Clara Carus

This paper shows that Du Châtelet, departing from Leibniz and Wolff, develops the concept of ‘sufficient reasonSufficient reason’ further in two significant ways: Firstly, Du Châtelet, differently to Leibniz and Wolff, explicitly delineates the relationship between the two distinct conceptsConcept‘causeCause’ and ‘sufficient reason’. The cause contains [contienne] the principle of the actualityActuality of a beingBeing and the sufficient reason makes the existence of whatever the causeCause brings about intelligibleIntelligible to an intelligent being [Être intelligent]. (Inst1742, §9) Secondly, Du Châtelet’s theory implies that a sufficient reason is, per definitionem, intelligible to the human beingHuman being: attributesAttribute can be determined through a sufficient reason because they are intelligibleIntelligible through their relation to the essence, and modes are intelligible through their relation to material causes. By contrast, essences are not intelligible in terms of reasons or causesCause and thus do not have a sufficient reason and can only be understood through the principlePrinciple of contradiction of contradiction. Sufficient reason, in her theory, signifies that any particular existing being is intelligible through its relation to the cause that brought it about. Hence, it is erroneous to utilize the concept of sufficient reason for something that is not intelligible in this way, such as why the essence of a being is what it is or why the world exists. Although, Du Châtelet herself still, in parts, falls victim to this error, her epistemologicalEpistemological elaboration of the conceptConcept of ‘sufficient reasonSufficient reason’ in relation to cause is a step towards invalidating the intelligibilityIntelligibility of a sufficient reason in GodGod—an inheritance from Leibniz and Wolff.

This collection of essays contributes to the important task of understanding the relationship between Du Châtelet’s philosophy and the philosophies of Leibniz and Wolff. Was Du Châtelet a devoted follower of Leibniz and Wolff? Or perhaps only of Leibniz? Or perhaps only of Wolff? Alternatively, was Du Châtelet a synthetic, but nonetheless original thinker, and, if so, what exactly did she synthesize and how? Did she primarily reconceptualize Newtonian physics on Leibnizian and Wolffian grounds, or did she weave together a new philosophy of her own? If she did weave together a new philosophy of her own, what were its most important threads? Were they drawn from Leibniz and Wolff or from a wider range of thinkers such as Descartes, Locke and Newtonian commentators? Or, finally, was Du Châtelet a more thoroughly original thinker than even synthetic interpretations suggest? Would it be more accurate to describe Du Châtelet as using Leibniz and Wolff as springboards for her own ideas and views? Did she stand—as she suggests—like a giant on the shoulders of giants, seeing entirely new things, offering entirely new arguments? The aim of this volume is above all to encourage further attention to the rich, still underexplored, seam where Du Châtelet’s philosophy joins with the philosophies of her contemporaries, and especially with the philosophies of Leibniz and Wolff.

Rodriguez-Pereyra (2013) points to at least six different principles referred to as the principle of contradiction in Leibniz and states: ‘The texts suggest that on different occasions he used ‘Principle of Contradiction’ to refer to different principles. This is puzzling, given the subtlety and power of Leibniz’s mind, for it suggests that he did not really distinguish between the different versions of the principle.’ Rodriguez-Pereyra himself suggests that the ‘different principles’ are versions of the PC, as they are all principles which exclude true contradiction and serve to ground mathematical and necessary truths but thinks that it needs to be spelled out more clearly how it is possible that different principles are one principle, without Leibniz taking note of this. The present paper builds on Rodriguez-Pereyra’s and shows that the different formulations of the PC amount to different logical contents. I shed light, however, on their unity and argue that the different logical contents are expressions of one epistemic principle, which I argue is the PC. The PC in my interpretation defines an act of reason by virtue of which the contrary of the contradiction is concluded to be necessarily true. I show that all of Leibniz’ formulations of the PC refer to different logical contents of this one principle and that this principle matches the two criteria Rodriguez-Pereyra establishes as constants in all six formulations. I argue that it is this epistemic unity that makes the PC a principle and one principle and that the PC itself should thus be seen to lie in this epistemic unity and not in the different logical expressions of it.

This book promotes entirely new insights into women’s contributions to the history of philosophy and boasts papers spanning the centuries from Antigone to twentieth century phenomenology, covering fields from logic to mysticism, stretching from Brazil to Early Modern Europe. The book is of interest for all scholars and students of the history of philosophy, but especially for those who are interested in women philosophers and in new narratives in the history of philosophy. The book is representative of the immense scope of academic discussion women were involved in over the centuries as well as their varying styles and methods. It features papers in logic and in mysticism, presents papers on female authors in Antiquity and in the twenty-first century and it includes papers on phenomenology and analytic philosophy. The chapters consider philosophical positions in literature and drama, in letters and in classical philosophical treatises, ensuring this book contributes significantly to research on the individual women authors, who are all to date still understudied figures.

Heidegger ringt in der Abhandlung und dem Vortrag Der Begriff der Zeit 1924 mit einer Unterscheidung zwischen der uneigentlichen und der eigentlichen Seinsweise, auf die die Seinscharaktere hin ausgelegt werden und auf die sich die Ausarbeitung der hermeneutischen Situation für eine Ontologie des Daseins zuspitzt. Während die uneigentliche Seinsweise darin ausführlich charakterisiert wird, beschränkt sich die positive Ausführung der eigentlichen Seinsweise auf einige wenige Ausdrücke und Sätze. Hierbei fasst Heidegger die Eigentlichkeit als ‚Wahl‘ und als ein ‚Wie‘. Dieses ‚Wie‘ schließt er im Vortrag explizit an das Grundprinzip von Kants Ethik an, während er sich in der Abhandlung von Kants Personbegriff abgrenzt. Dieser Beitrag geht vor dem Hintergrund Kants der Frage nach einer positiven Bestimmung der eigentlichen Seinsweise über die Abgrenzung zur Uneigentlichkeit hinaus in Heideggers Abhandlung und Vortrag Der Begriff der Zeit nach.

The first part of this paper investigates the purpose, methodological approach, and fundamental thesis of Du Châtelet’s theory of simple beings. The paper shows that ‘simple beings’ in Du Châtelet is a theory concerned with the understanding of extended bodies. The second part of the paper shows that her theory of simple beings, while it has important roots in both Leibniz and Wolff, is remarkably different from theirs. Thus, contrary to a common thread in the literature, Du Châtelet’s theory of simple beings does not commit her to an ontology that can be equated with that of Leibniz or Wolff. Instead, her theory of simple beings is faculty-centred and draws a fundamental and novel distinction between the phenomenal realm of the senses and ‘real’ substances, which can only be grasped through the understanding.

I investigate Du Châtelet's contribution to the concept of time and position the relevance and content of that contribution between Leibniz and Kant. I argue that Du Châtelet advances Leibniz's concept of time by explaining how we form the idea of time in our mind and how time as an ideal being relates to succession in real beings. I show that Du Châtelet, differently to Kant, recognizes the dependency of time in its constitution on succession in "real things" and that her concept of time is in this respect superior to Kant's. With a detailed investigation into Du Châtelet's notion of time in its own right and without prematurely "fitting" it into a defined debate between her contemporaries, I am aiming to reveal her original contribution to an understanding of time. I locate her concept of time in a context that is explicitly philosophical in terms of an investigation into how the idea of time is formed and constituted rather than a physical debate on the nature of time as a phenomenon relating to the movement of bodies.

Leibniz distinguishes between contingent truths and necessary truths, but many commentators worry that Leibniz's contingent truths are not truly contingent. While scholars who consider Leibniz in the context of his work in the natural sciences often view Leibniz as a forerunner of the theory of contingent truths, scholars who consider his theological views tend to be considerably more concerned about the space for contingent truths in his system. This paper examines Leibniz's theory of contingent truths and shows that there are two distinct and initially unrelated dilemmas that forced the young Leibniz of the 1670s to recognize that not all things are necessary and prompted him to develop an idea of contingency: the first concerned natural laws in natural science and the other his idea of the theodicy. The present paper argues that Leibniz's theory of contingent truths based on the principle of sufficient reason is a solution to the question of the validity of natural laws and does not lead to necessitarianism. However, Leibniz maintains a series of commitments in theology, which push him towards necessitarianism throughout his lifetime.

Dieses Buch arbeitet Émilie Du Châtelets Beitrag zur Philosophie- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte im Übergang von der frühen Neuzeit in die Moderne in Hinblick auf ihr Verständnis des Prinzips vom zureichenden Grunde auf. Du Châtelets Bestimmung, Erweisung und Anwendung des Prinzips vom zureichenden Grunde wird im Vergleich zur Auslegung desselben Prinzips bei ihren Vorgängern Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz und Christian Wolff untersucht. Das Prinzip vom zureichenden Grunde ist ein fundamentales Erkenntnisaxiom, dessen Verfechtung und Bestimmung die Rationalisten der Frühmoderne prägt. Dieses Buch erarbeitet, wie Du Châtelets Bestimmung des Prinzips den Ausgang ihres Zeitalters prägt. Das Buch richtet sich an Studierende, Lehrende und Forschende der Philosophie- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Frühmoderne, sowie an alle, die an Kausalitätstheorien und dem Prinzip vom zureichenden Grunde interessiert sind. Die Autorin Dr. Clara Carus ist Alexander-von-Humboldt Fellow an der Harvard University. Sie ist interessiert an breiten systematischen Fragestellungen in der Philosophiegeschichte. Ihr Forschungsschwerpunkt liegt in der Frühmoderne.

The first few chapters of Du Châtelet’s Institutions de Physique outline a metaphysical foundation that focuses on the principles of knowledge and the fundamental concepts of our knowledge of the physical world. While the first wave of contemporary Du Châtelet scholarship in the 1970s and 1980s read Du Châtelet’s metaphysical foundation as a stripped-down version of Leibniz-Wolffian metaphysics, the latest work has argued against this by suggesting that Du Châtelet’s metaphysics is a method for her physics and can stand on its own feet. This latter interpretation, most prominently advanced by Brading, succeeds in putting Du Châtelet’s metaphysical theory into focus rather than seeing it as a flawed commentary on Leibniz and Wolff. However, it subordinates her metaphysical foundations to the aims of the science of physics, wherein the core question is how bodily interaction works. This paper argues that Du Châtelet’s metaphysical foundations are not meant to ground the science of physics alone, and instead are to lay the foundation for all knowledge of the natural world. By analysing her previously mostly overlooked conception of what ‘a being’ is in chapter 3, we will see that Du Châtelet’s metaphysical foundations address how we gain knowledge of a natural world in our everyday experience of natural beings and thus come to know ‘beings’ in the first place, i.e. prior to scientific judgements on them. The present paper thus asserts that Du Châtelet’s metaphysical foundations are more than a method for her physics.

In his 1925/26 lecture Logic: The Question of Truth Heidegger turns to an interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason in order to elucidate his own understanding of time. The largely overlooked lecture series, I argue, is at the root of Heidegger’s exposition of the concept of time and its relationship with human existence (Dasein). Although Heidegger claims that Kant’s concept of time is confined to that of ‘world-time,’ Heidegger develops the first exposition of his understanding of time as ur-temporality via critical analysis of the Critique of Pure Reason. The investigation reveals the conceptual context behind the relationship between time and Dasein, which develops out of Heidegger’s first in-depth interpretation of the Critique of Pure Reason.

Das Buch zeigt, dass Heideggers Leitfrage nach dem Sein des Daseins mit der fehlenden Bestimmung der Eigentlichkeit in eine Ausweglosigkeit gerät, die er durch seine Kantauslegung zu lösen versucht. Die Autorin grenzt den Begriff der Zeit in Kants Systematik von Heideggers Interpretation ab, der seinen Begriff der Zeit auch durch seine Kantauslegung nicht klären konnte. Damit zusammenhängend begründet sie, warum die Frage nach dem Sein des Daseins letztlich nicht als Grundfrage der Philosophie verstanden werden kann.

The present volume features a collection of research papers developed through the scholarly network New Voices on Women in the History of Philosophy. The volume serves the purpose of recovering the work of brilliant women in the history of philosophy, politics, science and literature. It contains a compendium of selected papers on the work of intellectual women from across the ages and hailing from innumerable places. It boasts papers on Marie de Gournay, Elizabeth of Bohemia, Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht, Anne Conway, Margaret Cavendish, Émilie Du Châtelet, Clarice Lispector, Edith Stein, Gerda Walther, Hannah Arendt, Iris Murdoch, Maria Gołaszewska, as well as a paper on the literary figure, Antigone.

This collection of essays contributes to the important task of understanding the relationship between Du Châtelet’s philosophy and the philosophies of Leibniz and Wolff. Was Du Châtelet a devoted follower of Leibniz and Wolff? Or perhaps only of Leibniz? Or perhaps only of Wolff? Alternatively, was Du Châtelet a synthetic, but nonetheless original thinker, and, if so, what exactly did she synthesize and how? Did she primarily reconceptualize Newtonian physics on Leibnizian and Wolffian grounds, or did she weave together a new philosophy of her own? If she did weave together a new philosophy of her own, what were its most important threads? Were they drawn from Leibniz and Wolff or from a wider range of thinkers such as Descartes, Locke and Newtonian commentators? Or, finally, was Du Châtelet a more thoroughly original thinker than even synthetic interpretations suggest? Would it be more accurate to describe Du Châtelet as using Leibniz and Wolff as springboards for her own ideas and views? Did she stand—as she suggests—like a giant on the shoulders of giants, seeing entirely new things, offering entirely new arguments? The aim of this volume is above all to encourage further attention to the rich, still underexplored, seam where Du Châtelet’s philosophy joins with the philosophies of her contemporaries, and especially with the philosophies of Leibniz and Wolff.

This book promotes entirely new insights into women’s contributions to the history of philosophy and boasts papers spanning the centuries from Antigone until twentieth century phenomenology, covering fields from logic to mysticism, stretching from Brazil to Early Modern Europe. The book is of interest for all scholars and students of the history of philosophy, but especially for those who are interested in women philosophers and in new narratives in the history of philosophy. The book is representative of the immense scope of academic discussion women were involved in over the centuries as well as their varying styles and methods. It features papers in logic and in mysticism, presents papers on female authors in Antiquity and in the twenty-first century and it includes papers on phenomenology and analytic philosophy. The chapters consider philosophical positions in literature and drama, in letters and in classical philosophical treatises, ensuring this book contributes significantly to research on the individual women authors, who are all to date still understudied figures.

This paper shows that Du Châtelet, departing from Leibniz and Wolff, develops the concept of ‘sufficient reason’ further in two significant ways: Firstly, Du Châtelet, differently to Leibniz and Wolff, explicitly delineates the relationship between the two distinct concepts ‘cause’ and ‘sufficient reason’. The cause contains [contienne] the principle of the actuality of a being and the sufficient reason makes the existence of whatever the cause brings about intelligible to an intelligent being [Être intelligent]. (Inst1742, §9) Secondly, Du Châtelet’s theory implies that a sufficient reason is, per definitionem, intelligible to the human being: attributes can be determined through a sufficient reason because they are intelligible through their relation to the essence, and modes are intelligible through their relation to material causes. By contrast, essences are not intelligible in terms of reasons or causes and thus do not have a sufficient reason and can only be understood through the principle of contradiction. Sufficient reason, in her theory, signifies that any particular existing being is intelligible through its relation to the cause that brought it about. Hence, it is erroneous to utilize the concept of sufficient reason for something that is not intelligible in this way, such as why the essence of a being is what it is or why the world exists. Although, Du Châtelet herself still, in parts, falls victim to this error, her epistemological elaboration of the concept of ‘sufficient reason’ in relation to cause is a step towards invalidating the intelligibility of a sufficient reason in God—an inheritance from Leibniz and Wolff.