This paper raises complication for the standard interpretive view of Liebniz's mature metaphysical system as idealist. Body-realist affirmations are found in his writings up to his death, in bulk and diversity very difficult to accommodate to phenomenalist or idealist construal. Claims of Leibnizian inconsistency and indecisiveness do not seem adequately to account for them. The view that body is real for Liebniz, though not a substance, is explored. Alternative non-idealist interpretations of the system are considered, the most (...) plausible argued to be a variety of dualism. At the same time, dialectical features of Leibnizian philosophy make it a matter of proper caution not to settle emphatically on a decided conclusion of the issue. (shrink)

I argue Leibniz could not have been a dualist since his notion of matter is not defined by extension but by mentalistic "primitive passive force." So Leibniz was some kind of idealist. However, Leibniz was neither a phenomenal idealist like Berkeley nor a conceptualist idealist like Hegel. Instead, despite some suggestions in favor of the latter kind of idealism, Leibniz must be regarded as an idealist who admitted extraconceptual considerations irreducible to materialism.

As an idealist, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz could not recognize anything corporeal as substantial. However, under the influence of Cartesian terminology, he devoted considerable effort to analysing the corporeal world, while not recognizing its real substantiality of course. Leibniz took the concept of substance from Plato, Aristotle and the scholastics, but developed it in two ways. It is a well-known fact that Leibniz introduced the term ‘corporeal substance’ in his letter to Antoine Arnauld dated to October 1687. (...) In the letter, Leibniz understands an object of nature, like an animal or a plant, as ‘corporeal substance’. In the very same letter, Leibniz introduces the terms ‘indivisibility’ and ‘phenomenon’. Every corporeal substance can be real only as a unity, i.e. by being indivisible. Such entity must have a soul or at least an entelechy. In an opposite case, that entity would not be a real unity but just a phenomenon. No corporeal entity is indivisible and therefore not a substance. The paper aims at introducing Leibniz’s distinction between substances and phenomena and taking a closer look at the historicalphilosophical influences Leibniz experienced while developing his views of the corporeal world. Aristotle and Descartes will receive most of the attention, of course, as the concepts of ‘entelechy’ and ‘hylomorphism’ were introduced by the former, and the understanding of corporeal substance as determined by extension alone is part of the latter. The core of the original critique by Leibniz takes off from the properties of the continuum as well as the nature of shape, motion and extension. The case of continuum will receive special attention. It is analysed with the help of the novel approaches by Samuel Levey and Vassil Vidinsky. Leibniz was critical about our poor understanding of the continuum but his own interpretation of it was not fully consistent either. Although the new developments enable us to take a fresh look that has not been possible so far, the issue remains open for further study. (shrink)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was one of the central figures of seventeenth-century philosophy, and a huge intellectual figure in his age. This book from Glenn A. Hartz is an advanced study of Leibniz's metaphysics. Hartz analyzes a very complicated topic, widely discussed in contemporary commentaries on Leibniz, namely the question of whether Leibniz was a metaphysical idealist, realist, or whether he tried to reconcile both trends in his mature philosophy. Because Leibniz is notoriously unclear about (...) this, much has been written on the subject. In recent years, the debate has centered on whether it is possible to maintain compatibility between the two trends. In this controversial book, Hartz demonstrates that it is not possible to maintain compatibility of idealist and realist views - they must be understood as completely separate theories. As the first major work on realism in Leibniz's metaphysics, this key text will interest international Leibniz scholars, as well as students at the graduate level. (shrink)

The prevailing consensus among leibniz scholars is that Leibniz’s rational psychology is thoroughly egoist. To take a recent and especially prominent example, Nicholas Jolley compares Leibniz to his philosophical adversaries Hobbes and Spinoza in just this respect. He writes,Leibniz is as uncompromising as they are in maintaining that no one deliberately does anything except for the sake of his own welfare, for one seeks the good even of those whom we love for the sake of the (...) pleasure we derive from their happiness. According to this standard reading, Leibniz argues that all acts of altruism are merely apparent; ultimately, he maintains, such acts are done for the sake of the pleasure they bring about in the agent. (shrink)

Debates in Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses provides an in-depth, engaging introduction to important issues in modern philosophy. It presents 13 key interpretive debates to students, and ranges in coverage from Descartes' Meditations to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. -/- Debates include: -/- Did Descartes have a developed and consistent view about how the mind interacts with the body? Was Leibniz an idealist, or did he believe in corporeal substances? What is Locke's theory of personal identity? (...) Could there be a Berkeleian metaphysics without God? Did Hume believe in causal powers? What is Kant's transcendental idealism? -/- Each of the thirteen debates consists of a well known article or book chapter from a living philosopher, followed by a new response from a different scholar, specially commissioned for this volume. Every debate is prefaced by an introduction written for those coming upon the debates for the first time and followed by an annotated list for further reading. The volume starts with an introduction that explains the importance and relevance of the modern period and its key debates to philosophy and ends with a glossary that covers terms from both the modern period and the study of the history of philosophy in general. -/- Debates in Modern Philosophy will help students evaluate different interpretations of key texts from modern philosophy, and provide a model for constructing their own positions in these debates. (shrink)

Vittorio Hösle is internationally highly regarded for his attempt to revive objective idealism – the philosophical line along which he situates the positions of Plato, Aristotle, most medieval philosophers, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schelling, Hegel, but also Peirce and Whitehead – as a philosophical system capable of holding together the transcendental dimension of synthetic a priori judgments with the intelligibility and objectivity of being. In this interview, he discusses his work over the past decades, starting from the “Philosophische Lehrjahre” (“years of (...) philosophical apprenticeship”) between Regensburg, Tübingen, Bochum and Freiburg and from the meetings with masters and significant interlocutors (such as Tóth, Thieme, Wandschneider, Beierwaldes, Lohr, Böckenförde, without forgetting Apel and Jonas). Multiple themes dot the path of thought retraced in this dialogue: from the rethematization of Hegel’s (and Vico’s) objective idealism through transcendental pragmatics to the delineation of the relationship between ethics and politics via a theory of the social and the intent of a normative foundation; from the need for a thought that faces the ecological crisis to the reinterpretation of sociobiology; and finally, from the project of an intersubjectively valid understanding to the importance of a theory of comedy. What emerges is the philosophical self-portrait of a cosmopolitan intellectual who was able to grasp the best from inherited and acquired cultural traditions: German culture, inherited from his father; Italian culture, inherited from his mother; and American culture, acquired by moving to the USA. The interview was realised on 17 April 2024 at the University of Trento, as part of the second series of lectures “Voices from Contemporary Philosophy”. (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)

Developments over the past four decades have secured Immanuel Kant’s status as being for contemporary philosophers what the sea was for Swinburne: the great, gray mother of us all. And Kant mattered as much for the classical American pragmatists as he does for us today. But we look back at that sepia-toned age across an extended period during which Anglophone philosophy largely wrote Kant out of its canon. The founding ideology of Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, articulating the rationale and (...) fighting faith for the rising tide of analytic philosophy, was forged in a recoil from the perceived defects of a British idealism inspired by Hegel. Mindful of the massive debt evidently and self-avowedly owed by Hegel to Kant, and putting aside neo-Kantian readings of Kant as an empiricist philosopher of science that cast him in a light they would have found more favorable, Russell and Moore diagnosed the idealist rot as having set in already with Kant. For them, and for many of their followers down through the years, the progressive current in philosophy should be seen to have run directly from Locke, Leibniz, and Hume, to Mill and Frege, without any dangerous diversion into the oxbow of German idealism. (shrink)

Christia Mercer’s magnum opus, Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origin and Development, long awaited, is finally about to appear from Cambridge University Press. It was well worth the wait. The book is impressive in the wealth of detailed argumentation and historical background that fills the work. Mercer’s general thesis is still that Leibniz’s mature thought emerges from a view that Leibniz shares with his teachers, an eclectic philosophy that sees truth lurking in many places, and that he sees the (...) task of the philosopher as mining the past for its truths, and showing how the different philosophies can be made consistent with one another and made into a single system. As in her earlier work, the resolution of the conflict between Aristotelianism and the new mechanism is important. But Mercer also claims to have discovered something else utterly unexpected, a strong Platonistic strain in seventeenth-century German thought. While Aristotelianism and mechanism may have dominated thought about the physical world, Mercer has discovered strongly Platonistic strains in the conception of God and the soul, both in the young Leibniz and in his teachers. Even more surprising, Mercer argues that the main tenets of Leibniz’s mature thought emerged out of this mixture, and did so as early as 1670 and 1671. In particular, she argues that both the pre-established harmony and the idealism characteristic of his mature thought emerged in these years, as the result of an attempt to harmonize different elements of Aristotelian, Platonic, and mechanist philosophies, in response to particular problems in philosophy, theology, and even physics that gripped him at that time. If she is right, this will fundamentally alter our view of Leibniz. (shrink)

The problem at the center of this essay is how one can reconcile the continuity of space with a monadological theory of matter, according to which matter is ultimately composed of simple elements, a problem that greatly exercised Leibniz, the Wolffians, and Kant. The underlying purpose of this essay is to illustrate my reading of Kant’s philosophical development, and of his relation to the Wolffians and Leibniz, according to which, (a), this development was fueled by ‘home-grown’ problems that (...) arose within the framework of the Wolffian philosophy from which Kant started out, and, (b), on his journey to critical idealism, Kant gradually moved away from Wolffianism, but closer to Leibniz, which, however, he came to realize only some years after the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason. This reading is illustrated by showing that the problem of how to reconcile the continuity of space with a monadological theory of matter is a problem that Kant inherits from Leibniz and the Wolffians, in whose thinking it already plays an important role, that Leibniz’s mature solution to the problem differs markedly from the Wolffian solution, and that Kant’s early, pre-critical solution is largely Wolffian, while his later critical solution is largely Leibnizian, as he himself notes with gleeful satisfaction. The discussion also reveals that this problem is one of the key problems that fueled Kant’s philosophical development and, eventually, led him to the discovery of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Interest in idealism has increased substantially since the publication of Sprigge’s Vindication of Absolute Idealism in 1984,1 and again with more vigor over the last decade in the context of the mind-body problem and panpsychism. This will probably not come as a surprise to objective idealists, among which Vittorio Hosle has proposed that philosophy cycles through stages with some form of idealism as end point of each cycle.2 More recently, David Chalmers mused about a corresponding development in the worldview of (...) single individuals from materialism over dualism and panpsychism to idealism.3 Traditional accounts of idealism include for instance those of Plato, Plotinus, Leibniz, Berkeley, or Hegel. An overview of contemporary approaches is given in the article by Chalmers, where he mentions amongst others a recent collection of essays on idealism,4 but also for instance the (recently extended5) works of Philip Goff on Russellian monism.6 A more classically oriented collection of works on idealism was edited by Hosle and Suarez Muller.7 In his article ‘Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem’, David Chalmers presents a classification of possible versions of idealism with the goal of assessing the prospects of idealism in the context of the mind-body problem without having to pay too much attention to its ‘historical baggage’. This goal seems to me highly laudable and the resulting classification an important contribution to the contemporay discussion. In addition, the conclusions drawn from the subsequent analysis seem very plausible from the viewpoints of dualistic, panpsychistic and similar thinking. I nevertheless believe that the presented classification is not really adequate to capture the core of traditional idealistic thinking, which in turn leads to somewhat distorted conclusions about the opportunities for idealism to play a role for understanding the mind-body problem: First, the distinction between micro- macro- and cosmic idealism ist not fitting well into the idealistic venture. Instead, idealism is artificially reduced to a bad alternative to panpsychism. Secondly, the initially mentioned, but afterwards not discussed again difference between subjectinvolving and non-subject-involving idealism needs to be further extended, to account for the special role of subjects in traditional accounts of objective idealism. To elaborate on this, I will first give a short summary of Chalmers classification and some of the mentioned problems with idealism. Afterwards I will come back to my two objections in more detail. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Leibniz has enjoyed a prominent place in the history of thought about possible worlds.' I shall argue that on the feading interpretation of Leibniz's account of contingency — an ingenious interpretation with ample textual support — possible worlds may be invoked by Leibniz only on pain of inconsistency. Leibnizian contingency, as reconstructed in detail by Robert C. Sleigh, Jr.,z will be shown to preclude propositions with different truth-values in different possible worlds.

The main purpose of the article is to get clear what Leibniz's concerns about relations were. His: I do not believe that you will admit an accident that is in two subjects at the same time. My judgement about relations is that paternity in David is one thing, sonship in Solomon another, but that the relation common to both is a merely mental thing whose basis is the modifications of the individuals is best seen as akin to: Father is (...) true of David. Son is true of Solomon. But Being a father of is not true of any individual. Leibniz, like modern nominalist Nelson Goodman, could not allow the ordered pair . To establish this I must argue against Hidé Ishiguro's claim that Leibniz should have straightforwardly constructed a logic of relations, and Jaakko Hintikka's claim that Leibniz could have allowed the use of relational predicates in such forms as (Ex) Rax and (Ey) Ryb. I must also argue that what they say about the windowlessness doctrine (especially the as if formulation) is beside the point. (shrink)

Among the readers of Swedenborg, the Swedish thinker’s ‘theory of correspondences’ is often interpreted as treating empirical realities as only imperfect manifestations of spiritual realities. This interpretation that ascribes idealism to Swedenborg was originally proposed by Kant in the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer. Although Kant criticizes Swedenborg’s theory, he considers it no inferior to the theories of Leibniz and Wolf, which can entice a reader of Swedenborg to take Kant’s interpretation at face value: even if Kant did not agree (...) with Swedenborg, at least he took him to be on par with these ‘serious’ philosophers. However, this paper attempts to show that unless a reader of Swedenborg is willing to endorse Kant’s disdain towards ‘enthusiasm’, Swedenborg should not be interpreted as a Platonic idealist, because he devised his theory of correspondences precisely in order to avoid such idealism. As few scholars have recently pointed out, Swedenborg, like Kant, thinks that all our cognitive abilities operate in the limits of time and space, i.e. in the empirical world, but for Swedenborg, as opposed to Kant, this does not imply that we cannot acquire knowledge of the spiritual world. According to these scholars, Swedenborg thinks that such knowledge can only be acquired mystically, which would render him a Platonic idealist, just as Kant claimed. However, this paper claims that pace the aforementioned scholars, this is not the only or even the default way of coming to know the spiritual world according to Swedenborg. The paper argues that when positing that every empirical and spiritual reality ‘correspond’ with one another, Swedenborg uses the Latin word correspondere in a technical sense. In other words, he thinks that any human cognition is both spiritual in the sense of involving a logical relationship between extension and spirit, and empirical by occurring in time and space. Thus, by cognising something in the empirical world, we also cognise something in the spiritual world, even if we were not capable of knowing spiritual realities in themselves. This element of Swedenborg’s theory distances him from Platonic idealism. The paper concludes with a suggestion that Kant might have perceived the limitations of his interpretation of Swedenborg later on, as signalled by the fact that in the early 1780s, Kant extended his conception of Platonism to include all philosophy other than his own. However, taking this road would make Platonic idealism an uninformative concept for an interpreter of Swedenborg and apt to be replaced by the term ‘enthusiasm’–the concept that Kant used when describing those with whom he disagreed. (shrink)

Leibnizian metaphysics is traditionally held to be idealistic. It means that reality is composed of soul-like substances whereas material bodies are mere phenomena. The traditional interpretation presupposes that Leibniz’s view has not changed during the mature period (from 1683 onward). Some commentators have recently challenged this view. They claim that either Leibniz (despite inconsistency) was both a realist and an idealist (Hartz), or changed his view on the nature of substance (Garber). The aim is to defend the (...) traditional interpretation and to reply to the arguments by realist commentators. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This is an essay in what might be termed philosophic appreciation. Ordinarily one should not have to take to print to ask people to appreciate the writings of a figure like Leibniz. But the particular aspect of Leibniz’ thought that I would like to discuss is one which most contemporary philosophers find totally unpalatable. According to the conventional wisdom, the claim that existence is a perfection was refuted once and for all by Kant. The passages where Leibniz (...) suggests that there is something good in the mere realization of essence generally are read only to prepare the way for the eventual triumph of philosophers like Hume, Kant, and Russell. If the only thing I accomplish by writing this essay is to show that Leibniz’ position deserves serious consideration and cannot be rejected out of hand, then I will have accomplished something of value. For the most part, the question, “Is existence a perfection?,” is not discussed by contemporary metaphysicians because it is not thought to be a live, philosophic issue. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Maimonides’ Latin translation of Moreh Nevukhim | Guide for the Perplexed, was the most influential Jewish work in the last millennia (Di Segni, 2019; Rubio, 2006; Wohlman, 1988, 1995; Kohler, 2017). It marked the beginning of scholasticism, a daughter of Judaism raised by Jewish thinkers, according to historian Heinrich Graetz (Geschichte der Juden, L. 6, Leipzig 1861, p. xii). Printed by Gutenberg's first mechanical press, its influence in the West went as far as the Fifth Lateran Council (1512 — 1517) (...) "where scholars were encouraged to remove the difficulties which seemed to divide the whole of theology and philosophy (Leibniz, Théodicée, 11)." For centuries, the Guide revolutionized the curriculum of school instruction by reintegrating the natural laws of thought in the sphere of faith (the fourth of which became Leibniz’ Principle of sufficient reason). This complete collection of notes expounds the ideas of the Guide and features all the passages selected and rewritten by Leibniz. This first complete annotated bilingual translation of the original manuscripts in Latin serves as an entry point to the faith in conformity with Reason. This complete collection of notes expounds the ideas of the Guide as selected and rewritten by Leibniz, the famous mathematician inventor of computer arithmetic, considered the last universal genius. The first complete bilingual translation in three centuries features on the front cover Rembrandt's Philosopher in meditation, and a recommendation from Leibniz's himself on the back: "Rabbi Maimonides' excellent book, A Guide for the Perplexed, is more philosophical than I imagined and worthy of careful reading." According to Malbim’s translator, Noah Rosenbloom, the book’s epigraph indicates that nineteenth-century Rabbi Leibush ben Yehiel Michel Wisser, also known as Malbim, was familiar with Leibniz’ Theodicy. In Leibniz’ anthology of the Guide, the reader can get a detailed glimpse of Leibniz' impressions of Maimonides. The Foreword by Leibniz' translator Lloyd Strickland suggests that there were sympathies and perhaps even overlaps between the thoughts of both universal luminaries. -/- . (shrink)

Offering an invaluable introduction to Leibniz's philosophy, this volume collects many of his most important texts, beginning with the Discourse on Metaphysics (1686), which marks the beginning of maturity in his ideas, and ending with the Monadology (1714), which was written in response to requests for a systematic, organized account of his overall philosophy. Also included in this volume are critical reactions to Leibniz's work by his contemporaries (Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Bayle, and Simon Foucher), together with Leibniz's (...) responses. All the texts are newly translated into English for this edition, and each is preceded by a summary explaining its background, structure, and content. (shrink)

The term “Idealism” has been used to characterize a variety of positions in the western philosophical tradition. Plato, the Neoplatonists, Leibniz, Berkeley, Kant, and Hegel, among others, have been interpreted as proponents of some version of philosophical idealism. Idealism is typically viewed as a response to theoretical problems generated by materialism and certain forms of realism. The difficulties involved with making sense of mind and values within a strictly materialist context, materialist explanations of causality, realist accounts of knowledge, and (...) the ontological status of matter itself have provided the grounds for idealist innovations. However, idealist solutions to these problems need not reject materialism or realism in toto. Idealists may incorporate philosophical claims which appear to be consistent with materialist or realist doctrines. For instance, Plato, the Neoplatonists, and Hegel often write about physical, material objects as if they exist as extramental entities—on some interpretations, at least. An idealist of the Berkeleyan sort would reject the notion of extra-mental material bodies as incoherent. Thus, the following questions emerge. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

When I first became acquainted with the thought of the American philoso pher Josiah Royce, two factors particularly intrigued me. The first was Royce's claim that the notion of community was his main metaphysical tenet; the second was his close association with the two American pragmatists, Charles Sanders Peirce and William James. Regarding the first factor, I was struck by the fact that a philosopher who died in 1916 should emphasize a topic of such contemporary significance not only in philosophy (...) but in so many other vital fields as well (sociology, psychology, politics, theology - to name only a few). Regarding the second, I was curious as to whether the pragmatism of Peirce and James might have influenced Royce during the course of their professional and personal contacts. Similarly, I wondered whether the idealism of Royce might have affected the thought of Peirce and James. To have appeased my curiosity in regard to all three thinkers, however, would have required (at least) three books. As a start I have now appeased it in regard to one. In researching the writings of Royce I found my way to the Houghton Library and to the Archives of Harvard University at Cambridge, Massa chusetts, where the unpublished manuscripts of Royce are preserved. (No editing job has yet been done on this bulk of material, though such would certainly be a welcome contribution to American philosophy. (shrink)

Protogaea, an ambitious account of terrestrial history, was central to the development of the earth sciences in the eighteenth century and provides key philosophical insights into the unity of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s thought and writings. In the book, Leibniz offers observations about the formation of the earth, the actions of fire and water, the genesis of rocks and minerals, the origins of salts and springs, the formation of fossils, and their identification as the remains of living organisms. Protogaea (...) also includes a series of engraved plates depicting the remains of animals—in particular the famous reconstruction of a “fossil unicorn”—together with a cross section of the cave in which some fossil objects were discovered. Though the works of Leibniz have been widely translated, Protogaea has languished in its original Latin for centuries. Now Claudine Cohen and Andre Wakefield offer the first English translation of this central text in natural philosophy and natural history. Written between 1691 and 1693, and first published after Leibniz’s death in 1749, Protogaea reemerges in this bilingual edition with an introduction that carefully situates the work within its historical context. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The article is devoted primarily to the analysis of Reinhold’s Letters on Kantian Philosophy, published in the “Der Teutsche Merkur” (German Mercury) 1786-1787. The purpose of this analysis is to reveal the peculiarities of Reinhold’s interpretation of Kant’s philosophy, as well as the possibility of the influence of these letters on Kant's practical philosophy and the further development of German idealism in general. To more clearly define Reinhold's own position, the article turns to Reinhold's early works, written before Letters, as (...) well as to the 1790 and 1923 editions of the Letters. Particular respect is given to three topics that are closely related to each other: “Why did Reinhold’s Letters bring fame to Kant?”, “To what extent was Reinhold an independent philosopher?” і “What kind of infusion did his Letters make into the development of Kant’s philosophy and German idealism?” The article proves that before 1786, Reinhold had, in general terms, formed a program for the reform of philosophy, which was critical in its nature and had a clearly expressed practical focus. However, Reinhold's criticism was closer to the criticism of the eclectics and Leibniz than of Kant: it was aimed at overcoming the limitations of the original points of view and assumed a deep knowledge of the history of philosophy. The main reason for the popularity of Reinhold’s Letters lies in his idea of the “scientific revolution” in Germany, which should have become an alternative to social revolutions in other countries of Europe. Formed in “pre-revolutionary” articles, this idea received its justification in the second edition of the Letters. It was the nationalist idea of transforming the Germans into a “nation of scientists”, that became the reason for the rise of national consciousness in Germany and attracted “thinking youth” to it Reinhold's program for the reform of all philosophical sciences from a generally valid point of view gave impetus and largely determined the further development of German classical philosophy: not only Fichte, but also Schelling and Hegel relied primarily on his program. The first edition of his Letters largely determined the main themes of the Critique of Practical Reason, and the second - the Metaphysics of Morals. The second edition inspired Kant to develop a system of criticism and the basic ideas of Kant’s philosophy of law. (shrink)

Idealism has not been well treated by recent philosophy in the Anglo-American Analytic tradition. When I was an undergraduate the situation did not differ markedly from that in Ryle’s time, fifty years previously.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This paper focuses on Leibniz’s engagement with Thomas Hobbes’s political anthropology in the Mainz-period writings, and demonstrates that Leibniz tried to construct an alternative to the English philosopher by conceiving of a physically- and ontologically-grounded psychology of actions. I provide textual evidence of this attempt, and account for Leibniz’s rejection of Hobbes’s political theory and anthropological assumptions. In doing so, I refer to diverse aspects of Leibniz’s work, thereby highlighting his aspiration to congruity and consistency between (...) different areas of investigation. Furthermore, Leibniz’s political writings and letters will reveal another—sometimes neglected—aspect of the issue: his concern to defend and legitimize the existence of pluralist and collective constitutional political systems like the Holy Roman Empire by providing the theoretical ground of their ability to last. (shrink)

This book presents an in-depth interpretation of three important parts of Leibniz's metaphysics: the metaphysical part of Leibniz's philosophy of logic, his essentially theological treatment of the central issues of ontology, and his theory of substance.

Leibniz was probably the last universal scholar in modern times who made original and innovative achievements in all the essential fields of knowledge of his time: as a reform-oriented lawyer, a multilateral thinking diplomat, as a mathematician of infinitesimal calculus, as the inventor of a calculating machine and in the mining of horizontal wind power, as an organizer of science and as one of the first historians who strived for source-critical methodical objectivity. However, this baroque diversity can only be (...) understood from the center of a monadological philosophy, which wants to establish the unity of scientific worldview and metaphysical concept of the world. It is distorted in the classical reception because only Leibniz the Theodicy was known. The topicality of Leibniz today consists in re-exposing the original basic idea of unity in diversity and asking how it can be made fruitful for philosophical and political thought in the 21st century. This book is a translation of the original German 1st edition Leibniz und die Folgen by Jörg Zimmer, published by J.B. Metzler, imprint of Springer-Verlag GmbH, part of Springer Nature in 2018. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors. (shrink)

Leibniz holds that nothing in nature strictly corresponds to any geometric curve or surface. Yet on Leibniz’s view, physicists are usually able to ignore any such lack of correspondence and to investigate nature using geometric representations. The primary goal of this essay is to elucidate Leibniz’s explanation of how physicists are able to investigate nature geometrically, focussing on two of his claims: (i) there can be things in nature which approximate geometric objects to within any given margin (...) of error; (ii) the truths of geometry state laws by which the phenomena of nature are governed. A corollary of Leibniz’s explanation is that physical bodies do have boundaries with which geometric surfaces can be compared to very high levels of precision. I argue that the existence of these physical boundaries is mind-independent to such an extent as to pose a significant challenge to idealist interpretations of Leibniz. (shrink)

The suitability of a new philosophical paradigm for geography needs to be assessed in the context of the questions it was designed to address and on the basis of clearly articulated criteria. Postmodernism, the latest contender for the attention of geographers, is here assessed in relation to Collingwoodian idealism. As an intellectual movement postmodernism arose in the unique circumstances of academic life in post Second World War France. In this rigidly structured academic environment a new generation of French scholars, well (...) schooled in the philosophies of Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger and the ideas of Marx and Freud, discovered the radical nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and drew upon his ethical and philosophical writings to address contemporary issues of power, knowledge, truth and modernity. All the central anti-humanist ideas of what was to become postmodernism are to be found in Nietzsche: a distrust of science and knowledge truth claims, the notion of multiple interpretations and the subordination of knowledge to power. This situated knowledge, set in the traditions of Continental thought, is not easily incorporated into the empiricist philosophies that have hitherto defined the mainstream of Anglo-American science and humanist scholarship including geography. Geographers need to retain a commitment to the foundational value of science, recognize human agency in the form of the conscious, thinking individual, and continue to affirm the empirical nature of human geographical research. (shrink)

Leibniz holds that we cannot give an account of the synchronic and diachronic identity of a person without appealing to a substance. This paper analyses his reasons for this anti-Lockean thesis. It first looks at his theory of substance, paying particular attention to his commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason: the existence of a well-ordered series of mental states cannot be sufficiently explained without reference to a substance. The paper then examines the distinction Leibniz draws between the (...) substance as the “real person” and the “appearing person” that comes into existence through reflexive consciousness. It argues that there can be no appearing person without a real person and looks at the relationship between these two types of person. Leibniz’s distinction is still relevant because it shows that questions concerning the metaphysical constitution of a person need to be carefully distinguished from questions concerning the psychological construction of a personality. (shrink)

According to one creation myth, analytic philosophy emerged in Cambridge when Moore and Russell abandoned idealism in favour of naive realism: every word stood for something; it was only after “the Fall,” Russell's discovery of his theory of descriptions, that they realized some complex phrases (“the present King of France”) didn't stand for anything. It has become a commonplace of recent scholarship to object that even before the Fall, Russell acknowledged that such phrases may fail to denote. But we need (...) to go further: even before the Fall, Russell had taken an altogether more discerning approach to the ontology of logic and relations than is usually recognized. (shrink)

According to the standard view of his metaphysics, Leibniz endorses idealism: the thesis that the world is made up solely of minds or monads and their perceptual and appetitive states. Recently,this view has been challenged by some scholars, who argue that Leibniz can be seen as admitting corporeal substances, that is, animals or embodied souls, into his ontology, and that, therefore, it is false to attribute a strict idealism to him. Subtler accounts suggest that Leibniz begins his (...) philosophical career as an advocate of (some form of) the modern ‘mechanical’ philosophy and ends his career as an idealist, raising the issue when and why Leibniz adopts his monadological metaphysics. This article argues that, given a constellation of metaphysical, logical, and theological views, Leibniz is committed to the ontological primacy of mind or form even in his ‘middle years’. (shrink)

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)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was not only a great philosopher but a great historian of philosophy. He invented the idea of the philosophical tradition as a discussion among philosophers extending over centuries centering on a few main philosophical problems. The conceptual scheme, widely accepted in histories of philosophy, emerged in Hegel's lectures at the same time as German idealism itself. This new abridgment of a well-known edition makes the main insights of Hegel's famous Lectures on the History of Philosophy widely (...) available in an inexpensive edition. In this student-oriented text, Professor Tom Rockmore selects the most significant material in a one-volume abridgment. A short introduction explains the purpose and principles of the selections and assesses the continued importance of the work. This is followed by selections that include parts of the introduction to the discussion of Greek philosophy, as well as the sections on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle; the introduction to modern philosophy; and then the sections on Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and the "Final Result.". (shrink)

Leibniz believes that if there are corporeal substances, they have substantial forms, believes there are substantial forms, and believes there is a close connection between the first two claims. Why does he believe there is this close connection? This paper answers that question and draws out its bearing on the realism/idealism debate.

The discovery that Einstein's celebrated argument for general covariance, the 'point-coincidence argument ', was actually a response to the ' hole argument ' has generated an intense philosophical debate in the last thirty years. Even if the philosophical consequences of Einstein's argument turned out to be highly controversial, the protagonists of such a debate seem to agree on considering Einstein's argument as an expression of 'Leibniz equivalence', a modern version of Leibniz's celebrated indiscernibility arguments against Newton's absolute space. (...) The paper attempts to show that the reference to Leibniz, however plausible at first sight, is actually in many respects misleading. In particular it is claimed that the Logical Empiricists offer a significant historical example of an attempt to interpret the point-coincidence argument as an indiscernibility argument in the sense of Leibniz, similar to those used in 19th century by Helmholtz, Hausdorff or Poincaré. However the logical empiricist account of General Relativity clearly failed to grasp the philosophical novelty of Einstein's theory. Thus, if Einstein's point coincidence/ hole argument can be regarded as an indiscernibility argument, it cannot be an indiscernibility argument in the sense of Leibniz. Einstein rather introduced a new form of indiscernibility argument, which might be better described as an expression of 'Einstein-equivalence'. Developing some ideas of Weyl it is argued that, whereas Leibniz's arguments introduced the notion of 'symmetry' in the history of science, Einstein's argument seems to anticipate what we now call 'gauge freedom'. If in the first case indiscernibility arises from a lack of mathematical structure, in the second case it is a consequence of a surplus of mathematical structure. _German_ Die Entdeckung, dass Einsteins berühmtes Punkt-Koinzidenz- Argument zur allgemeinen Kovarianz tatsächlich eine Reaktion auf die Lochbetrachtung war, hat in den vergangenen 30 Jahren zu einer intensiven philosophischen Debatte geführt. Auch wenn die philosophischen Konsequenzen äußerst kontrovers gesehen werden, stimmen die Protogonisten doch darin überein, das Argument als Ausdruck von Leibniz-Äquivalenz, mithin als eine moderne Version von Leibniz berühmten Ununterscheidbarkeitsargumenten gegen Newtons absoluten Raum aufzufassen. Ziel des Aufsatzes ist es zu zeigen, dass der Bezug zu Leibniz, wenn auch auf den ersten Blick plausibel, tatsächlich in vielerlei Hinsicht irreführend ist. Insbesondere wird dahingehend argumentiert, dass die Logischen Empiristen ein signifikantes historisches Beispiel für einen Versuch darstellen, das Punkt-Koinzidenz Argument als ein Ununterscheidbarkeitsargument im Sinne von Leibniz, ähnlich denen im 19. Jahrhundert von Helmholtz, Hausdorff und Poincaré vorgebrachten, zu deuten. Dieser Deutung der Allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie gelingt es aber nicht, das eigentlich philosophisch Neue von Einsteins Theorie plausibel zu interpretieren. Wenn Einsteins Punkt-Koinzidenz/Lochargument als ein Ununterscheidbarkeitsargument angesehen werden soll, kann dies kein Argument à la Leibniz sein. Vielmehr hat Einstein ein neuartiges Ununterscheidbarkeitsargument eingeführt, das vielleicht besser als,Einstein-Äquivalenz' charakterisiert werden sollte. Durch Aufnahme und Weiterentwicklung einiger Ideen von Weyl wird gezeigt, dass Leibniz' Argumente zwar das Konzept der,Symmetrie' in die Wissenschaftsgeschichte eingebracht haben, Einsteins Argument aber etwas antizipiert hat, was heute gewöhnlich,Eichfreiheit' genannt wird. Wird im ersten Fall die Ununterscheidbarkeit durch ein zu wenig an mathematischer Struktur erzeugt, so ist sie im zweiten Fall gerade die Folge eines Überschusses an mathematischer Struktur. (shrink)