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Leibniz on Human Equality and Human Domination

Justin E. H. Smith

in Nature, Human Nature, and Human Difference: Race in Early Modern Philosophy

This chapter undertakes an extensive treatment of the place of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the history of the concept of race. In particular, the chapter draws out the significant points of ... More

This chapter undertakes an extensive treatment of the place of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the history of the concept of race. In particular, the chapter draws out the significant points of difference between Leibniz's view, on the one hand, and Bernier's biogeographical view, on the other. It shows, in fact, that Leibniz remains thoroughly committed to a conception of race that is rooted in earlier ideas about the temporal succession of members of a family or lineage. Moreover, the chapter reveals in what way his analysis of race may be seen as a concrete application of his very deepest philosophical commitment, according to which the order of the world amounts to a multiplicity that is underlain by unity.Less

Symbolic Cognition from Leibniz to the 1760s: Theology, Aesthetics, and History

Avi Lifschitz

in Language and Enlightenment: The Berlin Debates of the Eighteenth Century

This chapter explores a synchronic approach to the interrelations between language and mind, as expressed mainly by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff. Leibniz's attempt to rehabilitate ... More

This chapter explores a synchronic approach to the interrelations between language and mind, as expressed mainly by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff. Leibniz's attempt to rehabilitate the Christian mysteries incorporated an influential distinction: clear and distinct ideas corresponded to intuitive perception, whereas most of the ideas accessible to the human mind were clear but indistinct (or confused). Such ideas could be processed only by means of signs, resulting in symbolic knowledge. From the 1730s to the 1750s, prompted by fears of radical rationalism, Pietists and orthodox authors adopted this rehabilitation of symbolic thinking by means of clear but indistinct ideas. This synthesis was elaborated in contemporary aesthetics, historical studies, and biblical criticism, particularly in Halle and Göttingen.Less

The Metaphysical Unity of Natural Philosophy

Stephen Gaukroger

in The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680-1760

The chapter explores the collapse of mechanism and the competition between Newton's and Leibniz's non‐mechanistic models of physical explanation; the relation between Leibniz's metaphysics and his ... More

The chapter explores the collapse of mechanism and the competition between Newton's and Leibniz's non‐mechanistic models of physical explanation; the relation between Leibniz's metaphysics and his dynamics; and the different interpretations that Newton and Leibniz placed on calculus. Among the issues in the philosophy of mathematics raised is Leibniz's ‘black‐box’ interpretation of calculus.Less

God is Good: The Harmony between Judaism and Enlightenment Philosophy

Michah Gottlieb

in Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn's Theological-Political Thought

This chapter explores Mendelssohn's early thought. While Frederick the Great's enlightened absolutism should have presented Jews with greater opportunities for social advancement and equal rights, ... More

This chapter explores Mendelssohn's early thought. While Frederick the Great's enlightened absolutism should have presented Jews with greater opportunities for social advancement and equal rights, this was stymied by Frederick's adherence to medieval stereotypes of Jews as superstitious and unethical. Addressing Jewish contemporaries, Mendelssohn uses Maimonides' authority to legitimate cultural pursuits outside of Judaism. But Mendelssohn is disturbed by Maimonides' ambivalent attitude towards central theistic concepts such as divine providence and the immortality of the soul. While Maimonides is the greatest medieval Jewish philosopher, Spinoza is the greatest modern Jewish philosopher. Addressing his Christian contemporaries, Mendelssohn defends Spinoza as a model of Jewish cultural attainment. While Mendelssohn rejects Spinoza's atheism, he claims that Spinoza made crucial contributions to the enlightened theism of the German philosophers Leibniz and Wolff who advanced religious philosophy beyond its medieval forms by philosophically grounding Judaism's fundamental insight into God's providential goodness.Less

Repercussions

John T. Hamilton

in Security: Politics, Humanity, and the Philology of Care

This chapter considers Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who devoted his philosophic and scientific career to harmonizing discordances and unifying disparities, calculating the otherwise incalculable and ... More

This chapter considers Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who devoted his philosophic and scientific career to harmonizing discordances and unifying disparities, calculating the otherwise incalculable and reconciling the seemingly unreconciliable. The universalizing thrust of Leibniz's thinking is of a piece both with his ecumenism and with his moral and political views. The Cartesian who rejects phenomena as false simply because they can be doubted lacks the courage to face conflicts that may arise within any aspect of human experience. Instead, Leibniz refused to be daunted by uncertainty. In this regard, he should be numbered among those seventeenth-century theoreticians of probability like Pierre de Fermat, Blaise Pascal, and Jakob Bernoulli, who strove to develop models of rational judgment and action in the face of grave uncertainty.Less

The Metaphysical Origins of Kantianism

Christian Kerslake

in Immanence and the Vertigo of Philosophy: From Kant to Deleuze

This chapter reviews the origins of Immanuel Kant's ontology in rationalism. Gilles Deleuze's own synthesis of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Kant revolves around the redevelopment of the suppressed ... More

This chapter reviews the origins of Immanuel Kant's ontology in rationalism. Gilles Deleuze's own synthesis of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Kant revolves around the redevelopment of the suppressed ontotheological dimension in Kant. Leibniz proposed the notion of pre-established harmony by a cluster of motives. The distinction between logic and reality collapses as reality follows with complete internal necessity from the very thought of God. Kant wants God to serve as a ground for ‘reality’, but at the same time wants to limit God's power in reality. It then evaluates how the space may be thought in itself according to the notion of repetition. A brief account of Solomon Maïmon's theory can help in the understanding of Deleuze's account of the nature and relation of Ideas and intensities. It was shown that vectorial relations were intensive incarnations of ‘Ideas’.Less

The Construction of a New World Picture

Stephen Gaukroger

in The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility: Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680-1760

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries there was a concern to reconcile Christianity, the traditional humanistic disciplines, and natural philosophy. There are two principal ways in ... More

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries there was a concern to reconcile Christianity, the traditional humanistic disciplines, and natural philosophy. There are two principal ways in which the reconciliation between religion and natural philosophy was attempted: metaphysics and physico‐theology. The Leibniz/Clarke correspondence encapsulates many of the questions at issue.Less

Leibniz – The Static Ontological and Logical Geneses

Sean Bowden

in The Priority of Events: Deleuze's Logic of Sense

This chapter examines the influence of Gottfried Leibniz on Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of event. It analyses how Deleuze took up Leibniz's philosophy and evaluates the role of compossibility and ... More

This chapter examines the influence of Gottfried Leibniz on Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of event. It analyses how Deleuze took up Leibniz's philosophy and evaluates the role of compossibility and incompossibility in the latter's philosophical system. It explains that Deleuze turned to Leibniz in order to argue, from the perspective of a different system of philosophical concepts, that two types of relation between events govern their ideal play and underlie the determination and relation of denoted things, manifested persons, and general concepts.Less

Descartes and Leibniz as Readers of Suárez: Theory of Distinctions and Principle of Individuation

Roger Ariew

in The Philosophy of Francisco Suárez

This essay explores the reception and used of Suárez’s philosophy by two canonical early modern philosophers, René Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz. It is argued that Descartes’ theory of distinctions ... More

This essay explores the reception and used of Suárez’s philosophy by two canonical early modern philosophers, René Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz. It is argued that Descartes’ theory of distinctions does not betray any indications of being Suárezian, despite many claims to the contrary. Leibniz, however, was a very different reader of Suárez’s works, it is argued, and his thinking about individuation was clearly influenced by Suárez even if he did not adopt the Suárezian position in the endLess

The Extension of the State

Stuart Elden

in The Birth of Territory

This chapter begins with a detailed discussion of some unjustly neglected thinkers of the early seventeenth century whose work was integral to thinking through the political and geographical legacy ... More

This chapter begins with a detailed discussion of some unjustly neglected thinkers of the early seventeenth century whose work was integral to thinking through the political and geographical legacy of the Reformation. These include Richard Hooker, Andreas Knichen, and Johannes Althusius. The next part of the chapter offers a reading of the political and geographical implications of the scientific revolution, with special focus on Descartes, Spinoza and the Newton/Leibniz dispute. Hobbes, Filmer and Locke are then discussed in terms of the relation between politics and land (or at times territory) in their work. The colonial context is particularly crucial to understanding Locke. It suggests that Gottfried Leibniz is the most important political thinker of territory of this period. Leibniz, like Theodor Reinking, Bogislaw Philipp von Chemnitz, and Samuel Pufendorf, is trying to make sense of the fractured political geographies of the Holy Roman Empire, especially in the wake of the Peace of Westphalia. In distinguishing between the majesty of the Emperor and the territorial supremacy of the princes, Leibniz provides a strikingly modern definition.Less

Compromises: Viviani, Auzout, Leibniz (1654–1704)

Maurice A. Finocchiaro

in Retrying Galileo, 1633-1992

This chapter investigates what might be called a third wave of reactions to Galileo's trial, covering the period between 1654 and 1704 and most significantly represented by the figures of Vincenzio ... More

This chapter investigates what might be called a third wave of reactions to Galileo's trial, covering the period between 1654 and 1704 and most significantly represented by the figures of Vincenzio Viviani, Adrien Auzout, and Gottfried W. Leibniz. Viviani account focused on Galileo's work in astronomy and physics and on his personality. Auzout suggested that while he might be willing to accept the prohibition on public support, he did not think there was anything wrong with the private pursuit of Copernicanism. Leibniz's 1689 argument was an attempt to make both sides happy; and he thought he could accomplish this by means of a reinterpretation of the situation. In Leibniz, someone who was temperamentally and methodologically moderate, bipartisan, diplomatic, and ecumenically minded was found; he attempted several such moves, and it may have been their failure that led him to a relatively pro-Galilean position in his most mature and public pronouncement.Less

G. W. F. Leibniz

Daniel W. Smith

in Deleuze's Philosophical Lineage

This chapter analyses Gilles Deleuze's engagement with the philosophical thoughts of Gottfried Leibniz. It suggests that though having published a book-length study of Leibniz entitled The Fold: ... More

This chapter analyses Gilles Deleuze's engagement with the philosophical thoughts of Gottfried Leibniz. It suggests that though having published a book-length study of Leibniz entitled The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque in 1988, Deleuze's important engagement with Leibniz had already occurred in Difference and Repetition in 1968 and in Logic of Sense in 1969. The chapter shows how Deleuze used Leibniz to deduce the necessity of a principle of difference by making his way through the four fundamental principles of Leibniz's philosophy: identity, sufficient reason, indiscernibility, and the law of continuity.Less

Leibniz and China

John Marenbon

in Pagans and Philosophers: The Problem of Paganism from Augustine to Leibniz

This epilogue discusses Leibniz's particular interest in China. Like his predecessors, Leibniz's preferred virtuous pagans were also ancient philosophers, but he was partial to those of China. ... More

This epilogue discusses Leibniz's particular interest in China. Like his predecessors, Leibniz's preferred virtuous pagans were also ancient philosophers, but he was partial to those of China. Leibniz had showed an interest in China from the mid-1670s and, from 1689, roughly in the middle of his career, he began to conduct a correspondence with a number of the Jesuit missionaries to China, seeking information about Chinese writings, thought and language, as well as current news about political and religious developments. His intense interest in China and his voracious reading of all he could find out about it grew from these correspondences, and his fullest thoughts about Chinese religion are expressed in one of his last works, a letter On the Natural Theology of the Chinese, written in 1716 — the year of his death.Less

Artisans and Their Philosophers: Leibniz and Hooke Coordinate Minds, Metal, and Wood

Matthew L. Jones

in Reckoning with Matter: Calculating Machines, Innovation, and Thinking About Thinking from Pascal to Babbage

This chapter investigates Leibniz’s relationship to skilled labor in the conception and creation of his calculating machines. It shows Robert Hooke and Leibniz working to organize and coordinate the ... More

This chapter investigates Leibniz’s relationship to skilled labor in the conception and creation of his calculating machines. It shows Robert Hooke and Leibniz working to organize and coordinate the skills and knowledge of others. These cases reveal no stable, strict hierarchy between inventor and artisan, creator and implementer, between intellectual and manual labor. Despite a lifetime of effort and a small fortune, Leibniz never produced a machine deemed functional; the challenge of making machine inflected his philosophical reflections on the value of practical knowledge.Less

Damaris Cudworth Masham (1659–1708)

Jacqueline Broad (ed.)

in Women Philosophers of Seventeenth-Century England: Selected Correspondence

This chapter contains selected letters from the private correspondence of the moral philosopher Damaris Cudworth Masham. It includes some of Masham’s letters to and from her close friend John Locke, ... More

This chapter contains selected letters from the private correspondence of the moral philosopher Damaris Cudworth Masham. It includes some of Masham’s letters to and from her close friend John Locke, the well-known English empiricist and political thinker, as well as her correspondence with the Genevan philosopher-theologian Jean Le Clerc and the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, spanning the period from 1682 to 1705. The topics of the letters range from issues to do with enthusiasm, faith, and knowledge to friendship, Stoicism, Locke’s idea of thinking matter, and Ralph Cudworth’s doctrine of plastic nature. The chapter begins with an introductory essay by the editor, situating Masham’s letters in relation to the development of her own independent moral and epistemological views in her published works. The text includes a number of editorial annotations, to assist the reader’s understanding of early modern words and ideas.Less

Preparing the Battlefield: Fighting For and Against Newton after 1715

in The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment

In 1727, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle celebrated his appointment at forty years of age as the first-ever perpetual secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences. During his first three decades as ... More

In 1727, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle celebrated his appointment at forty years of age as the first-ever perpetual secretary of the Royal Academy of Sciences. During his first three decades as academy secretary, Fontenelle had defined himself and his new office by working vigorously to defend an image of honnête public science that came to define official French science as a whole. This chapter looks at the priority dispute that pitted defenders of Isaac Newton's independently invented calculus against Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's claim to have been the first to invent this new mathematics. The new critical climate, the new discourses of Newtonianism, the new eighteenth-century mediascape, and the new battlefield focused on Newton—made possible Voltaire's innovations in 1734. This chapter also focuses on Father Louis Bertrand Castel and critical mathematical discourse in France before concluding by discussing the correspondence between Leibniz and Samuel Clarke.Less

Elijah's Worldview

Eliyahu Stern

in The Genius

This chapter explains that Elijah ben Solomon's worldview bears both Jewish and Greek philosophical sources. It argues that his ideas took form in an era typified by an attempt by Gottfried Wilhelm ... More

This chapter explains that Elijah ben Solomon's worldview bears both Jewish and Greek philosophical sources. It argues that his ideas took form in an era typified by an attempt by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz to pinpoint a universally valid coherent system that could be justified by and contained within a first and Absolute Idea. Like Leibniz, Elijah believed that all components of experience emerge from, and can be understood by, human minds.Less