives of the school, as well as those of several minor figures, this paper shows that Das Princip der Infinitesimal-Methode is a unicum in the history of philosophy: it represents (...) a strange case of an unsuccessful book’s enduring influence. The “puzzle of Cohen’s Infinitesimalmethode,” as we will call it, can be solved by looking beyond the scholarly results of the book, and instead focusing on the style of philosophy it exemplified. Moreover, the paper shows that Cohen never supported, but instead explicitly opposed, the doctrine of the centrality of the ‘concept of function’, with which Marburg Neo-Kantianism is usually associated. (shrink)

This article responds to Johan Dahlbeck’s ‘Towards a pure ontology: Children’s bodies and morality’, 2014, pp. 8–23). His arguments from Nietzsche and Spinoza do not carry the weight he supposes, and the conclusions he draws from them about pedagogy would be ill-advised in practice.

In the first part ("Determination"), I consider different notions of determination, contrast and compare modal with non-modal accounts and then defend two a-modality theses concerning essence and supervenience. I argue, first, that essence is a a-modal notion, i.e. not usefully analysed in terms of metaphysical modality, and then, contra Kit Fine, that essential properties can be exemplified contingently. I argue, second, that supervenience is also an a-modal notion, and that it should be analysed in terms of constitution relations between properties. (...) In the second part ("A Theory of Truthmaking"), I first review the literature on ontological commitment, and argue that the notion of truthmaking is better suited to play its explanatory rôle. I then argue that we should take truthmaker theory seriously, and that we should provide actual truthmakers for all truths there are. In the last chapter of this part, I review Armstrong's truthmaker theories and argue that they are unsatisfactory. I generalise my criticism to an argument against truthmaker necessitarianism, the view that truthmakers necessarily make true the truths they are truthmakers of. In the third part ("Properties and their Kind(s)"), I discuss qualitative determination. I present and endorse the truthmaker argument for universals, and defend universalism against friends of tropes, states of affairs and facts. I then give a novel characterisation of the important class of intrinsic properties, building on Lewis' work. With a workable notion of intrinsicness at hand, I argue that relations are ontologically – but not "ideologically" – dispensable: qualitative determination in general is a matter of intrinsic structure. In the future, I plan to add two parts and to publish my thesis as a book: In the fourth part ("Exemplification"), I argue for the existence of an exemplification relation tying universals and particulars together. I derive theoretical benefits from this relation by providing adverbialist theories of modality and tense and identify exemplification with a type of parthood. In the fifth part ("Qua qua qua"), I investigate the curious and interesting ontological category of so-called "qua-objects" (Picasso-as-a-painter, for example) and argue that they exist, are not identical with transworld indidivuals or modal parts and that they provide (contingent) truthmakers for all true predications. (shrink)

History witnesses alternative approaches to “the proposition”. The proposition has been referred to as the object of belief, disbelief, and doubt: generally as the object of propositional attitudes, that which can be said to be believed, disbelieved, understood, etc. It has also been taken to be the object of grasping, judging, assuming, affirming, denying, and inquiring: generally as the object of propositional actions, that which can be said to be grasped, judged true or false, assumed for reasoning purposes, etc. The (...) proposition has also been taken to be the subject of truth and falsity: generally as the subject of propositional properties, that which can be said to be true, false, tautological, informative, inconsistent,etc. It has also been taken as the subject and object of logical relations, e.g. that which can be said to imply, be implied, contradict, be contradicted, etc. Prima facie, such properties and relations are non-mental and objective. It has also been taken to be the resultants or products of propositional operations, usually mental or linguistic; e.g. judging, affirming, and denying have been held to produce propositions called judgments, affirmations, and negations, respectively. Propositions have also been taken to be certain declarative sentences. Finally,propositions have been taken to be meanings of certain declarative sentences. This essay is an informal, selective, and incomplete survey of alternative approaches to “the proposition” with special attention to the views of the late American philosopher Peter Hare (1935–2008)and of those who influenced him. DOI: 10.5007/1808-1711.2011v15n1p51. (shrink)

In this paper I offer a fresh interpretation of Leibniz’s theory of space, in which I explain the connection of his relational theory to both his mathematical theory of analysis situs and his theory of substance. I argue that the elements of his mature theory are not bare bodies (as on a standard relationalist view) nor bare points (as on an absolutist view), but situations. Regarded as an accident of an individual body, a situation is the complex of its angles (...) and distances to other co-existing bodies, founded in the representation or state of the substance or substances contained in the body. The complex of all such mutually compatible situations of co-existing bodies constitutes an order of situations, or instantaneous space. Because these relations of situation change from one instant to another, space is an accidental whole that is continuously changing and becoming something different, and therefore a phenomenon. As Leibniz explains to Clarke, it can be represented mathematically by supposing some set of existents hypothetically (and counterfactually) to remain in a fixed mutual relation of situation, and gauging all subsequent situations in terms of transformations with respect to this initial set. Space conceived in terms of such allowable transformations is the subject of Analysis Situs. Finally, insofar as space is conceived in abstraction from any bodies that might individuate the situations, it encompasses all possible relations of situation. This abstract space, the order of all possible situations, is an abstract entity, and therefore ideal. (shrink)

This paper examines the Leibnizian influence in Deleuze's theory of the spatium. Leibniz's critique of Cartesian extension and Newtonian space leads him to a conception of space in terms of internal determination and internal difference. Space is thus understood as a structure of individual relations internal to substances. Making some Nietzschean corrections to Leibniz, Deleuze understands the spatium in terms of individuating differences instead of individual relations. Leibnizian space is thus transformed into a genetic space producing both extension (quantity) and (...) quality. (shrink)

This essay considers why English-speaking scholars have been inclined to engage Indian philosophical materials “philosophically,” as opposed to purely historically. That is to say, they have tended to ask questions about the philosophical significance and even validity of the theories they encounter in Indian philosophical writings, often approaching them critically in the way philosophers assess contemporary philosophical ideas. I first attempt to explain how this phenomenon has come about. Then I attempt to justify the philosophical approach to the study of (...) Indian philosophical texts by showing how it complements, in various ways, the historical-philological study of these materials. (shrink)

Imaguire-Guido_On-the-ontology-of-relations.

This paper develops the account of our experience and knowledge of time put forward by Russell in his Theory of Knowledge manuscript. While Russell ultimately abandons the project after it receives severe criticism from Wittgenstein (though several chapters derived from it appear as articles in The Monist), in producing this manuscript time, and particularly the notion of the present time, play a central role in Russell’s account of experience. In the present discussion, I propose to focus largely on Russell’s writing (...) in 1912–3, comparing this with some of the remarks made about memory by Moore in 1910–11. My motivation is twofold. First as a matter of scholarship, to reveal an original interpretation of Russell’s notion of immediate memory and of his view of our experience and knowledge of time over this period. Second as a matter of philosophical curiosity. There has been an increase in interest in temporal experience in contemporary discussions of the philosophy of mind, from memory and the imagination to the temporal aspects of perceptual experience. Russell’s writing in 1912–3 provides us with a philosophically interesting account of temporal experience which has points of contact with contemporary debates. (shrink)

There is little in Quine’s philosophy that is more significant and more puzzling than his commitment to naturalism. On the one hand, naturalism seems to play an unparalleled role in explaining the development and unorthodox nature of Quine’s views. On the other hand, however, naturalism is deeply elusive. Not only is there disagreement amongst commentators about how to understand the nature and development of naturalism, but also Quine’s own characterisations of naturalism are often thinly sketched and leave us with few (...) clues as to how we should understand naturalism and its origins. In light of these reasons, it is a significant challenge to arrive at an accurate picture of what naturalism amounts to and how it fits into Quine’s philosophical development. The purpose of this thesis is to provide an analysis of Quine’s commitment to naturalism, and to highlight the ways in which this analysis illuminates the surrounding landscape of his philosophical views. Here, I endeavour to show that careful analysis into what Quine’s commitment to naturalism amounts to establishes that this commitment is not as longstanding as is often thought. More specifically, I argue that Quine is not committed to naturalism until shortly after ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’, and this reveals that Quine’s philosophical work cannot be felicitously understood as revolving around a stable commitment to naturalism. Having established this, I then explain the ways in which this analysis informs a thorough interpretation of several vital aspects of his thought, such as the development of his attitude towards analyticity, and his sustained commitment to empiricism. I believe that these findings motivate and lay the foundations of a cautious and appropriately nuanced understanding of Quine. (shrink)

In a growing number of papers, one encounters arguments to the effect that certain philosophical views are objectionable because they would imply that there are necessary truths for whose necessity there is no explanation. That is, they imply that there are propositions p such that (a) it is necessary that p, but (b) there is no explanation why it is necessary that p. For short, they imply that there are “brute necessities.” Therefore, the arguments conclude, the views in question should (...) be rejected in favor of rival views under which the necessities would be explained. This style of argument raises a number of important and difficult questions. Do necessary truths really require explanation? Are they not paradigms of truths that either need no explanation or automatically have one, being in some sense self‐explanatory? If some necessary truths do require or admit of explanation, what types of explanation, are available? Are some necessary truths explained by other necessary truths? Are some necessary truths self‐explanatory? Are all necessary truths either self‐explanatory or explained by others? Or are there some necessary truths that are truly brute? This article surveys several representative arguments from brute necessity as well as a variety of answers to the questions above, noting their bearing on arguments from bruteness. (shrink)

Leibniz studies is a distinctive kind of joy. The seventeenth-century polymath made remarkable impacts in a wide-ranging number of domains and their subdomains. The attempt to study one domain in d...

Leibniz believed in a God that has the power to create beings and whose existence could be a priori demonstrated. Kant objected that similar demonstrations all presuppose the false claim that existence is a real property. Russell added that if existence were a real property Leibniz should have concluded that God does not actually have the power to create anything at all. First, I show that Leibniz’ conception of existence is incompatible with the one that Russell presupposes. Subsequently, I argue (...) that on Leibniz’ conception of existence Russell’s objection is immediately undermined. (shrink)

This article aims to make further progress in revising the standard account of Wolff’s philosophy as a popularisation and systematisation of Leibniz’s doctrines. It focuses on the topic of the communication among substances and the metaphysics of simples and activity underlying it. It is argued that Wolff does not accept the pre-established harmony in its orthodox Leibnizian version. The article explains Wolff’s departure from Leibniz’s PEH as stemming from his rejection of Leibniz’s construal of the activity of every simple as (...) representational power and of the metaphysics of unity and activity in which that construal is rooted. (shrink)

This article discusses Leibniz’s claim that every substance is endowed with the property of perception in connection with Platonism, rationalism and the problem of substance monism. It is argued that Leibniz’s ascription of perception to every substance relies on his Platonic conception of finite things as imitations of God, in whom there is ‘infinite perception’. Leibniz’s Platonism, however, goes beyond the notion of imitation, including also the emanative causal relation and the logical (i.e. definitional) priority of the absolute over the (...) limited. It is proposed that Leibniz’s endorsement of Platonism, in conjunction with some rationalist elements of his philosophy, implies a monistic conception of particulars as modifications of a single substance. Following some scholars and opposing others, the article offers evidence that Leibniz accepted this implication during the last years of his Paris period. However, it is further argued that it was precisely the idea of perception as a property of every substance that allowed Leibniz to find a way out of monism after that period. More specifically, the article defends the view that what made room for ontological pluralism within Leibniz’s rationalist and Platonic outlook was the idea that perception is the property which constitutes the very being of substances: substances are their perceptions. (shrink)

The late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century debate over ‘internal’ and ‘external’ relations is well explored, as far as its course in Britain is concerned. F. H. Bradley’s idealistic internalism, on the one hand, and Bertrand Russell’s realistic externalism, on the other, were at the center of this debate. Less well known, however, is that there was also a discussion about relations in the United States at the time. The central figures in this discussion were Edward Gleason Spaulding and John Dewey. (...) Like Russell, Spaulding advocated a realist-inspired externalism, while Dewey criticized this viewpoint from a pragmatist perspective. The aim of the present paper is to reconstruct the exchange between Spaulding and Dewey and to elaborate the specifics of this exchange. In doing so it will emerge, among other things, that, in contrast to Bradley’s idealist rejection of externalism, Dewey’s pragmatist attempt at a refutation was more in line with common sense and science and that Spaulding’s version of externalism differed markedly from Russell’s in its strong empirical orientation. Overall, an undeservedly forgotten chapter in the history of early twentieth-century American philosophy is revisited and reassessed. (shrink)

O problema da corporalidade em Leibniz se vincula necessariamente à discussão sobre o estatuto da matéria em uma Metafísica cuja base são as mônadas imateriais. Veremos que, neste contexto, o material deverá ser fenomênico, mas nem por isso ilusório. O objetivo deste trabalho é mostrar como o campo fenomênico, cujo caso exemplar é o corpo, pode ganhar um suporte metafísico e racionalmente justificado, constituindo o que Leibniz chama de fenômenos bem fundados. Para tal, deverá ser feito um exame cuidadoso da (...) natureza das Forças no pensamento leibniziano e de como elas apresentam o vínculo procurado entre Física e Metafísica. Leibniz on Phenomenon and CorporalityThe problem of corporality in Leibniz is necessarily attached to the discussion on the nature of matter in a Metaphysics whose basis are the immaterial monads. We will see that, in this context, although the material must be phenomenic, it is not necessarily ilusory. The aim of this paper is to show how the phenomenic domain, whose exemplar case is the body, may be metaphysically founded and rationally justifyed, constituting what Leibniz calls well founded phenomena. In order to do it, it is necessary to examine Leibniz's conception of the nature of the Forces and how they could present the link between Physics and Metaphysics. (shrink)

Este ensaio busca oferecer uma coleção de materiais historiográficos, em sua maior parte traduzidos do alemão, a bem da contextualização mais detalhada do papel de Moisés Mendelssohn no debate filosófico alemão da segunda metade do XVIII, em especial no que concerne à provável influência de suas reflexões em Kant e Hegel. Inicio com a consideração das novidades trazidas à tona por M. Serres no que concerne à interpretação de Leibniz, e o faço com o intuito de introduzir em sentido amplo (...) a problemática da _característica universal_, que servirá de fio condutor neste percurso. Tal introdução me permite definir alguns dos termos mediante os quais observaremos o debate entre Kant e Mendelssohn, a começar com a análise de alguns aspectos do concurso sobre a cientificidade da metafísica proposto pela Academia de Ciências da Prússia em 1762, e em seguida com a observação, mesmo que sumária, de alguns outros momentos importantes do contato entre ambos os filósofos. Meu objetivo é ilustrar a posição mendelssohniana, mesmo que de maneira introdutória, no intuito de se lançar alguma luz sobre seu projeto crítico de impor limites à razão teórica da matemática clássica e à razão prática da mística cabalística – diapasão em que se exercita a mágica e o fascínio do ideário da característica universal – o que promete, por sua vez, iluminar tanto alguns aspectos fundamentais do projeto da _Crítica da Razão Pura_ de Kant quanto da _Ciência da Lógica_ de Hegel. À guisa de conclusão relatarei, mesmo que de maneira episódica e sumária, aspectos da _querela do panteísmo_ e indicaremos brevemente como Kant e Hegel, de maneiras opostas, a ela reagiram. (shrink)

Review of Russell’s Philosophy of Logical Atomism 1897–1905, by Jolen Galaugher (Palgrave Macmillan 2013).

Everyone interested in Leibniz ought to read this fine, stimulating book. It is admirably written in the tradition exemplified by the references below and will especially appeal to those familiar with the analytical exposition in those works.

In 1956, a series of BBC radio talks was published in London under the title The Revolution in Philosophy . This short book included papers by prominent British philosophers of the day, such as Sir Alfred Ayer and Sir Peter Strawson, with an introduction by Gilbert Ryle. Although there is precious little in it concerning the precise nature of the ‘revolution’ alluded to in the title, it is quite clear that these lectures were meant to celebrate in an insular manner (...) the birth of ‘analytic philosophy’ at the hands of Moore, Russell, and Wittgenstein. The use of the word ‘revolution’ to describe the birth of ‘analytical philosophy’ and its rise to near complete dominance in the British universities thus carries with it connotations of a forcible substitution of one philosophical order by a new one that itself owed nothing to the past. To me, however, this talk of ‘revolution’ carries with it a false view of the history of British philosophy: it isn’t ‘historical’ at all, just ideological; it was introduced for a strategic purpose, namely that of encouraging new generations of students to avoid reading the work of earlier philosophers or becoming interested in the problems that concerned them. I shall sketch the broad outlines of a landscape that involves, when limited to the specific topic of the theory of knowledge, no radical break, where no entirely new order replaces an older one: the options, so to speak, and even some of the arguments are the same before and after the soi-disant ‘revolution’. (shrink)

Russell’s critique of substance monism is an ideal starting point from which to understand some main concepts in Spinoza’s difficult metaphysics. This paper provides an in-depth examination of Spinoza’s proof that only one substance exists. On this basis, it rejects Russell’s interpretation of Spinoza’s theory of reality as founded upon the logical doctrine that all propositions consist of a predicate and a subject. An alternative interpretation is offered: Spinoza’s substance is not a bearer of properties, as Russell implied, but an (...) eternally active, self-actualizing creative power. Eventually, Spinoza the Monist and Russell the Pluralist are at one in holding that process and activity rather than enduring things are the most fundamental realities. (shrink)

In this contribution, we try to show that traditional Aristotelian logic can be useful (in a non-trivial way) for computational thinking. To achieve this objective, we argue in favor of two statements: (i) that traditional logic is not classical and (ii) that logic programming emanating from traditional logic is not classical logic programming.