•  1
    The article examines how Reimarus reorients concepts borrowed from Leibniz and Wolff – the principles of perfection, harmony and continuity – in order to feed his own natural religion project. Teleology is understood as a doctrine aiming at proving not only God’s perfections, but also the effects of the divine wisdom on creatures. Consequently, recourse to final causes in natural philosophy cannot remain at the level of general reasons, as Maupertuis’s principle of least action does, but rather …Read more
  •  11
    Introduction
    Dialogue 57 (4): 685-693. 2018.
  •  4
    Imaginative Animals, by L. Oliveri (review)
    The Leibniz Review 32 119-124. 2022.
  •  6
    Euler et le monadisme
    Studia Leibnitiana 45 (2): 150-169. 2013.
  •  4
    Leibniz et les qualités occultes
    Studia Leibnitiana 46 (2): 187-205. 2014.
  •  2
    Introduction. Einleitung
    with Raphaële Andrault
    Studia Leibnitiana 50 (1): 2. 2018.
    The importance of teleology in the 18 th century has mainly been studied from the point of view of a few specific authors. Leibniz is one of the most convinced advocates of the use of final causes in both physics and metaphysics. Despite its significance for the history of teleology, very few studies were in fact devoted to the influence of the Leibnizian doctrine during the 18 th century. However, Leibniz’s reception allows us not only to understand his own views on teleology in comparison with…Read more
  •  74
    Modernité et académies scientifiques européennes (edited book)
    with Mitia Rioux-Beaulne and Pierre Girard
    Classiques Garnier. 2023.
    Ce recueil de textes propose de contribuer à l’histoire des grandes académies scientifiques européennes. Plutôt que de vouloir tenter d’en dégager une homogénéité discutable, les études réunies tentent, au contraire, de montrer comment la pratique académique trouve son unité dans un ensemble de querelles.
  •  4
    Les métaphysiques des Lumières (edited book)
    with Pierre Girard and Mitia Rioux-Beaulne
    Classiques Garnier. 2016.
    Cet ouvrage présente le destin de la métaphysique au siècle des Lumières. Derrière le schéma classique d'une substitution de l'anthropologie à la métaphysique caractérisant les Lumières, les études réunies dans ce volume montrent l'évolution du champ de la métaphysique, sa redéfinition, ses métamorphoses au sein d'une modernité en pleine évolution. L'intérêt est de dévoiler comment la métaphysique évolue, s'adapte à de nouvelles problématiques, et cela en tenant compte de la complexité des situa…Read more
  • Les disciplines historiques, littéraires et philosophiques font un emploi abondant des catégories historiographiques. Parmi celles-ci, les termes en ismes sont très fréquents pour référer à une doctrine, un courant artistique, une idéologie ou des événements spécifiques. On fait cependant remarquer que ces désignations posent de nombreux problèmes d’interprétation. En particulier, que l’origine exacte d’une catégorie est souvent méconnue et que sa signification est plus équivoque qu’on ne le cro…Read more
  •  25
    Leibniz et Bayle: confrontation et dialogue (edited book)
    with Paul Rateau and Jean-Luc Solère
    Franz Steiner Verlag. 2015.
    Les textes reunis dans ce volume visent a combler une importante lacune : l'absence d'etude d'ampleur consacree specifiquement aux relations entre Pierre Bayle et Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, permettant d'evaluer l'influence qu'ils ont exercee l'un sur l'autre, par leurs ecrits et leurs echanges, directs et indirects.Le but est de confronter ces deux philosophes majeurs du XVIIe siecle, en cherchant a depasser l'opposition reductrice entre scepticisme d'un cote et rationalisme dogmatique de l'autr…Read more
  •  10
  •  4
    The paper aims at analyzing Lambert’s conception of empirical knowledge that is part of scientific learning. Indeed, in the Neues Organon, he claims that science is obtained with the help of both a priori and a posteriori knowledge. Lambert’s originality lies on the application of the analytic and synthetic methods of reasoning, which are traditionally used in formal disciplines, to the realm of experience. Transforming common knowledge into scientific a posteriori knowledge is mainly based on t…Read more
  •  6
    Harmony and Discord. Lambert and the System of Truths
    Les Cahiers Philosophiques de Strasbourg 44 77-102. 2018.
    L’article vise à examiner les caractéristiques de la systématicité chez Johann Heinrich Lambert. Influencé par Christian Wolff, Lambert élabore une doctrine originale de l’architectonique qui comprend pour l’essentiel deux parties : d’une part, une manière de déterminer la représentation systématique dans la perception sensible qui constitue une première façon de connaître des rapports entre vérités. D’autre part, une théorie de l’harmonie réelle des vérités qui permet d’unifier des relations co…Read more
  •  11
    In the Traité des systèmes, Condillac analyses a plurality of systematic metaphysical doctrines, specifically, those of Spinoza, Malebranche and Leibniz. Commentators have mainly interpreted this plurality as a way for Condillac to illustrate his criticisms and to raise doubts about the main contemporary systems while using the same criteria for interpretation. However, I note that his analytic tools differ according to which philosopher or philosophical system he analyses. This paper focuses on…Read more
  •  25
    La révolution cartésienne (review)
    Dialogue 47 (3-4): 687-690. 2008.
  •  25
    The Dissertatio praeliminaris is one of the early works of Leibniz in which he proposes an elaborate critique, while presenting his own principles. In accepting several points of Nizolius's philosophy, the young Leibniz tries moreover to defend theses which have constituted the basis of many of his later theories. Three major topics will be examined in this article. First, the question of definition, which is taken from a grammar point of view, where clarity is, in fact, the only criterion to es…Read more
  •  24
    Possibility, Agency, and Individuality in Leibniz's Metaphysics (review)
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17 (4): 865-868. 2009.
    No abstract
  •  15
  •  7
    Lectures et interprétations des Essais de théodicée de G. W. Leibniz (review)
    Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 138 (1): 136-137. 2013.
  •  6
    La Question du mal chez Leibniz. Fondements et élaboration de la Théodicée (review)
    Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 138 (1): 135-136. 2013.
  •  59
    Leibniz and Sensible Qualities
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 18 (5): 797-819. 2010.
    This paper discusses the problem of sensible qualities, an important, but underestimated topic in Leibniz's epistemology. In the first section, the confused character of sensible ideas is considered. Produced by the sensation alone, ideas of sensible qualities cannot be part of distinct descriptions of bodies. This is why Leibniz proposes to resolve sensible qualities by means of primary or mechanical qualities, a thesis which is analysed in the second section. Here, I discuss his conception of …Read more
  •  43
    Leibniz’s universal characteristic is a fundamental aspect of his theory of cognition. Without symbols or characters it would be difficult for the human mind to define several concepts and to achieve many demonstrations. In most disciplines, and particularly in mathematics, the mind must then focus on symbols and their combinatorial rules rather than on mental contents. For Leibniz, mental perception is most of the time too confused for attaining distinct notions and valid deductions. In this pa…Read more
  •  16
    Les Meditationes de Leibniz dans la tradition wolffienne
    Archives de Philosophie 76 (2): 295-317. 2013.
  •  17
    Introduction
    Philosophiques 42 (1): 7-10. 2015.
    In this paper, I show that Maupertuis and Euler offer a contrasting conception of metaphysics of nature. It consists mainly for them in repositioning cosmology in relation to natural sciences. Instead of considering metaphysics to be at the foundation of scientific theories, as was assumed by Descartes, Wolff, and, in a certain way, Kant, or simply prohibiting the very idea of a cosmology, as d’Alembert would stipulate at the same period, Maupertuis and Euler invert the order of disciplines to g…Read more