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Leibniz on Continuity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Richard T.W. Arthur
Richard T.W. Arthur*
Affiliation:
Middlebury College
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Extract

Leibniz never tired of stressing the fundamental importance of the concept of continuity for philosophy, nor was he shy of attributing major importance to his own struggle through “the labyrinth of the continuum” for the subsequent development of his whole system of thought. Unfortunately, however, his own thought on the subject is something of a labyrinth itself, and from a modern point of view many of his pronouncements are apt to seem blatantly contradictory.

Certain quotations seem to commit him unambiguously to atomism. Thus to de Voider he writes: “Matter is not continuous, but discrete…. The same holds for changes, which are not truly continuous.” (To de Voider, 11th October 1705: G.II.279).2

Type
Part II. History and Philosophy of Science
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1986 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1986 , 1986 , pp. 105 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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Footnotes

1

The latter part of this paper is based on joint research on the relation between Leibniz’s work and Combinatorial Topology, which I have been undertaking with Graham Solomon (Philosophy, University of Western Ontario) over the last several months.

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