In the Theodicy, as well as in other texts, Leibniz approaches the notion of Trinity in the light of three divine perfections, that is, power, understanding and will, which express the three persons. Accordingly, philosophical reason is able to draw a portrait of God that is imperfect but pervasive, both metaphysical and moral. In this paper, I first analyze those perfections, as conceived of by Leibniz, in their own essence and in their internal Trinitarian structuring. I then sift through a (...) kind of dialectics appearing in Leibniz’s thought, when it is confronted with the relations between those perfections. Those relations take the form of antecedence, non-creation and election, and, more problematically, of mixing them and of separating them. I conclude by dwelling on what is at stake in such considerations concerning the two Leibnizian topoi of the eternal return and relation. (shrink)

At some point in his long career, the eminent physicist J. A. Wheeler (1911-2008), who played a seminal role in framing a remarkable number of the issues that his students and colleagues have been struggling with during the previous decades, started to take Leibniz as an interlocutor sui generis. Up to now, such a confrontation has been hardly appreciated or noticed. In this introductory article, the presence of Leibniz in Wheeler’s thought will be assessed and contextualized within the framework of (...) the issues of physics the latter was meditating upon. This example, as well as the methodology followed in dealing with it properly, should, hopefully, prompt broader considerations at the intersection(s) of the areas involved - mainly, but not only, physics, philosophy, history of science. (shrink)

With Ernst Christoph von Manteuffel and Luise Adelgunde Victorie Gottsched, two people come into contact with each other who are unique in the early Enlightenment. After relinquishing his high political functions, Imperial Count Manteuffel devoted his energy to promoting enlightened ideas characteristic of the Leibniz-Wolff tradition. In the field of tension between the bourgeoisie, the nobility and the Enlightenment, his work has its own weight. The exceptional position of L. A. V. Gottsched among female authors in the second third of (...) the 18 th century has always been recognized. In her dealings with Manteuffel, her position as a satirist, as yet barely perceived, also unfolds, and her contributions touch the nerve of the politically explosive conflicts between Wolffianism and traditional theological positions. The Gottschedin-Manteuffel correspondence shows two sovereign actors connected in mutual respect. (shrink)

This paper presents and discusses unpublished notes written around 1703 in which Leibniz defends a dual-aspect theory of modification against the common interpretation that force alone is sufficient to account for change. Leibniz’s analysis of the different abstract elements of modification implies a rethinking of what permanence is, what force or an act is, and what a subject is. I show that the conceptual resources developed in these notes provide the means for thinking about the abstract but real constituents of (...) the monad. I argue that active force is only a real abstract, and I defend against certain deflationary readings the notion of primary matter as representing the series of limitations of an entelechy, which is precisely instantiated by the series of perceptions and appetites in a monad. Given this groundwork, the paper finally offers a reconciliatory reading of the different monadic inventories, which present different real abstracts of the monad with varying degrees of logical abstraction. (shrink)

This article elaborates a new framework for understanding Leibniz’s conception of the unity and reality of the world as an aggregate. It defends the view that Leibniz conceives of the world as a particular type of aggregate, the main characteristic of which is that its members are bound together by the perceptual activity of the infinite mind of God. It is argued that, so conceived, the world can in a sense have a unity and reality that, while aggregative and relational, (...) do not reduce to the perceptual states of the constituent-substances it comprises. At the same time, it is further argued that this does not involve renouncing Leibniz’s world-apart conception of substance, or his reductionism about relations and relational accidents. (shrink)

Leibniz’s lengthy theological treatise, Examen religionis christianae, has long puzzled scholars. Although a lifelong Lutheran who spurned many attempts to convert him to Catholicism, in the Examen Leibniz defends the Catholic position on a range of matters of controversy, from justification of the sinner to transubstantiation, from veneration of images to communion under both kinds. Inevitably, when finally published in 1819, the Examen quickly became the focus of a heated and sometimes ill-tempered debate about Leibniz’s true religious commitments. For many, (...) what was at stake was not simply the interpretation of a particular text but the very soul of Leibniz, that universal genius and ornament of Europe. The aim of this paper is to chart the various ways in which the earliest readers of the Examen responded to the text and sought to understand it. Such a study will enable us not only to see the varying and quite contrasting interpretations put forward for Leibniz’s motive for writing the Examen, some of which inform contemporary interpretations, but also give us the opportunity to take a deeper look at certain features of the text and the context in which it was written. (shrink)