Table Of Content

STUDIES IN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY General editors: M. A. Stewart and David Fate Norton This is a monograph series whose purpose is to foster improved standards of historical and textual scholarship in the history of philosophy and directly related disciplines. Priority is given to studies which significantly advance our understanding of past thinkers through the careful examination and interpretation of original sources, whether printed or manuscript. Major works and movements in philosophy often reflect interests and concerns characteristic of a particular age and upbringing, and seemingly timeless concepts may vary with the changing background of knowledge and belief which different writers assume in their readers. It is the general editors' assumption that a sensitivity to context not only does not detract from the philosoph ical interest or rigor of a commentary but is actually essential to it. They wish to encourage studies which present a broad view of a subject's contemporary context, and which make an informative use of philosophical, theological, political, scientific, literary, or other collateral materials, as appropriate to the particular case. Labia's metaphysics Other booh in the series Steven M. Nadler Arnauld and the Cartesian philosophy of ideas Catherine Wilson Leibniz's metaphysics A historical and comparative study Princeton University Press Princeton, New Jersey Copyright © Catherine Wilson 1989 Published by Princeton University Press 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08450 Library of Congress cataloguing in publication data Wilson, Catherine. 1951- Leibniz's metaphysics: a historical and comparative study/ Catherine Wilson. p.cm. — (Studies in intellectual history and the history of philosophy) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-691-07359-7: $39.50 1. Leibniz. Gottfried Wilhelm. Freiherr von. 1646-1717- Contributions in metaphysics. 2. Metaphysics — History — 17th century. I. Title. II. Series. B2599.M7W561989 89-37831 1KT.92 — dc20 CIP ISBN 0 71902788 8 hardback Printed in Great Britain Contents Acknowledgements ix Abbreuiations x Introduction 1 I LAnpage, logic. encyclopedill 7 1 Erudition and systematization 10 2 Encyclopedias 15 3 Kircher, Lull, and the combinatorial art 19 4 Leibniz and the English language-projectors 30 5 Computation, thought, and the number characteristic 34 6 Substance and convention: Hobbes and Locke 40 7 The combinatorial universe 41 II First philosophy 45 8 The modems 46 9 The New Physical Hypothesis 51 10 The Paris Notes: De summa rerum 58 11 Minds and their immortality 61 12 The reality of bodies 65 13 The confession of a philosopher 70 14 The continuum and its constituents 74 15 Leibniz's "system" before the Discourse 77 III TIre Discourse on Metaphysics 79 16 Descartes and his successors 82 17 Metaphysics A: individual substance 88 18 Metaphysics B: matter and form 98 19 Metaphysics C: phenomenalism and the external world 104 20 Activity and passivity after Spinoza and Malebranche 110 21 Fate of the Discourse: Leibniz and Descartes 114 vi Contents IV Metaphysical foundations for natural science 121 22 Critique of Cartesian rationalism 122 23 Critique of physical atomism 131 24 Forces 138 25 Nature and natural law 145 V Atom, substance, send 158 26 Cudworth and the "Energy of Nature" 160 27 Cudworth, Sturm, and impressed forces 165 28 Teleology and pre-established harmony 173 29 Monads 180 30 Monads and matter 190 31 Souls and bodies 196 32 Monadic degree: the politics of nature 199 VI Leibnas theories of space, motion, and gravity 203 33 Zenonian reduction 204 34 Relativity and its consequences 205 35 Space as constructed from relations 217 36 Plenitude and gravity 224 VII Experience and the self: the New Essays 232 37 Personal identity 234 38 Minds and machines 238 39 Identity and responsibility 243 40 Moral motivation, powers, and "unease" 249 41 Knowledge and experience 255 42 Innateness and mind-writing 260 43 Theory of invention and self-criticism 264 VIII The problem of theodicy 268 44 Structural features of the theodicy problem 272 45 Creation and self-production 275 46 Malebranche: evil as a by-product of perfection 281 47 Part-whole relations 288 48 Perfection and progress 290 49 Justice and compensation 293 50 Reception and critique of the Theodicy 296 IX Critical and compensatory metaphysics 304 51 Descriptive and revisionary metaphysics 307 52 Recovering the lost sense: Russell 311 53 Kant as a reader of Leibniz: methodological criticism 314 54 The pathology of the supersensible 320 Contents vii 55 Kant rewrites the Monadology 321 $6 Epilogue 329 Works consulted 332 Index 345 Take, for example, the rational form of a plant or an animal. If this were only an undifferentiated and not a diversified unity, it would not be a rational form at all, and what resulted would be merely material... So a face is not an undifferentiated mass, but there are nose and eyes, and the nose is not undifferentiated, but one part must be different from another... In the same way, there is also infinity in Mind, because it is at the same time a diversified unity ... as a shape might contain within its outlines ever more outlines, it holds within it figures and forces and thoughts ... as the whole living world divides into living beings ... and these into ever smaller living beings and weaker forces, until it finally stops with indivisible Form. Plotinus, Enneads VI, 7,14. To my parents Acknowledgements The Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung furnished generous financial support during the writing of this book between 1984 and 1987, and the Research Office of the University of Oregon assisted with a summer grant. Albert Heinekamp of the Leibniz-Archiv in Hannover and Heinrich Schepers of the Leibniz-Forschungsstelle in Munster provided access to archival papers and pre-prints, and Jiirgen MittelstraB kindly made available the resources of the philosophy faculty at the University of Konstanz. My warm thanks are extended to each of them, as to the original readers of the manuscript for Manchester University Press and Princeton University Press and to Roger Fallon for their attention and efforts. My husband, Alexander Ruger, maintained the order of life and lent me the benefits of his expertise, thereby lightening the task immeasurably. Permission to quote and to draw on previously published material is grate fully acknowledged from the following sources: Kluwer Academic Publishers, for passages from G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. L. E. Loemker; Cambridge University Press, for New Essays on Human Understanding, ed. J. Bennett and P. Remnant; Abaris Books for Malebranche, Dialogues on Metaphysics, ed. W. Doney; The Journal of Philosophy for the use of my own "Leibnizian Optimism" in vol. 80 (1983); Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, for "Leibniz and Atomism", in vo. 15 (1982); Studia Leibniliana for "De Ispa Natura: Sources of Leibniz's Doctrines of Force, Activity, and Natural Law", in vol. 19 (1987), and University Press of America for material from "The Combinatorial Universe". Abbreviations AK Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Samtliche Schriften und Briefe, ed. Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (Darmstadt and Berlin: Akademie- Verlag, 1923-). References are to series and volume. AT Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. J. Adam and P. Tannery, 12 vols (Paris: J. Vrin, 1974-86). CSM The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, tr. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984-5). FH Leibniz: Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of EmI, ed. A. Farrer, tr. E. M. Huggard (La Salle: Open Court, 1985). G Die Philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Uibniz, ed. C. I. Gerhardt, 7 vols (Berlin, 1875-90; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1962). GM G. W. Uibniz: Mathemalische Schriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt, 7 vols (Berlin and Halle, 1849-63; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1962). HR Descartes: Philosophical Works, tr. and ed. E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross, 2nd ed., 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931). L Gottfried Wilhelm Lnbniz: Philosophical Papers and Utters, ed. and tr. L. Loemker, 2nd ed. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1969). LB Leibniz Briefwechsel: as catalogued in E. Bodemann, Der Briefwechsel des Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (Hanover, 1889; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1966). LH Leibniz Handschriften: as catalogued in E. Bodemann, Die Leibniz- Handschriften der Koniglichen offentlichen Bibliothek zu Hannover (Hanover, 1895; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1966). LO Malebranche: The Search After Truth, tr. T. M. Lennon and P. J. Olscamp (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1975). M Lsilmiz.· Discourse on Metaphysics and Correspondence with Arnauld, tr. G. R. Montgomery (La Salle: Open Court, 1902). MB G. W. Leibniz: Discourse on Metaphysics and Related Writings, fr. and ed. R. N. D. Martin and S. Brown (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1988). RB Leibniz: New L·says on Human Understanding, tr. and ed. P. Remnant and J. Bennett (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).