Paul Lodge

According to one of Leibniz's theories of contingency a proposition is contingent if and only if it cannot be proved in a finite number of steps. It has been argued that this faces the Problem of Lucky Proof , namely that we could begin by analysing the concept ‘Peter’ by saying that ‘Peter is a denier of Christ and …’, thereby having proved the proposition ‘Peter denies Christ’ in a finite number of steps. It also faces a more general but related problem that we dub the Problem of Guaranteed Proof . We argue that Leibniz has an answer to these problems since for him one has not proved that ‘Peter denies Christ’ unless one has also proved that ‘Peter’ is a consistent concept, an impossible task since it requires the full decomposition of the infinite concept ‘Peter’. We defend this view from objections found in the literature and maintain that for Leibniz all truths about created individual beings are contingent

In this paper I offer a discussion of chapter 3 of Adrian Moore’s The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, which is titled “Leibniz: Metaphysics in the Service of Theodicy.” Here Moore discusses the philosophy of Leibniz and comes to a damning conclusion. My main aim is to suggest that such a conclusion might be a little premature. I begin by outlining Moore’s discussion of Leibniz and then raise some problems for the objections that Moore presents. I follow this by raising a Moore-inspired problem of my own and offer a possible response. The response is based on a little-known essay of Leibniz’s called “Leibniz’s Philosophical Dream” and leads me to consider Leibniz’s deepest motivations for engaging in philosophical reflection.

Thanks to the efforts of Paul Schrecker and John W. Nason some half century ago, the University of Pennsylvania is home to microfilm reproductions of over one hundred thousand hand-written pages drawn from the collection of Leibniz’s papers presently housed in the Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Hannover. The microfilms are to be found on the mezzanine floor of the reference section in the Van Pelt Library and are readily accessible to visitors. Xerox copies may be made, although the Van Pelt Library stresses that the microfilms remain the property of the Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, and that permission to copy must be obtained from Hannover beforehand.

According to Robert Sleigh Jr., “The opening remarks of DM.18 make it clear that Leibniz took the results of DM.17 as either establishing, or at least going a long way toward establishing, that force is not identifiable with any mode characterizable terms of size, shape, and motion.” Sleigh finds this puzzling and suggests that other commentators have generally been insufficiently perplexed by the bearing that the DM.17 has on the metaphysical issue. In this brief paper, I examine the solution that Sleigh offers to his puzzle, and present an alternative way of understanding the relationship between these two sections of the Discourse.

In discussion of Leibniz’s philosophical methodology Donald Rutherford defends the view that Leibniz regarded metaphysics as an a priori demonstrative science. In the course of this discussion Rutherford isolates and tries to deflect a significant challenge for his view, namely the observation that in many of his mature writings on metaphysics Leibniz appears to defend his views by means of a posteriori arguments. I present some prima facie difficulties with Rutherford’s position and then offer an alternative account of how Leibniz thought he needed to establish metaphysical claims. My suggestion is that the challenge that Rutherford poses may be best answered by attending to the fact that Leibniz recognized a kind of metaphysical enquiry, ‘real metaphysics’, that is essentially a posteriori, in virtue of the fact that it is concerned not just with possible kinds of beings, but with the kinds of beings that God actually created.

Schon in seinen frühen Jahren war Leibniz ein Gegner der Cartesischen Naturphilosophie, ca. 1697 zeigt sich in seinen Texten dann ein Argument gegen Descartes, das ich im folgenden behandle und als ,heterogeneity argument‘ bezeichnen möchte - eingangs wird hier dargestellt, wie Leibniz es im Paragraphen 13 seiner Schrift De ipsa natura expliziert, anschließend diskutiere ich zwei frühere Ansätze, die sich um das Thema drehen und die darin einig sind, daß Leibniz Descartes' Auffassung von der materiellen Welt aus a priori - Gründen kritisiert, da sie intern inkonsistent bleibt: Ich versuche nachzuweisen, daß diese Interpretationen Leibniz nicht gerecht werden und plädiere für eine a posteriori - basierte Auslegung - Leibniz zieht Descartes' Ansatz in Zweifel, indem er sich auf ,contingentia‘ hinsichtlich der Art beruft, in der unsere Sinneswahrnehmung die materielle Welt repräsentiert. Zum Abschluß erörtere ich einige allgemeinere hermeneutische Probleme, die sich aus den Unterschieden zwischen früheren Interpretationen und meiner eigenen Deutung nun ergeben

Unlike most of the other great philosophers Leibniz never wrote a magnum opus, so his philosophical correspondence is essential for an understanding of his views. This collection of essays by pre-eminent figures in the field of Leibniz scholarship is a most thorough account of Leibniz's philosophical correspondencee. It both illuminates Leibniz's philosophical views and pays due attention to the dialectical context in which the relevant passages from the letters occur. The result is a book of enormous value to all serious students of early-modern philosophy and the history of ideas.

This volume is a critical edition of the eight-year correspondence between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Burcher de Volder, professor of philosophy and mathematics at Leiden University. Containing the surviving correspondence between Leibniz and De Volder, the volume also presents a generous selection from the letters between Leibniz and his friend Johann Bernoulli, through whose intercession the correspondence began. Bernoulli acted as intermediary throughout, and the often candid discussions between Leibniz and Bernoulli provide illuminating background to the correspondence proper. Each of the selections appears both in the original Latin and in English translation

In a recent paper, Dennis Plaisted examines an important argument that Leibniz gives for the existence of primitive concepts. After sketching a natural reading of this argument, Plaisted observes that the argument appears to imply something clearly inconsistent with Leibniz’s other views. To save Leibniz from contradiction, Plaisted offers a revision. However, his account faces a number of serious difficulties and therefore does not successfully eliminate the inconsistency. We explain these difficulties and defend a more plausible alternative. In the process, we call attention to the neglected topic of Leibniz’s views on the nature of conceiving, and reveal his commitment to the somewhat surprising thesis that one can conceive something through a concept even if one has no conscious grasp of that concept.

The question of Leibniz’s relationship to mysticism has been a topic of some debate since the early part of the 20th Century. An initial wave of scholarship led by Jean Baruzi presented Leibniz mystic. However, later in the 20th Century the mood turned against this view and this negative appraisal holds sway today. In this paper I aim to do two things: First I provide a detailed account of the ways in which Leibniz is critical of mysticism; second, I argue that there is, nonetheless, an important sense in which Leibniz should be regarded as an advocate of mysticism. However, the approach that I take does not focus on an effort to overturn the kinds of considerations that led people to reject the views of Baruzi. Instead, I try to reframe the discussion and explore more complex and interesting relationships that exist between mysticism and Leibniz’s philosophical theology than have been articulated previously. Here I draw on some recent discussions of mysticism in the philosophical literature to illuminate Leibniz’s own distinction between “false mysticism” and “true mystical theology.”