Leibniz: Epistemology

This essay examines some of the ways in which the assumption of the essential finitude of the human mind, in contrast to the infinitude of God’s mind, bears on Leibniz’s and Kant’s accounts of our representational capacities. This examination reveals several underappreciated similarities between their views, but also some notable differences that help us pinpoint where and in what ways Kant departs from his celebrated predecessor. The fruits of this examination are a better understanding of Kant’s conception of the discursivity (...) of our understanding, his account of the difference between concepts and intuitions, and the particular flavor of his idealism. -/- . (shrink)

The disciplinary differentiation of sciences attracted Leibniz’s attention for a long period of time. From nowadays prospects it looks very well grounded as soon as in Leibniz’s manuscripts a modern scholar finds clue ideas of any research field which would tempt him to consider Leibniz as one of the founders of this particular discipline. We argue that this is possible only in retrospection and would significantly distort the essence of Leibniz’s epistemology. Our approach implies, in contrary, the investigation of the (...) Leibniz doctrine of signs on the background of the related philosophical problem, that of expression. The choice of semiotics is justified by the fact that it took a central place in his theoretical constructions, both those of natural sciences and of philosophy. In Leibniz system of knowledge the concept of notes and sings served a theoretical foundation of his most important and long-life aspiration to build up practical science of universal characteristics. In his eyes this practical science was the science of sciences, and we can consider it as the matrix for all possible scientific knowledge. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es exponer una aproximación a los puntos de contacto y de divergencia entre el pensamiento de Leibniz y la hermenéutica de Gadamer, en la perspectiva de justificar la actualidad del pensamiento leibniziano desde el punto de vista de la concepción actual de la racionalidad. La hermenéutica propone un concepto de razón “débil” que se funda en la noción de fusión de horizontes, que puede ser interpretado como una forma de perspectivismo. Como contrapartida, se examina el (...) perspectivismo leibniziano desde el punto de vista de la armonía universal y del concepto de expresión como su fundamento. De este modo, la posibilidad de establecer correspondencias y transformaciones entre las diferentes perspectivas constituye un equivalente leibniziano la fusión de horizontes gadameriana. Además, gracias al concepto de “razón simbólica”, se le reconoce la filosofía leibniziana cierta superioridad respecto de la hermenéutica gadameriana. (shrink)

Mi propósito en este artículo es analizar una forma de perspectivismo entendido como un tipo de escepticismo, y los argumentos de Leibniz en contra de él. Discuto cómo esta forma de perspectivismo conduce a la isostheneia y a la suspensión del juicio, y presento la estrategia de Leibniz para impedir estas consecuencias escépticas, y finalmente ofrezco un ejemplo de esta estrategia.

The theses in this book are: 1) the tension between the Leibnizian theory of the tropes and their use is resolved in a "pragmatic of discourse" that gives the metaphor a richer dimension than the theorized one, that is, that of "a mechanism capable of combining elements coming from different conceptual spaces into a new metaphorical conceptual space, 'shapeless' to which the metaphor itself provides an adequate language to describe and structure it"; 2) the role of metaphors is placed for (...) Leibniz in the context of a 'multi-method' idea that combines the inventive and the formalizing moment and allows for a multiplicity of directions; 3) the Leibniz system is organized according to a 'logic' that is not deductive but analogical; 4) the valid relations in the system are not only connections of a logical nature; on the contrary, the organization is 'reticular', and the primacy of a relation depends from time to time on the prevalence assigned to a metaphor according to the problem being faced; 5) Leibniz's central metaphors are "emerging parts of a wider submerged translation", i.e. they are both expression and conceptualizing vehicle of a cognitive strategy that wants to govern the complexity of knowledge by organizing it around themes; this strategy is alternative to the Cartesian formulation of "Method" based on the disjunction of objects and notions and instead gives philosophical expression to the Baroque sense of the constant mutability that rules the world. (shrink)

In his defense of innateness in New Essays on Human Understanding (1704), Leibniz attributes innateness to concepts and principles which do not originate from the senses rather than to the ideas that we are born with. He argues that the innate concepts and principles can be known in two ways: through reason or natural light (necessary truths), and through instincts (other innate truths and principles). In this paper I will show how theoretical and moral reasoning differ from each other in (...) Leibniz, and compare moral reasoning and instincts as sources of knowledge in his practical philosophy. As the practical instincts are closely related to pleasure and passions, which are by nature cognitive, my emphasis will be on the affective character of instinctive moral action and especially deliberation which leads to moral action. I will argue that inclinations arising from moral instinct, which lead us to pleasure while avoiding sorrow, can direct our moral action and sometimes anticipate reasoning when conclusions are not readily available. Acting by will, which is related to moral reasoning, and acting by instincts can lead us to the same moral knowledge independently, but they can also complement each other. To illustrate the two alternative ways to reach moral knowledge, I will discuss the case of happiness, which is the goal of all human moral action for Leibniz. (shrink)

This volume tells the story of the legacy and impact of the great German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz made significant contributions to many areas, including philosophy, mathematics, political and social theory, theology, and various sciences. The essays in this volume explores the effects of Leibniz’s profound insights on subsequent generations of thinkers by tracing the ways in which his ideas have been defended and developed in the three centuries since his death. Each of the 11 essays is concerned (...) with Leibniz’s legacy and impact in a particular area, and between them they show not just the depth of Leibniz’s talents but also the extent to which he shaped the various domains to which he contributed, and in some cases continues to shape them today. With essays written by experts such as Nicholas Jolley, Pauline Phemister, and Philip Beeley, this volume is essential reading not just for students of Leibniz but also for those who wish to understand the game-changing impact made by one of history’s true universal geniuses. (shrink)

Spending six months in Rome in 1689 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) occupied himself with the question of Copernican and Galilean censure. An established reading of the Rome papers suggests that Leibniz’s attempt to have the Copernican censure lifted was derived solely from the equivalence of hypotheses stemming from the relativity of motion; and involved Leibniz’s compromising his belief in the truth of the Copernican hypothesis by arguing that it should only be interpreted instrumentally; and that Leibniz believed in the unrestricted (...) abolition of censure. On the contrary, I argue that if hypotheses were merely equivalent, this would not provide a reason for lifting censure of Galileo, who argued that the Earth really moves and the Church was in error on this point; that Leibniz’s position in his cosmology was indeed a kind of instrumentalism, so that it did not involve any compromise; and that Leibniz is advocating a position that Galileo should be subject to censure, not because of his physics but rather because of his misinterpretation of the status of Scripture. (shrink)

This essay argues that, with his much-maligned “infinite analysis” theory of contingency, Leibniz is onto something deep and important – a tangle of issues that wouldn’t be sorted out properly for centuries to come, and then only by some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. The first two sections place Leibniz’s theory in its proper historical context and draw a distinction between Leibniz’s logical and meta-logical discoveries. The third section argues that Leibniz’s logical insights initially make his “infinite (...) analysis” theory of contingency more rather than less perplexing. The last two sections argue that Leibniz’s meta-logical insights, however, point the way towards a better appreciation of (what we should regard as) his formal theory of contingency, and its correlative, his formal theory of necessity. (shrink)

CHAPTER The principle of continuity and the 'paradox' of Leibnizian mathematics* Michel Serfati. Introduction On the basis of the epistemological analysis ...

Leibniz is commonly labeled a foe of Molinism. His rejection of robust libertarian freedom coupled with some explicit passages in which he distances himself from the doctrine of middle knowledge seem to justify this classification. In this paper, I argue that this standard view is not quite correct. I identify the two substantive tenets of Molinism. First, the connection between the conditions for free actions and these free actions is a contingent one: free actions follow contingently from their sufficient conditions. (...) Second, God knows what creatures would freely do in different possible circumstances prevolitionally—that is, prior to God willing anything. I argue that Leibniz himself endorses a version of both tenets and utilizes them for theoretical purposes similar to those of Molinists. I conclude that Leibniz is much closer to Molinism than is typically acknowledged. Leibniz is best characterized as a friend—rather than a foe—of Molinism. (shrink)

Leibniz’s claim that it is possible for us to gain metaphysical knowledge through reflection on the self has intrigued many commentators, but it has also often been criticized as flawed or unintelligible. A similar fate has beset Leibniz’s arguments against materialism. In this paper, I explore one of Leibniz’s lesser-known arguments against materialism from his reply to Bayle’s new note L (1702), and argue that it provides us with an instance of a Leibnizian “argument from reflection”. This argument, I further (...) show, does not constitute a flawed appeal to mere introspection, but is in fact securely grounded in an important corollary of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Leibniz’s Principle of Intelligibility. (shrink)

Leibniz’s philosophy has been subject to many studies, but few have addressed aesthetic aspects of his theory. What Leibniz has written concerning aesthetic issues is scattered all through his works, and were we to understand his aesthetic ideas we must bring these dispersed parts together for explanation and interpretation. In the present paper, I attempted to extract Leibniz ideas pertaining to aesthetics, and to introduce, on their basis, a unified aesthetic theory of his, and demonstrate the importance of this theory (...) for his epistemology. First, I brought into light Leibniz’s general ideas concerning aesthetics, and then, due to the epistemological-psychological significance of sense perception in Leibniz’s philosophy, I inquired into it in detail and attempted to clarify the place of sense knowledge in human knowledge according to Leibniz. Finally, in the last part, I ventured to divide Leibniz’s approach to sense qualities into objective and subjective aspects and investigated each separately. (shrink)

Leibniz’s philosophy has been subject to many studies, but few have addressed aesthetic aspects of his theory. What Leibniz has written concerning aesthetic issues is scattered all through his works, and were we to understand his aesthetic ideas we must bring these dispersed parts together for explanation and interpretation. In the present paper, I attempted to extract Leibniz ideas pertaining to aesthetics, and to introduce, on their basis, a unified aesthetic theory of his, and demonstrate the importance of this theory (...) for his epistemology. First, I brought into light Leibniz’s general ideas concerning aesthetics, and then, due to the epistemological-psychological significance of sense perception in Leibniz’s philosophy, I inquired into it in detail and attempted to clarify the place of sense knowledge in human knowledge according to Leibniz. Finally, in the last part, I ventured to divide Leibniz’s approach to sense qualities into objective and subjective aspects and investigated each separately. (shrink)

In §18 of Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason, Leibniz says: ”Thus our happiness will never consist, and must never consist, in complete joy, in which nothing is left to desire, and which would dull our mind, but must consist in a perpetual progress to new pleasures and new perfections.” -/- This passage is typical in Leibniz’s Nachlass. Universal perfection creates in us joy or pleasure of the mind and its source is our creator, God. When this joy (...) is constant, we reach happiness and wisdom which is a kind of standing state of virtue, readiness to practice charity in the best of all possible worlds. However, it also indicates that our knowledge is never perfect. Perfecting our knowledge is a never-ending process which gives us joy in itself and motivates us to act in imitation of God. In this way some passions advance our knowledge and we can create ourselves a passionate habit of knowing more about the world and its perfection. In this paper I try to see this process of self-perfection from a cognitive rather than ethical point of view. While it is clear that in the final stage of wisdom we act mostly on our volitions which are founded on clear and distinct perceptions, it is less clear what cognitive status is to be attributed to our initial perceptions of perfection, our emotions and finally, the intellectual emotions which lead us to perfection and God. I will also reflect the role of the minute perceptions in our struggle for happiness. My argument is that a central cognitive role in Leibniz’s views on self-perfection is held by clear, but confused perfections which are subjective, undemonstrable impressions, shades, feelings. Therefore our ethical action is largely founded on passing, minute feelings rather than on deliberated conscious volitions, although the goal in Leibniz’s moral theory is to change this fact. -/- My discussion is founded on several texts from Leibniz’s later philosophy, such as the discussion following from New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances of 1695, Leibniz’s letter to Queen Sophie Charlotte of 1702 (also known as On What is Independent in Sense and Matter), New Essays on Human Understanding (1704), Theodicy (1710) and naturally Leibniz’s most important epistemological text, Meditations of Truth, Knowledge and Ideas (1684). (shrink)

Recent scholarship has established that, until the mid-1670s, Leibniz did not hold the possibilist ontology which, in his mature philosophy, provides the foundation for both his account of human freedom and of eternal truth. Concentrating on the Mainz period , this paper examines the conciliation, in those early writings, of an actualist ontology and a conception of necessary truth as analytical. The first section questions the view that Leibniz was educated in a “Platonist” tradition; the second section presents the actualist (...) metaphysics that he adopted in the wake of his teachers; the third section shows how Leibniz could, contrary to those same teachers, hold an analytical view of eternal truth, even without the support of his later possibilist ontology and doctrine of real definitions. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that a crucial historical precedent for contemporary interest in virtue epistemology is to be found in Leibniz-Wolffian rationalism. For philosophers from Wolff to Lessing, epistemology was thoroughly normative; that is, the task of epistemology was not to describe knowledge, but set rules for the amelioration of knowledge. Such a normative stance was transferred into cognate disciplines, such as aesthetics, as well. I further argue that after Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy in 1781 strands of this (...) normative epistemology lived on in both Schiller’s aesthetics and Maimon’s reworking of transcendental idealism. Finally, I suggest some provisional reasons for considering Kant’s epistemology a break with this tradition. (shrink)

Moral rationalists and sentimentalists traditionally disagree on at least two counts, namely regarding the source of moral knowledge or moral judgements and regarding the source of moral motivation. I will argue that even though Leibniz's moral epistemology is very much in line with that of mainstream moral rationalists, his account of moral motivation is better characterized as sentimentalist. Just like Hume, Leibniz denies that there is a necessary connection between knowing that something is right and the motivation to act accordingly. (...) Instead, he believes that certain affections are necessary for moral motivation. On my interpretation, then, Leibniz is an externalist about judgements and motivation: he is committed to a gap between the judgement that something is morally right and the motivation to act accordingly. As a matter of fact, I will argue that there are two gaps. The first and less controversial one has to do with the fact that Leibniz reconciles his psychological egoism with ethical altruis.. (shrink)

In this paper, I contend that a crucial historical precedent for contemporary interest in virtue epistemology is to be found in Leibniz-Wolffian rationalism. For philosophers from Wolff to Lessing, epistemology was thoroughly normative; that is, the task of epistemology was not to describe knowledge, but set rules for the amelioration of knowledge. Such a normative stance was transferred into cognate disciplines, such as aesthetics, as well. I further argue that after Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy in 1781 strands of this (...) normative epistemology lived on in both Schiller’s aesthetics and Maimon’s reworking of transcendental idealism. Finally, I suggest some provisional reasons for considering Kant’s epistemology a break with this tradition. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI draw attention to certain differences between how seventeenth‐century philosophers thought about knowledge and how contemporary philosophers think about it. These differences do not strike me as particularly subtle; they are gross enough that we might wonder about the extent to which seventeenthth‐century philosophers and modern philosophers are interested in the same thing. We might also wonder about the extent to which it is helpful to apply the same label—say, ‘epistemology’—to both sets of interests. I think, for example, one might (...) reasonably raise the question, Is there any epistemology, in our sense of the term, in Spinoza or Leibniz? (shrink)

[ES] En este breve trabajo, se presenta una edición bilingüe de Meditationes de cognitione, vertitate et ideis, de Leibniz. La importancia de este texto radica en que aquí se presentan, por vez primera, los elementos básicos de su teoría del conocimiento. [EN] In this brief article, a bilingual edition of Leibniz’s 1684 essay Meditationes de cognitione, vertitate et ideis is presented. The importance of this text rest in the fact that, for the first time, the basic elements of his theory (...) of knowledge are displayed. (shrink)

En commençant les Essais de Théodicée par un Discours de la conformité de la foi avec la raison, Leibniz montrait que l'enjeu fondamental de sa confrontation avec Bayle était l'unité de la vérité. Pour produire un discours rationnel sur Dieu, ses attributs, sa providence, il était indispensable de répondre à celui qui disqualifiait par avance tout essai de justification de Dieu par la raison, en affirmant son impuissance radicale à établir des vérités solides et son divorce d'avec la foi. L'opposition (...) entre les deux auteurs est révélatrice de deux conceptions distinctes de la raison, de la nature du mystère religieux et de la connaissance que nous pouvons en avoir. Deux interprétations du « triomphe de la foi » apparaissent : l'une qui fait de la soumission à la parole révélée l'acte « raisonnable » du chrétien conséquent, l'autre qui n'y voit que le succès de la raison elle-même, triomphant des « apparences ». By starting the Essays of Theodicy with a Dissertation on the Conformity of Faith with Reason,, Leibniz showed that the fundamental issue of his confrontation with Bayle was the unity of truth. To produce a rational discourse on God, His attributes, and His providence, it was essential to respond to him rejected in advance through any attempt to prove God reason, affirming reason's radical inability to establish solid truths and its divorce from faith. The opposition between the two authors reveals two distinct conceptions of reason, of the nature of religious mystery and of the knowledge that we may have of all this. Two interpretations of the « triumph of faith » become apparent: for one, submission to the revealed word is the « reasonable » act of the consistent Christian, whereas for the other there is nothing to be seen but the success of reason itself -victorious over all « appearances ». (shrink)

John Locke is probably one of the highest-regarded English philosophers, and the first of the British empiricists. His ideas on the mind and consciousness have continued to resonate throughout philosophy and philosophical thought ever since An Essay Concerning Human Understanding first appeared in 1690. James Gibson's Locke's Theory of Knowledge and its Historical Relations was first published in 1917, and saw its fourth reprinting in 1968. Here, it is made available for the first time in paperback. This hugely detailed work (...) is an invaluable collation of Locke's theories, exploring his thoughts on the problems of knowledge, the formation of ideas, causality and the self. Furthermore, Gibson also provides an in-depth historical evaluation of the effects of these theories on contemporary philosophy as a whole, and on thinkers such as Descartes, Kant and Leibniz more specifically. As such, this book is a valuable reference work for any student of philosophy. (shrink)

The article is an attempt to present a 17th century vision of the programme of building the enlightened society proposed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Inventorying of human knowledge and common access to it were one of his life aims. The condition of their realization was a rebuilt and reinforcement of the German language – largely weakened in the second part of the 17th century as a result of the French culture domination as a tool serving the purpose of discovery and (...) archive of any human invention. The national language, though, as underlined in many places, fulfills its social and cognitive functions in the best ways. A Leibnizean project of building the enlightened society concerns, among other things, the society inhabiting the territories of the Great Empire of German Nation, but, indeed, it has a universal character too because Leibniz considered science, technology, development of new research tools the key to happiness and well-being of the whole mankind. (shrink)

Despite holding that all concepts are strictly speaking innate, Leibniz attempts to accommodate the common belief that at least some concepts are adventitious by appealing to his theory of ideal action. The essential idea is that an innate concept can be considered adventitious, in a sense, just in case its ideal cause is to be found outside the mind of the one who possesses the concept. I explore this attempt at accommodation and argue that it fails. [See external link for (...) English draft.]. (shrink)

In this study I discuss G. W. Leibniz's (1646-1716) views on rational decision-making from the standpoint of both God and man. The Divine decision takes place within creation, as God freely chooses the best from an infinite number of possible worlds. While God's choice is based on absolutely certain knowledge, human decisions on practical matters are mostly based on uncertain knowledge. However, in many respects they could be regarded as analogous in more complicated situations. In addition to giving an overview (...) of the divine decision-making and discussing critically the criteria God favours in his choice, I provide an account of Leibniz's views on human deliberation, which includes some new ideas. One of these concerns is the importance of estimating probabilities – in making decisions one estimates both the goodness of the act itself and its consequences as far as the desired good is concerned. Another idea is related to the plurality of goods in complicated decisions and the competition this may provoke. Thirdly, heuristic models are used to sketch situations under deliberation in order to help in making the decision. Combining the views of Marcelo Dascal, Jaakko Hintikka and Simo Knuuttila, I argue that Leibniz applied two kinds of models of rational decision-making to practical controversies, often without explicating the details. The more simple, traditional pair of scales model is best suited to cases in which one has to decide for or against some option, or to distribute goods among parties and strive for a compromise. What may be of more help in more complicated deliberations is the novel vectorial model, which is an instance of the general mathematical doctrine of the calculus of variations. To illustrate this distinction, I discuss some cases in which he apparently applied these models in different kinds of situation. These examples support the view that the models had a systematic value in his theory of practical rationality. (shrink)

Traditionally the modern theory of ideas has been discussed primarily in reference to its alleged introduction of a veil of mental items between the mind and the world, which leads, through the empiricists, to radical skepticism about the existence of an external world. Here I propose to emphasize an entirely different aspect of the Cartesian theory of ideas which, in my view, is more fundamental in opening the empiricist path that leads to Hume’s radical skepticism. I argue that what I (...) call the “phenomenological presentation” model of ultimate justification is rooted in a fundamental ambiguity between sensible and intellectual apprehension insinuated by Descartes’s view of “clear and distinct” ideas together with his emphasis on the priority of intuition over logical inference. Sensible apprehension relies on immediate acquaintance with items pheno-menologically and ostensively present before the mind as given particulars. The phenomenological presentation model takes its clues from sensible apprehension, although the items present before the mind might themselves be either ideas of the understanding, images of the imagination, sensory impressions, or material external objects. Intellectual apprehension, by contrast, as I illustrate with Leibniz’s model of our knowledge of concepts and truths of reason, consists in the discursive, non-ostensive grasping of the generality of abstract concepts and of formal structures . For Leibniz, all intellectual apprehension is unambiguously “logical discursive apprehension” as opposed to “direct ostensive apprehension.” Thus, Leibniz unmistakably disambiguates Descartes’s model in favor of a precise intellectual model. The empiricists, by contrast, correspondingly disambiguate Descartes’s conception in favor of an entirely sensible model.Tradicionalmente, a teoria moderna das idéias foi discutida principalmente em conexão com a sua suposta introdução de um véu de itens mentais entre a mente e o mundo que leva, por meio dos empiristas, ao ceticismo radical sobre a existência de um mundo externo. Aqui eu proponho enfatizar um aspecto completamente diferente da teoria Cartesiana das idéias que, na minha visão, é mais fundamental no que diz respeito a abrir o caminho empirista que conduz ao ceticismo radical de Hume. Eu argumento que o que eu chamo de o modelo de “apresentação fenomenológica” de justificação última está baseado em uma ambigüidade fundamental entre apreensão sensível e intelectual insinuada pela visão de Descartes de idéias “claras e distintas” junto com a sua ênfase na prioridade da intuição sobre inferência lógica. A apreensão sensível confia no contato imediato com itens presentes fenomenologicamente e ostensivamente perante a mente como particulares dados. O modelo de apresentação fenomenológica está inspirado na apreensão sensível, embora os itens que se apresentam perante a mente poderiam ser eles mesmos idéias do entendimento, figuras da imaginação, impressões sensórias, ou objetos externos materiais. A apreensão intelectual, por contraste, como eu ilustro com o modelo de Leibniz de nosso conhecimento de conceitos e verdades da razão, consiste na compreensão discursiva e não-ostensiva da generalidade de conceitos abstratos e de estruturas formais . Para Leibniz, toda a apreensão intelectual é claramente “apreensão discursiva lógica” por oposição a “apreensão ostensiva direta”. Assim, Leibniz claramente desfaz a ambigüidade do modelo de Descartes em favor de um modelo intelectual preciso. Os empiristas, por contraste, desfazem a ambigüidade da concepção de Descartes em favor de um modelo completamente sensível. (shrink)

Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz stand out among their seventeenth-century contemporaries as the great rationalist philosophers. Each sought to construct a philosophical system in which theological and philosophical foundations serve to explain the physical, mental and moral universe. Through a careful analysis of their work, Pauline Phemister explores the rationalists seminal contribution to the development of modern philosophy. Broad terminological agreement and a shared appreciation of the role of reason in ethics do not mask the very significant disagreements that led to (...) three distinctive philosophical systems: Cartesian dualism, Spinozan monism and Leibnizian pluralism. The book explores the nature of, and offers reasons for, these differences. Phemister contends that Spinoza and Leibniz developed their systems in part through engagements with and amendment of Cartesian philosophy, and critically analyses the arguments and contributions of all three philosophers. The clarity of the authors discussion of their key ideas including their views on knowledge, universal languages, the nature of substance and substances, bodies, the relation of mind and body, freedom, and the role of distinct perception and reason in morals will make this book the ideal introduction to rationalist philosophy. (shrink)

This paper addresses D. C. Williams’s question, “How can Leibniz know that he is a member of the actual world and not merely a possible monad on the shelf of essence?” A variety of answers are considered. Ultimately, it is argued that no particular perception of a state of affairs in the world can warrant knowledge of one’s actuality, nor can the awareness of any property within oneself; rather, it is the nature of experience itself, with the flow of perceptions, (...) that guarantees our actuality. A consequence of this view is that no non-actual individuals can truly be said to experience their worlds, nor can they ask the question if they are actual or not. (shrink)

This paper addresses D. C. Williams’s question, “How can Leibniz know that he is a member of the actual world and not merely a possible monad on the shelf of essence?” A variety of answers are considered. Ultimately, it is argued that no particular perception of a state of affairs in the world can warrant knowledge of one’s actuality, nor can the awareness of any property within oneself; rather, it is the nature of experience itself, with the flow of perceptions, (...) that guarantees our actuality. A consequence of this view is that no non-actual individuals can truly be said to experience their worlds, nor can they ask the question if they are actual or not. (shrink)

Leibniz’s mechanistic reduction of colors and other sensible qualities commits him to two theses about our knowledge of those qualities: first, that we can acquire ideas of sensible qualities apart from any direct acquaintance with the qualities themselves; second, that we can acquire distinct (i.e., non-confused) ideas of such qualities through the development of physical-theoretical accounts. According to some commentators, however, Leibniz frequently denies both claims. His views on the subject are muddled and incoherent, they say, both because he is (...) ambivalent about the nature of sensible qualities, and because he gets confused about confusion, losing sight of his own distinction between the confusion proper to perceptions and that proper to ideas. In opposition to this, I argue that the critics have misunderstood Leibniz’s views, which are both consistent over time and coherent. The key to understanding his position is to appreciate what he characterizes as a kind of redundancy in our ideas of sensible qualities, a crucial feature of his view overlooked by the critics. (shrink)

The ‘middle knowledge’ doctrine salvages free will and divine omniscience by contending that God knows what agents will freely choose under any possible circumstances. I argue, however, that the Leibnizian problem of divine knowledge of human evil is best resolved by applying a Theodicy II distinction between determined, foreseen, and resolved action. This move eliminates deference to middle knowledge. Contingent action is indeed free, but not all action is contingent, and so not all action is free. For Leibniz, then, God’s (...) knowledge extends to the sum pattern of determinates for an act, rather than to contingent events. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to try and understand what Leibniz is up to in his 1684 Meditations on Knowledge, Truth and Ideas. A close reading of the text shows that, by composing it, Leibniz casts into a new, systematic shape, a number of epistemological concepts, insights or tenets which had gradually emerged, in relative independence from one another, in his writings of the previous eight years (approximately since 1676, the last year of his stay in Paris, which was (...) also the moment when he first read some drafts of Spinoza's Ethics). This systematic exposition consists first of a dichotomous classification of "notions", and then of critical considerations on "ideas" and on the way we know (or do not know) them. It is crucial for the understanding of this text to note that, pursuing a distinction made here and there in the Paris writings, Leibniz does not use here the terms "notion" and "idea" as synonyms. How do these two parts of the Meditationes argument relate to one another? What is the relation between "notions" and "ideas"? Attempting to answer these questions, I am led to the conclusion that the themes of "idea" and of its "contemplatio", in the Hanover writings, do not constitute the foundations of Leibniz's epistemology, but are merely polemical devices directed against cartesianism. The conclusions of this paper are partly summarized in the first part of " What is the foundation of knowledge? Leibniz and the Amphybology of intuition" ( in Leibniz : What kind of Rationalist ? M. Dascal (ed.), 213-229, Berlin : Springer, 2008). (shrink)

During the seventeenth century, disputes over middle knowledge centered on the following question: does God know contingent states of affairs before He decrees to bring them about ; or, conversely, does He know them after He has decreed which states of affairs He will bring about? This article intends to cast some light on Leibniz’s view of this question. Of central importance here is the notion of a possible decree. Despite his apparent proximity to the Dominican view, Leibniz maintained the (...) prevolitional nature of God’s knowledge of contingent states of affairs. In order to establish this point, Leibniz’s view is compared to some little known developments in the theory of middle knowledge. (shrink)

In the eleventh chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says to the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Corozain: “If the miracles worked in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes”. Passages like this support a scriptural argument for God’s knowledge of counterfactuals about created individuals. In the sixteenth century, Jesuits and Dominicans vigorously debated about how to explain this knowledge. The Jesuits, notably Luis de Molina and Francisco Suarez, argued that the (...) basis for this knowledge lies primarily in the divine intellect: counterfactuals about free creatures are primitive truths known to God by virtue of the immensity of his intellectual power. Their Dominican opponents, notably Domingo Bañez and Diego Alvarez, held that this knowledge is simply God’s knowledge of his own decrees, by which he determines the truth value of all contingent propositions, including counterfactuals. (shrink)

In this dissertation I examine Leibniz's theories of divine providence and foreknowledge in the context of the two main competing accounts available in his day, Molinism and Thomism. I argue that although his theories share some of the broad features of these two accounts, Leibniz departs substantially from the views of his predecessors. I show how Leibniz is able to account for divine foreknowledge and providence in a way that avoids some of the major problems facing the Molinists and the (...) Thomists. I argue that Leibniz's account turns on two of his most enduring metaphysical theses: universal causal determinism, and optimism--the thesis that God always acts in the best possible way. Understanding Leibniz's determinism allows us to see how Leibniz could hold that God's knowledge of creatures is conceptual knowledge, while at the same time holding that this knowledge depends on God's free decrees. Although the importance of Leibniz's determinism in his solution to theological problems has been appreciated by scholars, the importance of his optimism has not. I think that this view finds application, beyond theodicy, in the solution to several vexing problems in Leibnizian philosophical theology. In particular, I show how Leibniz's optimism can be used to explain God's knowledge of "counterfactuals of freedom." Seeing how Leibniz deployed his metaphysical principles to solve theological problems sheds light on those principles and Leibniz's philosophical system as a whole. (shrink)

Im Zentrum des Streits zwischen Leibniz und Arnauld um die individuellen Begriffe steht die theologische Frage, ob sich dergleichen nur auf der Basis von Gottes Wirklichkeitswissen konzipieren läßt oder nicht. Arnauld behauptet das, Leibniz als Molinist bestreitet es. Nun war aber erstens die Reichweite der Scientia Media für die göttliche Weltplanung unter den Jesuiten des 17. Jahrhunderts selbst kontrovers. Zweitens hat Leibniz von den Gegnern der These, die göttliche Weltplanung komme mit der Scientia Media aus, bestimmte Ideen auch übernommen . (...) Das führt schließlich zu der Vermutung, daß das Lehrstück der Prästabilierten Harmonie eine Schwäche der Scientia-Media-Hypothese zu kompensieren bestimmt gewesen ist. (shrink)

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating (...) and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition, first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating (...) and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition, first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

One fundamental difference between the epistemic views of Locke and Leibniz as represented in Leibniz's New Essays on Human Understanding concerns the issue of innate ideas and knowledge. In countering Locke's arguments that innate ideas and/or knowledge are neither necessary nor even possible, Leibniz offers a defense of the doctrine which evidently presumes that Locke's objections are the result of a misapprehension. Once properly understood, Leibniz suggests, the doctrine of innateness reveals itself to be not only reasonable but indeed absolutely (...) necessary to accounting for our knowledge. ;Leibniz's arguments are not, however, as compelling as he would perhaps like; indeed, certain critics have argued that due to the manner in which he expresses his views--as separate responses to each of Locke's objections, rather than as straight treatise--Leibniz fails to display a coherent theory of his own. The complexity of Leibniz's views and their ties to his metaphysics render their case against him even stronger. Contrary to the views of these critics, there does exist in Leibniz's thought a coherent theory of innateness. Leibniz's innate speculative truths, with which critics have generally been concerned, are explicated in terms of reflection upon the enduring properties of the soul. There also exists in Leibniz's system an analogous realm of innate moral knowledge, which is also worked out in terms of reflection. This interpretation of Leibniz's theory makes possible a meaningful comparison between his views and those of Locke. The substantial differences between the two systems can be traced to differences in the epistemic questions with which they were concerned. While Locke is concerned with explaining the psychological apprehension of truth, Leibniz's focus is with truth's ontological structure. (shrink)

The concept of an "idea" played a central role in 17th-century theories of mind and knowledge, but philosophers were divided over the nature of ideas. This book examines an important, but little-known, debate on this question in the work of Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes. Looking closely at the issues involved, as well as the particular context in which the debate took place, Jolley demonstrates that the debate has serious implications for a number of major topics in 17th-century philosophy.

The Light of the Soul examines the debate between Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes on the nature of ideas, which was crucial to the development of early modern thinking about the mind and knowledge. Nicholas Jolley guides the reader through the debate and considers its implications for a broad range of issues, such as innate ideas, self-knowledge, scepticism, the mind-body problem, and the creation of the eternal truths, which are as important to philosophy today as they were in the seventeenth century.

The Lambdoma, considered the most important harmonical pattern of order is to be understood as a further development of a figure attributed to the Pythagoreans "in the shape of the capital letter Lambda" -therefore named Lambda . Diagrams similar to the Lambdoma without explicit harmonical significance can be found in the writings of several medieval and modern authors, including Ramon Llull , whose influence on Leibniz is already evident in the Dissertatio de arte combinatoria , Leipzig 1666. Leibniz and Llull (...) are linked particularly by the idea of Kombinatorik as ars inveniandi in the sense of a universal language, whose extension of knowledge is self-creating . In the larger context of LlulPs historical influence, Kombinatorik as structural logic and harmonical Lambdoma we also have to see Leibniz's genealogical scheme in his academic dissertation . The harmonical analysis of this model contains convincing parallels to the structural build-up of the Lambdoma . However, the analogies go further, as is shown by the reference to Leibniz's Dyadik, to the 64 hexagrams of the /Ging and the comparison of the /Ging with the genetical code. Harmonically structured systematized thought reveals itself as that possibility of an interpretation of the universe, which Leibniz did not really have in mind. However, we can find that thought at the decisive points of his theory of philosophical principles so to speak as the pythagorean-platonic inheritance. (shrink)

A scientific and political policy of innovation, according to Leibniz, has to start with the programmatic distincton between knowledge already available and knowledge still to be discovered . Gradually both, synthetic and analytic methods, can serve invention. If deduction is used. e. g. by combining tones to all possible musical themes, a further selection is nevertheless necessary. Human genius, gifted with imagination, can be compared with a sieve . Selection becomes the mark of contingency within the network of rationality. In (...) Leibniz's lifelong program of the "ars combinatoria", ars inveniendi has a double task: to develop a purely rational structure and to realize this structure in a more contingent and pragmatic context. Various instruments are discussed: memory, schemata, models, historical examples. Ars inveniendi expresses so the fundamental ontological tension in Leibniz's philosophy. (shrink)