Ursula Goldenbaum

This chapter aims to show that Kant has never been a Wolffian but _started_ his career precisely from the core problem of the Pietists to secure the _influxus physicus_ and thereby _liberum arbitrium_. I will first present the battle of Pietist and other Lutheran theologians against Wolffianism as a _theological-political battle_, which explains its extension as well as its fierceness. Then I will explain how a metaphysical hypothesis such as Leibniz’s pre-established harmony could become the subject of a theological-political debate in the Protestant area of the Empire lasting for decades. Only in the third section I will situate Kant’s very first, but quite lengthy book in this context and contrast his declared intention to solve the controversy between Leibnizians and Cartesians about the estimation of forces with his actual metaphysical approach to save influxus physicus. It will be shown that Kant’s approach lacks any familiarity with modern mechanics and mathematics. Finally, I will point to the contemporary reception of Kant’s first book which confirms my evaluation.

The specific task of the historian of philosophy is to reconstruct the problems, the intention, and the terminology of a past philosopher in order to grasp the meaning of the text it had for the author and his audience. Only then can the text be read in the same way as a contemporary philosophical text whose problem can be understood easily. To achieve this one can use the detective method. Much as a detective looks for “good reasons” to commit the crime, this method looks for the “good reasons” a philosopher might have had to take a particular stance in a controversy.

The article is a critical discussion of the widespread view in Leibniz scholarship, unfortunately held by the great Schepers too, that Leibniz should be understood as an opponent of Spinoza’s fatalism. It is true that Leibniz often expressed himself in this sense, and proposition 29 of the first part of Spinoza’s Ethics seems to suggest this. But Spinoza provides a more precise explanation of the terms ‘necessary’ and ‘contingent’ in Scholium 1 of proposition 33. It is shown that what Spinoza defines there as contingent, as opposed to what is necessary in itself, was discovered with great positive surprise by Leibniz in the spring of 1678, during his study of the Opera posthuma. Leibniz had already made this distinction the basis of his conception of contingency and freedom in his letter to Wedderkopf in 1671 and, more elaborately, in the Confessio philosophi (1673). That is, both philosophers distinguish contingency as a conditional necessity from absolute necessity where the opposite is a contradiction. Similarly, both philosophers reject free will in the sense of liberum arbitrium and conceive of freedom as acting according to reason. Leibniz’s real and permanent criticism of Spinoza was, from 1678 onwards, Spinoza’s denial of the goodness of God, stemming from the latter’s rejection of a personal God. To distance himself from the mal famé philosopher, however, he continued to brand him as a fatalist, even though he knew it better since 1678.

blandior ratio : C, 34). I will first survey how extensive, albeit usually overlooked, is Leibniz’s concern with these “weaker” forms of reasoning, and how crucial they are for many of his practical and theoretical endeavors. I will then trace back this acute need of Leibniz´s brand of rationalism to the peculiar nature of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), as opposed to the other basic principle of his philosophy, the Principle of Contradiction (PC). I will present here only the bare bones of the argument, in a sort of extended summary, omitting the textual support as well the references to the relevant secondary literature.

"The development of the calculus during the 17th century was successful in mathematical practice, but raised questions about the nature of infinitesimals: were they real or rather fictitious? This collection of essays, by scholars from Canada, the US, Germany, United Kingdom and Switzerland, gives a comprehensive study of the controversies over the nature and status of the infinitesimal. Aside from Leibniz, the scholars considered are Hobbes, Wallis, Newton, Bernoulli, Hermann, and Nieuwentijt. The collection also contains newly discovered marginalia of Leibniz to the writings of Hobbes."--BOOK JACKET.