Brandon Look

The book under review contains a selection of the papers presented at the conference “Leibniz and Adam,” held in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem from December 29, 1991 to January 2, 1992. The object of the conference and the book was to consider the role of Adam, the first man, in Leibniz’s thought and, in doing so, “to provide an unusual view of the interrelations between his metaphysics, philosophy of religion, philosophy of language, theory of knowledge, logic, attidude vis-à-vis mysticism, philosophy of history, philosophy of nature, ethics, and philosophical anthropology”.

This paper addresses D. C. Williams’s question, “How can Leibniz know that he is a member of the actual world and not merely a possible monad on the shelf of essence?” A variety of answers are considered. Ultimately, it is argued that no particular perception of a state of affairs in the world can warrant knowledge of one’s actuality, nor can the awareness of any property within oneself; rather, it is the nature of experience itself, with the flow of perceptions, that guarantees our actuality. A consequence of this view is that no non-actual individuals can truly be said to experience their worlds, nor can they ask the question if they are actual or not.