The selections contained in these volumes from the papers and letters of Leibniz are intended to serve the student in two ways: first, by providing a more adequate and balanced conception of the full range and penetration of Leibniz's creative intellectual powers; second, by inviting a fresher approach to his intellectual growth and a clearer perception of the internal strains in his thinking, through a chronological arrangement. Much confusion has arisen in the past through a neglect of the develop ment (...) of Leibniz's ideas, and Couturat's impressive plea, in his edition of the Opuscu/es et fragments (p. xii), for such an arrangement is valid even for incomplete editions. The beginning student will do well, however, to read the maturer writings of Parts II, III, and IV first, leaving Part I, from a period too largely neglected by Leibniz criticism, for a later study of the still obscure sources and motives of his thought. The Introduction aims primarily to provide cultural orientation and an exposition of the structure and the underlying assumptions of the philosophical system rather than a critical evaluation. I hope that together with the notes and the Index, it will provide those aids to the understanding which the originality of Leibniz's scientific, ethical, and metaphysical efforts deserve. (shrink)

In _Buddhism As Philosophy_, Mark Siderits makes the Buddhist philosophical tradition accessible to a Western audience. Offering generous selections from the canonical Buddhist texts and providing an engaging, analytical introduction to the fundamental tenets of Buddhist thought, this revised, expanded, and updated edition builds on the success of the first edition in clarifying the basic concepts and arguments of the Buddhist philosophers.

In this clear, concise account, Siderits makes the Buddhist tradition accessible to a Western audience, offering generous selections from the canonical Buddhist texts and providing an engaging, analytical introduction to the basic tenets of Buddhist thought.

Why was Leibniz so fascinated by Chinese philosophy and culture? What specific forms did his interest take? How did his interest compare with the relative indifference of his philosophical contemporaries and near-contemporaries such as Spinoza and Locke? In this highly original book, Franklin Perkins examines Leibniz's voluminous writings on the subject and suggests that his interest was founded in his own philosophy: the nature of his metaphysical and theological views required him to take Chinese thought seriously. Leibniz was unusual in (...) holding enlightened views about the intellectual profitability of cultural exchange, and in a broad-ranging discussion Perkins charts these views, their historical context, and their social and philosophical ramifications. The result is an illuminating philosophical study which also raises wider questions about the perils and rewards of trying to understand and learn from a different culture. (shrink)

One of the most curious features of Leibniz's late metaphysics is no doubt the idea of the vinculum substantiale, or substantial bond, found principally in the correspondence with Des Bosses. Apparently out of the blue, Leibniz posits some kind of thing that will help account for transubstantiation, "realize" phenomena and ground the reality of corporeal or composite substances. This dissertation is the first extended treatment of Leibniz's doctrine of the vinculum substantiale in English. It begins with an examination of Leibniz's (...) general theory of the nature of composite substance and explains the tension in Leibniz's system regarding the unity of composite substance. It then analyzes Leibniz's correspondence with Des Bosses and other related texts and situates the doctrine of the vinculum substantiale against the backdrop of these difficulties regarding the nature of composite substance. The analysis shows that the standard interpretations of the vinculum substantiale are wrong on a number of important fronts. First, the doctrine of the vinculum substantiale has, in the end, little to do with transubstantiation. Second, although it has little to do with transubstantiation in the end, its nature is determined in large part by Leibniz's account of transubstantiation. Third, the vinculum substantiale is some substance-like thing that exists apart from the monads in a composite; it is not a relation , a dominant monad , a substantial form or the entire composite substance . Fourth, the doctrine of the vinculum substantiale cannot be simply the result of Leibniz's attempts to placate his religious friend , for at one point in the correspondence, Leibniz argues against Des Bosses, who had claimed that the vinculum should be a relation or a mode of a substance, and suggests that the vinculum must indeed be a substance. Fifth, the vinculum substantiale is not found only in the correspondence with Des Bosses, but in a handful of other tests of the same period. These five points ought to be seen as a genuine contribution to the study of Leibniz's metaphysics. (shrink)

When the question is posed as to when Chinese thought influenced Western philosophy, people often turn to the philosophy of the German rationalist Christian Wolff, whose 1721 speech on the virtues of Confucianism led to his academic indictment and eventual ousting from the University of Halle in 1723. In his speech, Wolff lauds the Chinese for attaining virtues by natural revelation rather than appealing to Christian revelation, which made their accomplishments all the more impressive in his eyes (Fuchs 2006). According (...) to Kanamori (1997), the audience of Wolff’s speech “criticized it as the product of atheistic thoughts because they thought that the speaker valued Chinese morality as highly as Christian morals, which were formulated by divine revelation” (p. 299). The worry, in other words, was that Wolff was corrupted by Chinese thought since the atheism of Confucianism may have influenced Wolff’s own views. Almost invariably, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz’s name is involved in conversations that question the Chinese influence on Western philosophy, but it is typically tempered by the standard scholarly interpretation of the Leibniz-China connection, which is that Leibniz respected Chinese thought but was not influenced by it. I will argue against this standard scholarly interpretation by showing how Leibniz could have been influenced by Chinese thought. In particular, I propose that Leibniz’s conception of monads, which is something that we only see after his engagement with Chinese thought, may have been influenced by the Huayan Buddhist concept of li, which creeps into the Neo-Confucianism with which Leibniz had exposure. Should my argument be persuasive, this means that Chinese thought influenced the Western world sooner than has been previously believed. (shrink)