Leibniz's Optics and Contingency in Nature
Perspectives on Science 18 (4):432-455 (2010)
| Abstract | Leibniz’s mature philosophical understanding of the laws of nature emerges rather suddenly in the late 1670’s to early 1680’s and is signaled by his embrace of three central theses.1 The first, what I’ll call the thesis of Contingency, suggests that the laws of nature are not only contingent, but, in some sense, paradigmatically contingent; they are supposed to provide insight into the very nature of contingency as Leibniz comes to understand it. The second, what I’ll call the thesis of Providence, suggests that the laws of nature provide a basis for a new argument from design by showing how reflection on God’s ends can be positively useful in the practice of natural philosophy. The third, what I’ll call thesis of .. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesDonald Rutherford & J. A. Cover (eds.) (2005). Leibniz: Nature and Freedom. Oxford University Press.
Harry G. Frankfurt (1972). Leibniz. Garden City, N.Y.,Anchor Books.
Harry G. Frankfurt (1976). Leibniz: A Collection of Critical Essays. University of Notre Dame Press.
Jean-Pascal Anfray (2002). God's Decrees and Middle Knowledge. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (4):647-670.
Lynne Rudder Baker (1985). Was Leibniz Entitled to Possible Worlds? Canadian Journal of Philosophy 15 (1):57-74.
John Roberts (2010). Some Laws of Nature Are Metaphysically Contingent. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (3):445-457.
Alan Sidelle (2002). On the Metaphysical Contingency of Laws of Nature. In John Hawthorne & Tamar Gendler (eds.), Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford University Press.
Jeffrey K. McDonough (2008). Leibniz's Two Realms Revisited. Noûs 42 (4):673-696.
James D. Madden (2003). Leibniz on Teleology and the Intelligibility of Nature. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 77:173-188.
Jeffrey K. McDonough (2009). Leibniz on Natural Teleology and the Laws of Optics. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78 (3):505-544.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads17 ( #71,063 of 549,069 )Recent downloads (6 months)4 ( #19,186 of 549,069 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
