Interpretation Of Leibniz Research Articles

Beyond (European) Philosophy: From Leibniz—via Schmalenbach—to Benjamin

Abstract The essay begins by demonstrating that Benjamin drew his interpretation of Leibniz's metaphysics from a little-known book by Herman Schmalenbach. In contrast to the typical view, according to which Leibniz is a proponent of the principle of continuity, Schmalenbach argues that his metaphysics is rooted in a fascination with the discontinuity of whole numbers. Benjamin transforms this view by replacing whole numbers with whole names. The essay then shows the consequence of this adaptation of Schmalenbach's work first in the introductory texts Benjamin wrote for his Origin of the German Trauerspiel and finally in his last reflections “On the Concept of History.” The fulcrum of the argument is that the replacement of number by name inadvertently led Benjamin to recognize something “worrisome” about philosophy, whose “principal coinages” are drawn, Esperanto-like, from a small number of languages, almost exclusively European.

A New Defense of the Principle of Sufficient Reason

This paper offers a defense of a much-maligned Leibnizian argument for the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the principle according to which whatever is has a sufficient reason or explanation. While Leibniz’s argument is widely thought to rely on a question-begging premise, the paper offers a wholly original and non-question-begging defense of that premise, a defense that Leibniz did not anticipate. The paper does not present this defense of Leibniz's argument as an interpretation of Leibniz; rather, the paper—more modestly in one way, less modestly in another—simply claims that this argument succeeds.

Leibniz on Agential Contingency and Inclining but not Necessitating Reasons

AbstractI argue for a novel interpretation of Leibniz’s conception of the kind of contingency that matters for freedom, which I label ‘agential contingency.’ In brief, an agent is free to the extent that she determines herself to do what she judges to be the best of several considered options that she could have brought about had she concluded that these options were best. I use this novel interpretation to make sense of Leibniz’s doctrine that the reasons that explain free actions are merely inclining and not necessitating.

Bergson’s Notion of Duration as Drive

A renewed interest into the philosophy of Bergson in the last decades brings his central notion duration to the fore of lively discussions. This renewed interest certainly has its source in Deleuze’s Bergsonism, where he declared Bergson’s philosophy as an alternative to phenomenology that dominated the philosophical discussions throughout the 20th century. Deleuze’s attempt to put Bergson as an alternative to phenomenology was a protest against the phenomenological tradition, which denounced Bergson’s analysis of duration as it is first developed in Time and Free Will as remaining within the confines of psychological realism and reducing time to a flowing, fluid thing that resides in consciousness. In an attempt to contribute to the Deleuzian interpretation that defends Bergson’s notion of duration against its phenomenological criticisms, I argue in the present study that the notion of duration as developed by Bergson in Time and Free Will can be best interpreted in terms of a Leibnizian notion of force. Following Bergson’s criticism of reduction of time to a homogeneous medium in the work of Kant, I introduce Bergson’s analysis of duration as a drive that prolongs the past of consciousness into its present. In doing this I take a detour through Heidegger’s interpretation of Leibniz’s vis activa as drive.

Fundamental Perception in Leibniz’s Philosophy and Contemporary Panpsychism

This article examines the fundamental ontological significance that the category of perception has in philosophy of G.W. Leibniz, and establishes the connection between the category of perception and modern panpsychism. There is a problem of definition of protopsychic properties in modern panpsychism. The problem is expressed not only in the absence of such a definition, but also in the absence of a good strategy for finding possible candidates for the role of protopsychic property. To solve this problem, the author considers the status of the monad as the center of perception in Leibniz’s monadology, as well as the question of the relation of different monads to each other. Based on Leibniz’s ideas, the following modifications for modern panpsychism have been proposed, among others. First, it was proposed that protopsychic properties be viewed as properties that represent all reality in some vague way, preventing the emergence of high-level psychic properties. Second, it was proposed that mental properties be viewed not as a combination of protopsychic properties, but as state of protopsychic properties. This means that to form high-level mental properties, protopsychic properties must not only form some system, but must also be partially blocked. The author also considers the question of whether it is possible to borrow the proposed ideas in modern panpsychism. The problem for this is the ontological differences between modern naturalistic panpsychism and Leibniz’s classical panpsychism. The article proposes three different strategies for dealing with this problem related to three interpretations of Leibniz’s philosophy. First, it is possible to limit ourselves to considering physics as a set of structural phenomena derived from the activity of monads. Second, it is possible to try to show that there is some other, non-causal, type of relationship between the monads. Third, it is possible to consider this system as naturalistic pantheism and assume that God is a mediator and a common non-spatial coordinate system through which the monads agree with each other.

Brandom's Leibniz

AbstractI discuss an objection by Margaret Wilson against Robert Brandom's interpretation of Leibniz's account of perceptual distinctness. According to Brandom, Leibniz holds that (i) the relative distinctness of a perception is a function of its inferentially articulated content and (ii) apperception, or awareness, is explicable in terms of degrees of perceptual distinctness. Wilson alleges that Brandom confuses ‘external deducibility’ from a perceptual state of a monad to the existence of properties in the world, with ‘internally accessible content’ for the monad in that state. Drawing on Leibniz, I develop a response to Wilson on Brandom's behalf.

FREEDOM AS THE MAIN PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHY GÜNTHER NEUMANN DER FREIHEITSBEGRIFF BEI GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ UND MARTIN HEIDEGGER. PHILOSOPHISCHE SCHRIFTEN, BAND 9. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2019 ISBN 978-3-428-15537-8 HEIDEGGER UND LEIBNIZ. MIT EINEM GELEITWORT VON FRIEDRICH-WILHELM VON HERRMANN (DAS DENKEN MARTIN HEIDEGGERS II 2 HRSG. VON HANS-CHRISTIAN GÜNTHER). Traugott Bautz Verlag, Nordhausen, 2020 ISBN 978-3-95948-493-0

Book review focuses on two books by Gunther Neumann, dedicated to the thought of Heidegger and Leibniz. If one of the books deals specifically with the understanding of freedom in both of the two philosophers, then the other one deals more with Heidegger’s three approaches to Leibniz’s thought: (1) Interpretation of Leibniz in the context of the making of fundamental ontology and in Being and Time, as well as the reading of Leibniz after Being and Time; (2) Interpretation of Leibniz during the transition to Ereignis thought; (3) Interpetation of Leibniz in the framework of Ereignis thought. Author’s scrupulous close reading approach allows to show the changes in Heidegger’s approach to Leibniz’s philosophy, as well as sketch out the placement of Leibniz’s great themes on the horizon of Heidegger’s history of the truth of being. Author also shows that from metaphysics there stems a certain view in the modern philosophical discussions oriented on neurosciences—a certain view on the human being and on the freedom of will. On this background Heidegger appears as a thinker who has looked beyond the alloy of metaphysics and sciences, in which the concept of freedom has been greatly restricted. Heidegger manages (thanks to the radical questioning of Being) to turn the view on the problem of freedom, which appears in G. Neumann’s books as the main problem of philosophy—through the contact of Leibniz’s thought and Heidegger’s.

Willem Jacob 's Gravesande’s philosophical trajectory: “between” Leibniz and Newton

ABSTRACT This article challenges the scholarly consensus on Willem Jacob 's Gravesande’s philosophy, namely the view that it was predominantly influenced by Newton, Locke, and Descartes. More generally, it opposes the tendency to read the work of eighteenth-century natural philosophers as being part of well-defined strands of Newtonianism. I argue that we will understand the intellectual history of the early eighteenth century better if we let go of essentialist taxonomic views and instead pay attention to the historical trajectories of various actors and ideas. In the case of 's Gravesande (1688–1742), it has often been assumed that he used a particular form of Newtonianism to combat rationalist metaphysics, particularly Spinozism. Here I show that this view is not tenable when we take account of 's Gravesande’s metaphysical writings. On topics such as liberty, necessity, and theodicy, these writings deviate from what Newtonianism is usually taken to stand for. Instead, 's Gravesande’s views on such matters correspond more closely to certain interpretations of Leibniz’s Théodicée.

(English translation of) “Contexte génétique et première réception de la Monadologie. Leibniz, Wolff et la Doctrine de L’harmonie préétablie,”

The many equivocations that, in several respects, characterised the reception of Leibniz's Principes de la Nature et de la Grâce and Monadologie, up until the last century, find their origins in the genetic circumstances of their manuscripts, which gave rise to misinformation published in an anonymous review that appeared in the Leipzig Acta eruditorum in 1721. Archival research demonstrates that the author of this review, as well as of the Latin review of the Monadologie, which appeared, the same year, in the Supplementa of the Acta eruditorum, was Christian Wolff, who possessed a copy of the Leibnizian manuscrip since at least 1717. This translation figured as a precise cultural strategy that aimed to defuse any idealist interpretation of Leibniz’s monadology. An essential part of this strategy consists in reading the theory of pre-established harmony as a doctrine founded on a strictly dualistic substance metaphysics.

Logic, truth, and metaphysics: from Leibniz to Heidegger

This essay explores the ontological foundations of logic and truth from Heidegger’s philosophical perspective. It focuses, in particulat, on Heidegger’s interpretation of Leibniz’s theory of judgment. This case study aims at looking back at the history of philosophy from Heidegger’s position on truth understood as unconcealment or disclosure (aletheia).

Heidegger on the Being of Monads: Lessons in Leibniz and in the Practice of Reading the History of Philosophy

This paper is a discussion of the treatment of Leibniz's conception of substance in Heidegger's The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. I explain Heidegger's account, consider its relation to recent interpretations of Leibniz in the Anglophone secondary literature, and reflect on the ways in which Heidegger's methodology may illuminate what it is to read Leibniz and other figures in the history of philosophy.

Interpreting Spinoza: The Real is the Rational

Interpreting Spinoza:The Real is the Rational Michael Della Rocca (bio) in his characteristically generous and searching discussion of my book, Spinoza, Daniel Garber rightly points out that I structure my interpretation of Spinoza’s system around the principle of sufficient reason (the PSR). This is the principle that, as I and others sometimes put it, each fact has an explanation and is thus not brute, or the principle that each thing has an explanation. The ‘or’ will soon be important. Indeed, it might seem that I am too focused on the PSR—certainly I seem that way to Garber1—for I seek to use the PSR to unlock any number of problems that interpreters of Spinoza have faced over the last three centuries. Garber does a great job of conveying the range of uses to which I put the PSR in an attempt to bring Spinoza’s system under control, so I will not go into the details except to say that the interpretation I offer covers not only Spinoza’s metaphysics, but also his epistemology, philosophy of mind, psychology, moral and political philosophy, philosophy of religion, and, in a way, his account of human salvation. I also will not talk about the crucial two-fold use to which Spinoza puts the PSR and which leads to some of the idealist strands of my reading. Garber omits any discussion of the two-fold use, and so I will leave it out here too. The general point is that, for me, the PSR opens up breathtaking interpretive vistas that reveal Spinoza’s system to be coherent, defensible, and groundbreaking in unexpected ways. It is an exciting story, one that I was and am happy to tell. Garber’s aim in his essay is to challenge my reading of Spinoza both on first-order interpretive grounds and on second-order methodological grounds. With regard to the first-order worries, Garber’s main points are that there is no good evidence that Spinoza is committed to the PSR in the strong—“no brute facts”—form in which I present it and that Spinoza does in fact allow at least one major brute fact at the heart of his system. With regard to the second-order worries, Garber expresses a preference for what he sees as a “direct reading” of Spinoza over what he sees as my rational reconstructions of Spinoza. His Spinoza is the [End Page 523] “real historical” Spinoza, whereas mine is an ideal type, a superhero but not the actual philosopher. I would like to push back a bit against Garber on both the first- and second-order grounds. With regard to the first-order worries, I reaffirm my textually well-grounded reasons for seeing Spinoza as espousing a strong form of the PSR, and I also offer reasons for denying that there is the big brute fact that Garber finds in Spinoza’s system. With regard to Garber’s second-order, methodological worries, my main aim will be to try to characterize more accurately some genuine methodological differences between us and to stress that both Garber’s approach and my own are valuable ways of getting at the real Spinoza. Before turning to the first-order skirmishes and second-order methodological love fest, I would like to offer two observations about the way in which Garber frames his discussion of my book and of my approach to Spinoza. First, at the outset, Garber compares the single-mindedness of my PSR-focused perspective on Spinoza both to the single-mindedness of Russell’s interpretation of Leibniz’s philosophy as motivated by his logic2 and to the single-mindedness of Bernard Williams’s interpretation of the Descartes of the Meditations as a “pure enquirer.”3 I am, of course, only too happy for my work on Spinoza to be mentioned in the same paragraph (or book or library!) as these classic works by Russell and Williams; and, however inapt the comparison would be in other respects, I regard Garber as correct in pointing out similarities between the apparently unified interpretations at work in my book and in these others. I would also say that many other works on historical...

Leibniz on Causation - Part 2

Leibniz is almost unique among early modern philosophers in giving final causation a central place in his metaphysical system. All changes in created substances, according to Leibniz, have final causes, that is, occur for the sake of some end. There is, however, no consensus among commentators about the details of Leibniz's views on final causation. The least perfect types of changes that created substances undergo are especially puzzling because those changes seem radically different from paradigmatic instances of final causation. Building on my more general discussion of efficient and final causation in ‘Leibniz on Causation – Part 1,’ I will examine and assess some of the rival interpretations of Leibniz's account of final causation.

Harmonizing Leibniz’s Ontology

I propose a novel compatibilist interpretation of Leibniz’s mature views concerning what is metaphysically basic. Drawing on a compatibilist reading of Aristotle on primary substance in the Categories and Metaphysics Z, I argue that Leibniz is working with two complementary ways of being metaphysically basic—one applying to immaterial monads, the other to corporeal substances. Although corporeal substances derive their status as basic from their dominant monads, they are nevertheless fully real, unified, and genuinely capable of acting. This perspective respects Leibniz’s idealist tendencies and his commitment to the reality of bodies without (implausibly) attributing inconsistency to his considered views.

Leibniz on Memory and Consciousness

In this article, I develop a higher-order interpretation of Leibniz's theory of consciousness according to which memory is constitutive of consciousness. I offer an account of Leibniz's theory of memory on which his theory of consciousness may be based, and I then show that Leibniz could have developed a coherent higher-order account. However, it is not clear whether Leibniz held (or should have held) such an account of consciousness; I sketch an alternative that has at least as many advantages as the higher-order theory. This analysis provides an important antecedent to the contemporary discussions of higher-order theories of consciousness.

Leibniz on Divine Concurrence

AbstractIn this paper I examine G. W. Leibniz’s view on the debate between occasionalists, mere conservationists, and concurrentists. Although commentators agree that Leibniz wants to reject occasionalism and mere conservationism, there is considerable disagreement about whether Leibniz is committed to a theory of divine concurrence that differs from occasionalism and mere conservationism in principled ways. I critically assess three interpretations of Leibniz’s theory in this paper. The first two (those of Robert Adams and Sukjae Lee) differ with respect to important details, but they both assume that Leibniz straightforwardly affirms the continual creation doctrine. I argue that a coherent Leibnizian theory of divine concurrence cannot be constructed on the ontological framework that the continual creation doctrine provides. The third interpretation that I consider holds that Leibniz is willing to affirm the continual creation doctrine only to the extent that it provides an acceptable way of characterizing the dependence of finite substances on God at the level of appearances. It is suggested that Leibniz’s deep metaphysical view of creation and conservation is that in a single act God creates and conserves substances that are non‐spatial and atemporal at the deepest level of metaphysical rigor. I argue that this alternative account of creation and conservation provides a promising ontological framework that can support a coherent theory of creaturely activity that does not collapse into occasionalism or mere conservationism.

Continental idealism: Leibniz to Nietzsche

Standard accounts of nineteenth-century German philosophy often begin with Kant and assess philosophers after him in light of their responses to Kantian idealism. In Continental Idealism, Paul Redding argues that the story of German idealism begins with Leibniz. Redding begins by examining Leibniz's dispute with Newton over the nature of space, time and God, and stresses the way in which Leibniz incorporated Platonic and Aristotelian elements in his distinctive brand of idealism. Redding shows how Kant's interpretation of Leibniz's views of space and time consequently shaped his own 'transcendental' version of idealism. Far from ending here, however, Redding argues that post-Kantian idealists such as Fichte, Schelling and Hegel on the one hand and metaphysical sceptics such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on the other continued to wrestle with a form of idealism ultimately derived from Leibniz. Continental Idealism offers not only a new picture of one of the most important philosophical movements in the history of philosophy, but also a valuable and clear introduction to the origins of Continental and European philosophy.

From The Revolutions of Capitalism

The translation below is an excerpt from Maurizio Lazzarato's book Les revolutions du capitalisme (Paris: Les empecheurs de penser en ronde, 2004) [The Revolutions of Capitalism]. In this book, Lazzarato analyzes the transition from Fordist disciplinary to post-Fordist control societies, and from the struggles of the traditional labor movement to those of the contemporary social movements, by invoking a number of concepts from French post-structuralism. Lazzarato's analysis also builds on the work of French sociologist Gabriel Tarde, and in particular on Tarde's interpretation of Leibniz. The philosophical theories of Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin provide another important reference point. Opening with reflections on a slogan associated with the protests against the 1999 WTO summit in Seattle--Another World is Possible The Revolutions of Capitalism explores the concepts of the possible and the virtual in order to formulate a critique not just of contemporary capitalism's regime of exploitation, but also of traditional strategies of resistance. Capitalism's most recent transformations -and in particular its direct exploitation of intellectual and affective interaction, made possible by the new technologies associated with immaterial laborrequire new theories of the event, of subjectivity, and of the ways in which subjectivity is produced--theories that go beyond socialism's dialectic of the individual and the collective. The traditional Marxist concepts of class, labor, and exploitation need to be re-examined in light of the new configurations of power and resistance characteristic of contemporary capitalism. In the passages translated below, Lazzarato proposes an expansion of the Marxist concept of exploitation and a reconsideration of traditional notions of power, discovering concepts adequate to the reality of contemporary capitalism in the work of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Michel Foucault.

真理保存的置換の原理と関係

In this critical notice, I point out that there are two problems for Ishiguro's interpretations of Leibniz. First, I argue that her response to Benson Mates in the defense of her interpretation of the principle of substitutivity sal va veritate as providing a criterion for the identity of concepts is not successful. Secondly, I explain why I cannot agree with her interpretation that Leibniz does not mean to eliminate relational properties in his reconstruals of relational propositions by showing that Leibniz's denial of the existence of extrinsic denominations, which he infers from the predicate-in-subject principle, is not consistent with the interpretation.

Garber’s Interpretations of Leibniz on Corporeal Substance in the ‘Middle Years’

In 1985 Daniel Garber published his highly intluential paper and the Founda­ tions of Physics: The Middle Years. In two recent articles, Garber returns to these issues with a new position - that we should perhaps conclude that Leibniz did not have a view concerning the ultimate ontology of substance during his middle years. I discuss the viability of this position and consider some more general methodological issues that arise from this discussion. I t is twenty years since Daniel Garber published his highly influential paper and the Foundations of Physics: The Middle Years (Garber 1985). In that paper Garber advocated an interpretation ofLeibniz's views concerning body and substance that has been subject to much discussion and debate. As a result of that discussion, Garber's position has changed somewhat and in two recent ar­ ticles, and Fardella: Body, Substance and Idealism, (Garber 2004) and and Idealism, (Garber 2005), he has returned to these issues with a fresh and, what I imagine will be, an equally provocative approach. Garber 2004 is partly autobiographical and I'll rely on Garber's account of his own progress when providing my analysis of the debate and the lessons that we can learn from its current state. I'll suggest that some elements in Garber's characterization of the debate may not be entirely accurate and clarification will certainly be one of my aims. But I want to discuss two further issues. As will become clear, a feature of Garber's current position is that we should perhaps conclude that Leibniz did not have a view concerning his ultimate ontology of substance during his middle years. I will be interested in the viability of this position. But I'll also explore some more general methodological issues that arise from Garber's willingness to embrace this kind of agnosticism on Leibniz's behalf (albeit tentatively). Finally, I want to return to an important and perennial aspect of Garber's views on body and corporeal substance that is somewhat downplayed in his most recent articles. I think this deserves greater attention and that such attention may lead to more