Jan Palkoska

The chief aim of this paper is to clarify how what Leibniz has to say on the foundation in re of true predication is connected to certain other salient themes of his thought, namely to his doctrine of complete individual concepts and to his peculiar notion of existence. More specifically, I shall demonstrate and explain how both Leibniz’s doctrine of the complete individual concept and his notion of existence are yoked together to substantiate his solution to the mentioned problem of predication. Thus, I will ipso facto offer a proposal concerning the issue of Leibniz’s possible motivation behind his resolution to employ complete individual concepts and to treat existence in the peculiar ways in which he did.

The paper documents the situation of Early Modern scholarship in the Czech Lands through a study of the relatively unknown correspondence of the Breslau physician, member of the Academia naturae curiosorum and chief editor of its journal Miscellanea curiosa Philipp Jakob Sachs von Lewenheimb and the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher with correspondents in the Czech Lands.The intersections of the predominantly Catholic correspondence network of the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher with the mainly Protestant specialist correspondence network of the physician Philipp Jakob Sachs von Lewenheimb appear exceptionally interesting and provide information about often less well-known personalities and practices which facilitated the fl ow of information between individual parts of Europe, denominations and social groups around the middle of the seventeenth century.The article also illustrates how the genre of “observationes” and the emergence of scientific journals generally propelled scholarly correspondence not only in the Central European area, and what role was played by professional groups, whether of physicians, printers or others, in mediating information between the Catholic and Protestant parts of Europe.

The study offers a new account of one of the central topics of Leibniz’s philosophy: substance. It brings to light the metaphysical foundations of Leibniz’s notion of substance and shows – in opposition to many leading commentators – that his treatment of it is governed by clear standards of significance rooted in his broader metaphysical position. Starting from Leibniz’s general theory of definition – founded on his views concerning the science of metaphysics – the author identifies the set of basic defining features of substance for Leibniz and then provides a detailed analysis and interpretation of these features. A foundational role is given to a group of texts from the 1680’s in which Leibniz provides conceptual analyses of the most general items of reality.

The aim of the paper is to reassess Hume's handling of scepticism in its Pyrrhonian form. I argue that, contrary to what Hume declares, his own philosophy comes close to what Sextus Empiricus sets out as the essential moments of the Pyrrhonian , at least in one crucial respect: I contend that Hume's conception of belief is in line with precisely the type of doxastic state which Sextus ascribes to the Pyrrhonian sceptic as appropriate for ‘following appearances’. Then I show that if such an affinity is established, Hume's attack against Pyrrhonism, launched in Enquiry XII, Part 2, is rendered toothless

The aim of this article is to present and analyze the argumentative structures which are decisive for Leibniz’s position regarding the issue of the ontological status of material things (or bodies) and matter. I reconstruct and thoroughly analyze (i) two different argumentative strategies of Leibniz’s – viz. an “epistemic” and a “realistic” one – for his general thesis that nothing material (and a fortiori no body) has rigore metaphysico the status of a substance, as well as (ii) the corresponding suggestions of his as to how the material world is to be construed out of substances and their modes. Throughout, I lay special emphasis onpinpointing the real key elements of Leibniz’s arguments and on articulating them in such terms that would allow for their direct confrontation with other paradigmatic positions regarding the issue in Leibniz’s times.

In this paper I examine the prospects of the two major approaches to interpreting the ‘inesse’ relation in Spinoza’s definitions of substance and mode in the Ethics – the ‘inherence’ interpretation and the ‘causal’ interpretation. I argue that these interpretations will find it difficult to reconcile the claim that modes ‘are in’ substance with the claim that modes are conceived through substance. I consider a number of strategies that proponents of these readings might use to overcome the problem, and conclude that none is satisfactory

V kánonu dějin filosofie náleží Nicholasu Malebranchovi zajisté čestné místo. Málokdo by jej však byl ochoten považovat za vpravdě prvořadou postavu filosofie druhé poloviny 17. století, za jakou jej měli Leibniz, Berkeley či Hume. Navíc je dnes Malebranche spojován především se specifickou kausální teorií zvanou okasionalismus a jen zřídka se berou v úvahu postoje, jimiž tento filosof ve své době poutal největší pozornost a jež se týkají otázek teorie poznání a povahy mysli. Chci zde rozvinout jednu jeho důležitou tezi, která prochází napříč právě těmito otázkami, totiž tezi, že ideje – ve smyslu bezprostředních předmětů poznávacích aktů konečné mysli – jsou „lokalizovány“ v Bohu. Z historického hlediska představuje porozumění obsahu této teze i Malebranchovým argumentům na její podporu především jeden z nepostradatelných klíčů k nahlédnutí skutečné povahy a dosahu recepce pozdně-scholastických teorií týkajících se ontologických aspektů kognitivních kategorií v raně novověké filosofii 17. století. Zároveň by ovšem ono porozumění mělo ozřejmit – by_ na takto poměrně úzce vymezeném poli –, že i v ryze věcném ohledu po sobě Malebranche zanechal dobrou a originální filosofii, která má daleko k nepodloženému mysticismu či vizionářství ; a že soud současníků o hodnotě jeho myšlenek možná nebyl nikterak přemrštěný. V prvním oddílu se pokusím vyjasnit Malebranchovo přesvědčení, že „místem“ idejí je Bůh, a zasadit je do pevnějšího pojmového rámce. V druhém oddílu pak představím a prodiskutuji dva hlavní argumenty, jimiž Malebranche své přesvědčení hájí

The aim of the article is to critically assess the widespread surmise according to which Descartes was in certain important aspects of his thought infl uenced by Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations. In the article this question is addressed with regard to the problem of the ontological background of the representational acts of a finite mind. Descartes’ position is reconstructed on the basis of an analysis of Meditation III and consequently of Descartes’ polemic with Johan de Kater in the First Objections and Replies; the reconstruction is accomplished by means of terms and concepts commonly used in the late scholastic thought of the end of the 16th century. An analysis of the key passage of Section 2 of Disputation 54 of the Metaphysical Disputations of Suárez (concerned with the distinction between extrinsic denominations and beings of reason) then shows, first, that Suárez’s position concerning the ontology of mental representation does indeed agree with that of Descartes, not Kater; second, that the implications of Suárez’s critique of certain theses concerning the identity of extrinsic denominations and beings of reason probably form an important part of the conceptual framework presupposed in the polemic between Decartes and Kater.