Pauline Phemister

What is consciousness? What is the place of consciousness in nature? These and related questions occupy a prominent place in contemporary studies in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, often involving complex interdisciplinary connections between philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, biology and cognitive neuroscience. At the same time, these questions play a fundamental role in the philosophies of great thinkers of the past such as, among others, Plotinus, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, William James and Edmund Husserl. This new collection of essays by leading contemporary philosophers of mind and historians of philosophy seeks to address these questions from both a systematic and a theoretical perspective and to create a new and fruitful forum for future discussion. In the attempt to do justice to the richness of our mental life, the volume features in-depth examinations not solely of mainstream physicalist doctrines, but also of largely neglected positions such as Cartesian dualism, idealism and panpsychism.

By his own account, Leibniz first encountered the True Intellectual System of the Universe of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth during his visit to Rome in the spring of 1689, although the work itself had been published just over a decade earlier in 1678. Leibniz would later report to Cudworth’s daughter, Damaris Masham, that he had been delighted to see the wisdom of the ancients “accompanied by solid reflections”. He had certainly taken the book seriously, devoting sufficient attention to make copious critical notes to the first part. Some years later, towards the end of 1703 or early in 1704, Masham sent Leibniz a copy of her father’s True Intellectual System [TIS]. So began a two-year correspondence between Leibniz and Masham.

Duns Scotus, Metaphysician. William A. Frank and Allan B. Wolter. Purdue University Press 1995, pp. 224 £27.50 Hb. ISBN 1–55753–071–8 £13.19 Pb. ISBN 1–55753–072–6 Plato in Renaissance England. Sears Jayne. Dordrecht, Boston & London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995, pp. 197 Dfl. 190.00, $122.00, £80.00 hb. ISBN 0–7923–3060–9 Mechanismus und Subjektivität in der Philosophie von Thomas Hobbes. Michael Esfeld. Frommann‐Holzboog, Stuttgart‐Bad Cannstatt 1995, pp. 434. ISBN 3–7728–1699–1 Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz: The Concept of Substance in Seventeenth‐Century Metaphysics. R. S. Woolhouse. London: Routledge, 1993. £11.99. ISBN 0–415–09021–0, ISBN 0–415–09022–9 pb. Descartes et Regius. Autour de l'Explication de l'Esprit Humain. Edited by Theo Verbeek. Studies of the History of Ideas in the Low Countries. Rodopi, Amsterdam‐Atlanta, 1993, pp. 114 $23.50 pb. ISBN 90–5183–375‐X The God of Spinoza. A Philosophical Study. Richard Mason. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. xiv + 272. £35.00. ISBN 0–521–58162–1 Robert Boyle and the Limits of Reason. Jan Wojcik. Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 243. £40.00. ISBN 0521–56029–2 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. John Locke. Edited and abridged by Kenneth P. Winkler. Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1996, pp. 416. £27.95 hb; £6.95 pb. ISBN 0–87220–217–8 hb. 0–87220–216‐X pb. John Locke and the Eighteenth Century Divines. Alan Sell. Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1997, pp. 444. £40.00 hb. ISBN 0–7083–1409–0 The Margins of Orthodoxy. Heterodox Writing and Cultural Response, 1660–1750. Edited by Roger D. Lund. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. xiv + 298. £35.00. ISBN 0–521–47117‐X The Enigmatic Parting Shot: What was Hume's ‘Compleat Answer to Dr. Reid and to That Bigotted Silly Fellow, Beattie'? James Somerville. Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1995. pp. 424. £47.50. ISBN 1–85972–083–8 Discursus Praeliminaris de Philosophia in Genere. Christian Wolff. Ed. and trans. into German by Günther Gawlick and Lothar Kreimendahl. Forschungen und Materialien zur deutschen Aufklärung, Abt. I, Bd. 1. Stuttgart: Frommann‐hotzboog, 1996, pp. lxviii + 299. ISBN 3–7728–1523–5 Practical Philosophy. Immanuel Kant. Translated and edited by Mary J. Gregor, with a General Introduction by Allen Wood. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. xxxiii + 668. £50.00. ISBN 0–521–37103–1 Religion and Rational Theology. Immanuel Kant. Translated and edited by Allen Wood and George Di Giovanni. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, £45.00, pp. xxiv + 518. ISBN 0–521–25416–1 Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics. Immanuel Kant. Translated by Paul Carus, with a collection of essays edited by Beryl Logan. London, Routledge, 1996. £45.00, hb. ISBN 0–415–11575–2 £14.99 pb. pp. 264. ISBN 0–415–11576–0 Kant: Philosophic de l'Histoire. Edited by Norbert Waszek. Revue Germanique Internationale 6/1996. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, pp. 220. ISBN 2–13–047698–8; ISSN 1253–7837 Johann Georg Hamann's Relational Metacriticism. Gwen Griffith Dickson.. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 1995, pp. xix + 534. ISBN 3–11–014437–9 Frege. Anthony Kenny. London, Penguin Books, 1995, pp. xii + 223. £7.99 pb. ISBN 0–14–012550–7 Russell. A. C. Grayling. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. ix + 115. £5.99. ISBN 0–19–287683‐X

Drawing on a Leibnizian panpsychist ontology of living beings that have a body and a soul, this paper outlines a theory of space based on the perceptual and appetitive relations among these creatures’ souls. In parallel with physical space founded on relations among bodies subject to efficient causation, teleological space results from relations among souls subject to final causation and is described qualitatively in terms of creatures’ pleasure and pain, wellbeing and happiness. Particular places within this space include the kingdom of grace, where morally responsible, rational beings act as far as possible in accord with the ideal of justice as universal love and wise benevolence. However, while Leibniz considered love as properly directed only towards rational beings, it is argued here that the truly wise person will direct their love and benevolence towards all living things. Ausgehend von Leibniz’ panpsychistischer Ontologie von Lebewesen, die einen Körper und eine Seele haben, skizziert dieser Beitrag eine Theorie des Raumes, der auf den perzeptuellen und appetitiven Relationen zwischen den Seelen der Geschöpfe beruht. Parallel zum physikalischen Raum, der in Relationen zwischen den effizient kausal interagierenden Körper begründet liegt, ergibt sich aus den Relationen zwischen den Seelen, die finaler Verursachung unterliegen und in qualitativen Begriffen von Freude und Schmerz wie von Wohl und Zufriedenheit beschrieben werden, ein teleologischer Raum. Besondere Regionen dieses Raumes bilden das Königreich der Gnade, wo moralisch verantwortliche, rationale Wesen so weit wie möglich in Übereinstimmung mit dem Ideal der Gerechtigkeit als universale Liebe und weise Güte handeln. Während Leibniz jedoch meinte, dass sich echte Liebe nur auf rationale Wesen richte, wird hier argumentiert, dass eine wahrhaft weise Person ihre Liebe und Güte auf alle Lebewesen beziehen wird.

What is consciousness? What is the place of consciousness in nature? These and related questions occupy a prominent place in contemporary studies in metaphysics and philosophy of mind, often involving complex interdisciplinary connections between philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, biology and cognitive neuroscience. At the same time, these questions play a fundamental role in the philosophies of great thinkers of the past such as, among others, Plotinus, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, William James and Edmund Husserl. This new collection of essays by leading contemporary philosophers of mind and historians of philosophy seeks to address these questions from both a systematic and a theoretical perspective and to create a new and fruitful forum for future discussion. In the attempt to do justice to the richness of our mental life, the volume features in-depth examinations not solely of mainstream physicalist doctrines, but also of largely neglected positions such as Cartesian dualism, idealism and panpsychism.

Leibniz believed the ‘true concept of substance’ is found in ‘the concept of forces or powers’. Accordingly, he conceived monadic substances as metaphysically primitive forces whose modifications manifest both as monads’ appetitions and perceptions and as derivative forces in monads’ organic bodies. Relationships between substances, and in particular the ethical relationships that hold between rational substances, are also foregrounded by Leibniz’s concept of substances as forces. In section one, we discuss the derivative forces of bodies. In section two, we consider monads’ perceptions and appetitions. Section three attends to ethical aspects of Leibniz’s account, focusing in particular on souls’ representative natures and the correspondence that obtains between perceptions in one and perceptions in all others. In section four, however, I argue that Leibniz’s commitment to the doctrine of the conservation of force makes it impossible for any one substance to pursue its own advantage by increasing its active force without there being a correlative disadvantageous decrease in the active force of substances elsewhere in the universe. While the reconciliatory proposals offered do not entirely remove the tension between Leibniz’s ethics and his physics, they do soften its severity and allow it to be regarded in a more positive light.

This article examines the history of ideas during the early modern period. René Descartes extended the term idea to include sensation, imagination, and memory and located ideas in the human intellect. Not all philosophers agreed with him, and among the most prominent resistors were Baruch Spinoza and Nicolas Malebranche. Spinoza viewed ideas as modes of God insofar as God possesses the attribute of thought. Malebranche too insisted on retaining the pre-Cartesian opinion that ideas exist in God and not in human minds.