Des Bosses Research Articles

The Unity of Composite Substance: The Scholastic Background to the Vinculum Substantiale in Leibniz’s Correspondence with Des Bosses

Abstract This paper explores the scholastic context of the discussion about the unity of the composite or corporeal substance and the nature of the vinculum substantiale or substantial bond in Leibniz’s correspondence with Des Bosses. Three prominent scholastic views are examined: Duns Scotus’s antireductionist account of the composite substance as an entity irreducible to its essential parts (i.e., matter and substantial form); Ockham’s parts-whole identity thesis, which entails a reductionist view of the composite substance; and Suárez’s explanation of the unity of composite substance through the presence of a substantial mode of union. It is then shown that Leibniz initially combines a reductionist account of the composite substance, with the vinculum playing the role of bond among the component monads. In his last letters, he moves away from this to an antireductionist account of the composite substance, with which he now identifies the vinculum.

Leibniz�s well-founded fictions and their interpetations

Leibniz used the term fiction in conjunction with infinitesimals. What kind of fictions they were exactly is a subject of scholarly dispute. The position of Bos and Mancosu contrasts with that of Ishiguro and Arthur. Leibniz's own views, expressed in his published articles and correspondence, led Bos to distinguish between two methods in Leibniz's work: (A) one exploiting classical `exhaustion' arguments, and (B) one exploiting inassignable infinitesimals together with a law of continuity. Of particular interest is evidence stemming from Leibniz's work Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain as well as from his correspondence with Arnauld, Bignon, Dagincourt, Des Bosses, and Varignon. A careful examination of the evidence leads us to the opposite conclusion from Arthur's. We analyze a hitherto unnoticed objection of Rolle's concerning the lack of justification for extending axioms and operations in geometry and analysis from the ordinary domain to that of infinitesimal calculus, and reactions to it by Saurin and Leibniz. A newly released 1705 manuscript by Leibniz (Puisque des personnes...) currently in the process of digitalisation, sheds light on the nature of Leibnizian inassignable infinitesimals. In a pair of 1695 texts Leibniz made it clear that his incomparable magnitudes violate Euclid's Definition V.4, a.k.a. the Archimedean property, corroborating the non-Archimedean construal of the Leibnizian calculus. Keywords: Archimedean property; assignable vs inassignable quantity; Euclid's Definition V.4; infinitesimal; law of continuity; law of homogeneity; logical fiction; Nouveaux Essais; pure fiction; quantifier-assisted paraphrase; syncategorematic; transfer principle; Arnauld; Bignon; Des Bosses; Rolle; Saurin; Varignon

Why did Leibniz fail to complete his dynamics?

ABSTRACTLeibniz’s ‘new science of dynamics’ is typically taken to have been completed in the late monadological metaphysics. On this view, stemming from Martial Gueroult and continuing in the recent interpretations of Robert Adams and Pauline Phemister, Leibniz accomplished his dynamics in his later account of physical forces as merely phenomenal modifications of monadic, metaphysical forces. This paper argues, by contrast, that Leibniz considered the dynamics to be an unfinished project: this is evident in statements from throughout his mature period until his final months. Two possible reasons for the non-completion of the dynamics are discussed. The first is that his encounter with the superior physics of Newton’s Principia caused Leibniz to continually defer his own contribution. I argue, however, in favour of a second reason: that there are philosophical difficulties inherent in the science of dynamics that prevented its completion. These difficulties are found in the relation of dynamics to metaphysics, and in the more fundamental split within dynamics, into the doctrine of primitive and derivative forces. Through three late exchanges with de Volder, Wolff and Des Bosses, I show that the relation of primitive and derivative forces remained an unsolved – although not in principle unsolvable – problem for Leibniz.

Philosophia peripatetica emendata. Leibniz and Des Bosses on the Aristotelian Corporeal Substance

This paper presents Leibniz and Des Bosses’s views on extension and the corporeal substance. It presents Des Bosses’s philosophical project as a way of shedding light on the well-known correspondence between the two and uses a previously unexplored text: Des Bosses’s outline of a metaphysical treatise of his own. The paper argues that Leibniz introduced the notion of a substantial bond, at the demand of Des Bosses, in order to secure the reality of extension; that Des Bosses had strong views on matter and extension, which could not be satisfied by Leibniz’s proposal; that these views led him to reject Leibniz’s notion of the substantial bond; consequently, that Leibniz’s notion of corporeal substance was incompatible with the views on matter and extension defended by Des Bosses; and, finally, that Des Bosses developed his metaphysical ideas in 1735 by using Leibnizian insights for his agenda.

On Kant’s Knowledge of Leibniz’ Metaphysics—a Reply to Garber

Daniel Garber has put forward an argument that aims to show that Kant’s understanding of Leibniz’ metaphysics should be discounted because he could only have had access to a small and narrow sample of Leibniz’ works from around 1710–1714. In particular, Garber argues that as Kant could not have read Leibniz’ correspondence with Arnauld or his correspondence with Des Bosses he could not have had an adequate conception of Leibniz’ understanding of the relation between substance and body. I will show that Kant could have read some of the Arnauld correspondence and practically all of the Des Bosses correspondence, as well as a number of other related texts that are important for understanding Leibniz’ metaphysics, over a decade before writing the Critique of Pure Reason. Garber’s historical-textual argument for dismissing Kant’s account of Leibniz’ metaphysics is therefore seriously misleading.

Leibniz on Substance and Changing Properties

The paper examines three essays that Leibniz wrote in 1688, immediately after the composition of the Discourse on Metaphysics, one of his most organic philosophical works. The main topics which emerge from these essays are: the relationship between substance and accidents; the nature of accidents; and, more generally, the nature of abstract entities. Given that accidents’ nature is that of changing, Leibniz sees how hard it is to give an account of the relationship between substance and accidents that does not imply any change in the substance, when its accidents undergo a change. To find a way out of this problem, Leibniz assumes that abstract terms (whiteness, wisdom, etc.) do not name real properties or real parts of substances, and that any sentence containing real abstract terms can be rephrased as a sentence containing logical abstract terms, which do no imply any commitment to the existence of real properties. Coherently with this nominalistic attitude, Leibniz ends up, in the Theodicy and in his correspondence with Des Bosses, considering accidents as modes or internal modifications of the substance.

The scientific observatories on Mont Blanc.

Since the first ascent of Mont Blanc by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel-Gabriel Paccard in 1786, numerous scientific events have taken place on the highest peak of Europe. Horace Benédict de Saussure, since his first ascent in 1787, made numerous observations on barometric pressure, temperature, geology, and mountain sickness on Mont Blanc. Over the next 100 years, scientists and physicians climbed Mont Blanc and made many interesting although anecdotal reports. Science on Mont Blanc exploded at the end of the 19th century. A major player at that time was Joseph Vallot (1854-1925), who constructed an observatory in 1890 at 4,358 m on the Rochers des Bosses and then moved it in 1898 to a better location at 4,350 m. There Vallot and invited scientists made observations over more than 30 years: studies in geology, glaciology, astronomy, cartography, meteorology, botany, physiology and medicine were performed and published in the seven volumes of the Annales de l'Observatoire du Mont Blanc, between 1893 and 1917, and in the Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences. While Jules Janssen and Xaver Imfeld were preparing the construction of the new observatory on the top of Mont Blanc, Dr. Jacottet died in 1891 at the Observatoire Vallot from a disease that was clearly attributed by Dr. Egli-Sinclair to the effect of high altitude. This was probably the first case of high altitude pulmonary edema documented by an autopsy and suspected to be directly due to high altitude. Extensive studies on ventilation were made from 1886 to 1900. Increase in ventilation with altitude was documented, with the phenomenon of "ventilatory acclimatization." Paul Bert's theories on the role of oxygen in acute mountain sickness were confirmed in 1903 and 1904 by studying the effects of oxygen inhalation. In 1913, Vallot documented for the first time the decrease in physical performance at the top of Mont Blanc using squirrels. After that pioneering era, few studies were done until 1984, when a team of the Association pour la Recherche en Physiologie de l'Environnement (ARPE) renovated the observatory and started to organize annual scientific expeditions.

Leibniz On Form and Matter

AbstractThis paper discusses the Aristotelian notions of matter and form as they are treated in the philosophy of Leibniz. The discussion is divided into three parts, corresponding to three periods in Leibniz's development. In the earliest period, as exemplified in a 1669 letter to his former mentor Jakob Thomasius, Leibniz argues that matter and form can be given straightforward interpretations in terms of size and shape, basic categories in the new mechanical philosophy. In Leibniz's middle years, on the other hand, as exemplified in the Discourse on Metaphysics and the correspondence with Arnauld, Leibniz seems to hold a more orthodox Aristotelian view of matter and form as the constituents of the corporeal substances that ground the reality of the physical world. In Leibniz's latest years, as discussed in the letters with Des Bosses, matter and form enter once again in connection with the vinculum substantiale, the substantial bond that is supposed to bind monads together to form corporeal substances.