Leibniz’s Early Views on Matter, Modes, and God

Journal of Philosophical Research 25:261-273 (2000)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Although scholars have often settled upon 1686 as the year in which the central elements of Leibniz’s philosophy first appear in systematic form, certain of his positions appear to have been firmly in place at least ten years earlier. Papers written in 1676 reveal that Leibniz had already by that time established the fundamental feature of his single-substance metaphysics: the insubstantiality of matter. As he defines it, matter is a mode, but a mode of peculiar status, a sort of “top mode,” which, together with change, is requisite to the existence of any other modes, or “things.” Things for Leibniz include all bodies and their qualities, and in some places also appear to include minds, although Leibniz for religious reasons equivocates here, and wants to resist. Nevertheless, Leibniz’s desire to move toward a version of the Aristotelian notion of matter as the principle of individuation is clearly in evidence as he works to set out a view which can accommodate mechanistic physics while avoiding the perceived atheistic threat inherent in both Cartesian dualism and Spinozistic monism.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Leibniz and the Possibility of God's Existence.David Werther - 1996 - Religious Studies 32 (1):37 - 48.
Bodies, Matter, Monads and Things in Themselves.Nicholas Stang - 2022 - In Brandon Look (ed.), Leibniz and Kant. Oxford University Press.. pp. 142–176.
Leibniz's philosophy of physics.Jeffrey K. McDonough - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Leibniz on the Labyrinth of Freedom.Jack D. Davidson - 2003 - The Leibniz Review 13:19-43.
Leibniz: a collection of critical essays.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1976 - Notre Dame [Ind.]: University of Notre Dame Press.
Leibniz.Harry G. Frankfurt - 1972 - Garden City, N.Y.,: Anchor Books.
Leibniz and the Sorites.Samuel Levey - 2002 - The Leibniz Review 12:25-49.
Leibniz on Continuity.Richard T. W. Arthur - 1986 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986:107 - 115.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-12-02

Downloads
35 (#393,865)

6 months
2 (#658,980)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references