Leibniz and the “Modern” in Modern Philosophy

Abstract

I began this book by stating that its main thesis would be to demonstrate the persistence in Leibniz’s mature philosophy of his premodern theory of individuals and the principle of their individuation, by showing how both theory and principle have their roots in later or “second” scholastic sources of his earliest philosophy. The most influential of these, negatively, were surely the Scotists, while the most influential, positively, were equally surely the nominalists, chief among them Suarez. I submit that I have been able to demonstrate this thesis in detail. In this final chapter I want to explore (a) some of the implications of this reading of Leibniz for scholarship on Leibniz, (b) how we should understand Leibniz to be a “modern” philosopher, and (c) how the “modern” in modern philosophy and the “postmodern” in cultural analysis should be understood. These topics arise naturally from the claim that premodern philosophical ideas and methods persist in — indeed, shape fundamentally — Leibniz’s philosophy.