Leibniz, Misc

This is the second chapter of my book Transformation of the Self. It concerns Schleiermacher's understanding of the principle of individuation, in dialogue with Kant, Jacobi, Leibniz and Spinoza.

In the last decade a great amount of literature that elaborates on Leibniz’ cultural and philosophical openness has emerged. It is therefore odd that there has not been made any direct comments on Chung-Ying Cheng interesting analyses of Leibniz’s writings on Chinese philosophy (Cheng 2000, 2002). By giving a critical review of Cheng’s work on this topic, it is the aim of this paper to integrate some problems of Sino-western philosophical encounters into the Leibniz scholarship of today. In the course (...) of analyzing Cheng’s arguments the paper points to some problems in his approach to Leibnizian philosophy and its “encounter” with Chinese classics. After challenging Cheng’s reading of Leibniz and suggesting alternative interpretations, the paper discusses whether thisunderstanding of Leibniz could designate a positive approach to Sino‐western philosophical exchange. Central to this, the question is raised whether or not it can be shown that Leibniz remained open to rethink his own philosophy in the light of his meeting with Chinese philosophy. While the paper agrees with Cheng in the judgement that Leibniz did not arrive at a complete understanding of the Chinese classic Yijing, it claims that Cheng’s analysis contradicts some of Leibniz’s other writings on China as well as Leibniz’s general ambition of supporting global philosophical exchange. (shrink)

Leibniz presents himself, especially in his late correspondence with Remond, as a concordist: in other philosophical views, even distant and ancient ones, he sets out to discover «traces of truth» that are already present there. According to the concordist programme, Leibniz claims, philosophers are right in what they affi rm, and wrong in what they deny. This paradoxical asymmetry is given a logical explanation in the paper, in connection with the topic of «reduplication», i. e. the introduction of qualifi cations (...) in otherwise simple categorical propositions. In order to be right in affi rming a complex disjunctive proposition, it is enough for one of the disjuncts to be true; but in order to be right in negating a complex disjunctive proposition, it is required for all of them to be false. Meanwhile, if one may «qualify» propositions by different reduplications of their terms, in principle one of those qualifi ed propositions is bound to be true. On such presuppositions concordism can be expected to be quite effective as a meta-philosophical perspective. (shrink)

In a first part of this paper I have started to examine Louis Davillé's claim that Leibniz's amanuensis Johann Georg Eckhart has plagiarized parts of the Leibnizian Annales imperii in his own works. In this second part I continue the examination by comparison of two examples of reconstruction of early medieval nobility in Leibniz's Annales and Eckhart's Historia genealogica. While there is evidence in at least one case that Eckhart followed Leibniz's conclusions even in a flaw of reasoning, it can (...) also be said that Eckhart-in his efforts to edit the Annales imperii after his master's death-developed further many Leibnizian arguments on his own. (shrink)

Wie bedeutsam ist die Unterscheidung zwischen den Philosophien von Leibniz und Wolff? Was hat Leibniz' China-Bild fur Folgen? Welchen Einfluss hatte die Theodizee-Rezeption auf die Ubersetzung der Wertheimer Bibel?

This dissertation explores the emergence of repetition as a methodological concept in G. W. Leibniz's philosophical writings and G. W. F. Hegel's Science of Logic. I suggest that a confrontation with Leibniz's explicit reliance on the concept of repetition transforms our understanding of Early Modern philosophical methodology, a grasp of this transformation was an essential element in the formulation of Hegel's method and thus constitutive for the development of central aspects of German Idealism, and this conjunction between Leibnizian metaphysical principles (...) and Hegelian method is a decisive moment for the conceptual history of repetition. In Chapter 1, I argue that Leibniz's articulation of the distinction between organic and aggregational substances defines and depends on a particularly powerful sense of ontological repetition. In seeking to constitute a coherent notion of singularity, I demonstrate, Leibniz explicates individuality in terms of its repetition of totality. In Chapter 2, I defend the position that Leibniz's obsession with the constitution of encyclopedic categorical structures for the totality of human knowledge offers one of the clearest formal developments of repetition as a methodological principle. In Chapter 3, I give an account of the importance of Hegel's reception of Leibniz and of the philosophical role of Leibnizian figures in the Logic. By distinguishing Hegel's theory of philosophical refutation and from Kant's, I demonstrate that Hegel subjects the principles of repetition implicit in Leibniz to a method constituted through systematic return and conceptual circularity. My final chapter uses Leibniz's impact on Hegel to suggest that the latter's notion of an immanent, self-developing method should be understood as more than the progressive unfolding of a series of logical moments and stances. It is also, I argue, the permutation of methodological standpoints in and through a strong form of structural repetition. (shrink)

The publication of so many of Leibniz's secret philosophical papers in Volume 4, Series VI, of the Academy Edition -in our days „the most important event in Leibniz scholarship" (G. H. R. Parkinson) -leads us to a new stage in Leibniz research. Undoubtedly the ingenious introductory essay of the editor Heinrich Schepers will challenge Leibniz scholars to investigate exactly Leibniz's way from his (formerly mostly hidden) fundamental thoughts of the years 1677-1690 to terminology and meaning of his late writings, and (...) especially their encyclopaedian focus (No. 6). Leibniz strove to complete and update the Herborn Pansophism of Johann Heinrich Alsted. We get also new insight into the coherence of Leibniz's central topics as e. g. the reconciliation of traditional and modern concepts of science and philosophy. Both Alsted and Johann Amos Comenius and their idea of 'Panharmonia' and 'Panarithmicon' (No. 4) as well as their religious motives (laus Dei et felicitas seu beatitudo hominis, No. 3) inspired Leibniz to elaborate the Scientia Generalis, focused in the archetypical harmony of a cosmical world (No. 2). Attention is also given to the important heritage of Leibniz, leading to a religious character of enlightenment in Germany (No. 1 and No. 6). (shrink)

Le problème de base de la métaphysique de Leibniz, à savoir comment pouvons nous penser que ce monde est le meilleur des mondes possibles, correspond dans sa structure et pas seulement d'un point de vue formel, à la question fondamentale de la théorie économique cherchant un système économique optimal. Alors que la métaphysique leibnizienne définit comme étant le meilleur des mondes possibles celui dans lequel l'existence de possibilia est élargie au maximum, la théorie économique, de son côté, voit dans une (...) maximisation de l'utile à l'individu, indissociable cependant d'une » maximisation de l'existence « , le critère de l'évolution économique. Cette concordance entre Leibniz et la théorie économique, à savoir que le problème de la maximisation occupe une place centrale, ammène à de nouvelles connaissances en ontologie et en sciences sociales et économiques. (shrink)

Parkinson schreibt, es sei nicht klar, daß Alexander selbst von Geburt an Merkmale oder Zeichen des Ortes seines zukünftigen Todes in sich getragen haben müsse, weil der vollständige Begriff von Alexander den Begriff des in Babylon Sterbens enthält. Die vorliegende Interpretation des Prinzips der Vorherbestimmtheit der Geschichte verdeutlicht dies mit Hilfe der bildlichen Ausdrücke, Pläne und Dispositionen und mit Hilfe einer aristotelischen Unterscheidung zwischen "going to be" und "will be" , fur welche ein formaler chronologischer Apparat ausgearbeitet ist. Die Arbeit (...) gibt ebenfalls Einblick in den Gedanken, daB die Gegenwart schwanger mit der Zukunft ist, und antwortet auf Reschers Kritik, daß Leibniz' Metaphysik von Grund auf statisch sei. (shrink)

Giving the foundation of his doctrine of the “Umwelten” v.Uexküll considersKants idealism as the best starting point. The present essay, to the contrary, tries to demonstrate, that the peculiarity of his problems rather corresponds to the logical and metaphysical position ofLeibniz's “monadology” and so shares its philosophical profundity as well as its ontological difficulties. Cardinal points of this correspondence are the following: 1) There is a plurality of subjective worlds=“Umwelten”=“monads”. 2) They are completely isolated one from another. 3) The subject (...) bilds up its reality quite autonomically according to an ideal and specific law=plan=conception. 4) The individual vital laws harmonize according to an optimal general plan. 5) The objective space is denied and regarded as the formalized system of living subjective centres=points of view. 6) Therefrom results the difficulty of explaining a causality of inconscious nature, which is independent from the subject. 7) From this follows the necessity of speculatively amplifying the conception of “subject” or “monad” as well as finally displacing the problem of reality into the metaphysical-religious sphere of a supreme monad or subject.En donnant les raisonnements de sa doctrine des „Umwelten”, M. v.Uexküll considère l'idéalisme deKant comme le meilleur point de départ. Par contre le présent essai cherche à démontrer que la disposition du problème effectivement en question le met plutÔt en parallèle, du point de vue du criticisme et de la métaphysique, avec la „monadologie” deLeibniz, à l'ampleur philosophique de laquelle elle participe aussi bien qu'à ses difficultés ontologiques. Les points cardinaux de cette concordance sont les suivants: 1) la pluralité des mondes subjectifs=„Umwelten” =„monades”; 2) leur intégral isolement réciproque; 3) l'autonomie du sujet quant à la construction de sa réalité, suivant une loi idéelle et spécifique; 4) l'harmonie de toutes les lois vitales et individuelles suivant un plan d'ensemble tendant à un optimum; s) le reniement de la réalité absolue de l'espace objectif et son interprétation comme système formalisé de centres subjectifs vivants ; 6) la difficulté qui en résulte pour l'admissibilité d'une causalité de la nature inconsciente, indépendante du sujet; 7) la nécessité, en découlant, d'une amplification spéculative de l'idée du „sujet” ou de la „monade”, ainsi que, finalement, le renvoi du problème de la réalité dans la sphère métaphysico-religieuse d'une monade suprÊme ou d'un suprÊme sujet. (shrink)

In substantial ways, the strangest aspects of Leibniz's wild metaphysical architecture (monads and all that) lie grounded in his efforts to understand the "unreasonable effectiveness" of the mathematics utilized in the classical modeling of ordinary materials (of which we will adopt sword steel as a chief paradigm, for reasons to be explained later). In doing so, Leibniz proceeds in a more acutely reasoned fashion than does Eugene Wigner in the famously fuzzy article from which the phrase "unreasonable effectiveness" descends. There (...) Wigner stirs up a blurry mysticism through the loose invocation of an heterogeneous set of examples. But "Explain all of this in one stroke, can you?"represents the usual rhetorical gambit of zealots urging us to abandon science for faith (although that was probably not Wigner's own intent'). (shrink)

A obra de Dilthey desempenha um papel fundamental para a filosofia contemporânea, na medida em que Dilthey distingue duas esferas por meio das quais temos acesso ao todo da realidade: a experiência objetiva ( die Erfahrung ) e a vivência ( das Erlebnis ). É esta distinçáo que possibilita a Dilthey, em oposiçáo às ciências da natureza, conceber as condições de evidência e validade das ciências do espírito. Ainda que náo nomeada com estes termos, esta distinçáo vai estar na base (...) dos textos de muitos autores do final do século XIX e do século XX. Conquanto Dilthey elabore sua teoria no decorrer de uma vasta obra, nosso objetivo é reconstruir a distinçáo que ele estabelece a partir do modo como ele reinterpreta o princípio de razáo suficiente, conforme formulado por Leibniz e Wolff. Também procuramos mostrar, a seguir, como esta reinterpretaçáo permite a Dilthey opor, à esfera dos conhecimentos teóricos circunscrita por Kant, a esfera dos conhecimentos relativos à vivência. Assim, o argumento principal aqui exposto estabelece um vínculo entre o modo como Dilthey reinterpreta o princípio de razáo suficiente e o modo como reconstrói cientificamente a fundamentaçáo das ciências do espírito, concebendo-as a partir de uma relaçáo específica entre evidência e validade. (shrink)