This dissertation covers a sadly neglected area of Leibniz's thought--his account of personhood and its concomitant doctrines of moral agency and meaningful immortality. It defends an interpretation of Leibniz's philosophy that is unique in the following respects. Some scholars have worried that Leibniz wavers as to whether sameness of substance is necessary for personal identity. Leibnizian persons, they wonder aloud, might therefore be more appropriately thought of as Lockean unities of consci…
Read moreThis dissertation covers a sadly neglected area of Leibniz's thought--his account of personhood and its concomitant doctrines of moral agency and meaningful immortality. It defends an interpretation of Leibniz's philosophy that is unique in the following respects. Some scholars have worried that Leibniz wavers as to whether sameness of substance is necessary for personal identity. Leibnizian persons, they wonder aloud, might therefore be more appropriately thought of as Lockean unities of consciousness. This dissertation seeks to allay this worry: we just are monads. Scholars, too, have worried that Leibniz's account of the psychological component of personal identity is inconsistent: Leibniz says both that memory is necessary and that it is not. Again, there is little reason for worry since Leibniz distinguishes between what is necessary for being a person from what is necessary for being the same person over time. The former requires the power of memory, the latter requires continuity of memories. Another worry is evident in the literature on Leibniz's account of personhood, this time concerning the moral agency of persons. Leibniz appears to concede to Locke that if there existed thinking, conscious "machines," they could nevertheless be genuine moral agents. This would be a very significant concession considering the fact that for Leibniz "machines" are not genuine substances at all. This dissertation argues that Leibniz's "concession" to Locke amounts to the rather different, albeit interesting, claim that we ought to treat thinking machines as if they were morally responsible. The thesis of monadic embodiment has long been vexing for Leibniz scholars: Why does a material world, or a material element in a possible world, exist at all? Is embodiment only the condition of the "imperfection" of all substances inferior to God, since sense-perception is necessarily confused? This dissertation argues that Leibniz has in mind a further reason for embodiment, at least when it comes to persons. A disembodied person would be unable to live and participate in a moral community. Finally, scholars have generally underestimated the success of Leibniz's attack against other philosophical doctrines of immortality. Not only does Leibniz attack the proofs offered in defense of Platonic, Averroistic, Cartesian, and Spinozistic doctrines, but also he charges that the doctrines themselves are insidious. Ultimately, they are meaningless to us because what they promise by way of survival is something that we rationally could not desire, least of all anticipate