Leibniz : determinist, theist, idealist / Robert Merrihew Adams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adams, Robert Merrihew.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716.

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm.

Physical Description:

xi, 433 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York ; Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1998.

Summary:

Legendary since his own time as a universal genius, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) contributed significantly to almost every branch of learning, from mathematics to ecumenical theology. But the part of his work that is most studied today is probably his writings in metaphysics, which have been the focus of particularly lively philosophical discussion in the last twenty years or so.

Leibniz's writings in metaphysics contain one of the great systems of modern philosophy, but the system must be pieced together from a vast and miscellaneous array of manuscripts, letters, articles, and books, in a way that makes especially strenuous demands on scholarship. This book presents an in-depth intrepretation of three important parts of Leibniz's metaphysics, which is thoroughly grounded in the texts as well as in philosophical analysis and critique. The three areas discussed are the metaphysical part of Leibniz's philosophy of logic, his essentially theological treatment of the central issues of ontology, and his theory of substance (the theory of monads).

Contents:

I. Determinism: Contingency and Identity

1. Leibniz's Theories of Contingency 9

1. Leibniz's First Main Solution 10

2. Leibniz's Second Main Solution 22

3. Leibniz and Possible Worlds Semantics 46

4. On Leibniz's Sincerity 50

2. The Logic of Counterfactual Non-identity 53

1. Problems of Transworld Identity 53

2. The Conceptual Containment Theory of Truth 57

3. Actuality in the Conceptual Containment Theory 63

4. An Anti-Semantical Theory of Truth 65

5. Why Did Leibniz Hold the Conceptual Containment Theory? 67

6. Conceptual Containment and Transworld Identity 71

3. The Metaphysics of Counterfactual Nonidentity 75

1. Substance and Law 77

2. Substance and Miracle 81

3. Perception and Relations 102

Appendix A Priori and A Posteriori 109

II. Theism: God and Being

4. The Ens Perfectissimum 113

1. Absolute Qualities as "Requirements" of Things 115

2. Sensible Qualities, Knowledge, and Perfection 119

3. Is Leibniz's Conception of God Spinozistic? 123

5. The Ontological Argument 135

1. The Incomplete Proof 136

2. Proof of Possibility 141

6. Existence and Essence 157

1. Is Existence an Essential Quality of God? 158

2. Defining Existence 164

3. Existence Irreducible 170

7. The Root of Possibility 177

1. The Proof of the Existence of God from the Reality of Eternal Truths 177

2. Leibniz's Theory Examined 184

8. Presumption of Possibility 192

1. Jurisprudence and Pragmatism in Theology 194

2. Jurisprudence and the Logic of Probability 198

3. A Proof for the Presumption of Possibility 202

4. Presuming the Possibility of Beings as Such 206

5. Objections Considered 209

III. Idealism: Monads and Bodies

9. Leibniz's Phenomenalism 217

1. Phenomena 219

2. Esse Is Percipi 235

3. Aggregates 241

4. The Reality of Phenomena 255

10. Corporeal Substance 262

1. Bodies and Corporeal Substances 262

2. The Structure of a Corporeal Substance: Alternative Interpretations 265

3. The Structure of a Corporeal Substance: Some Texts 274

4. Monadic Domination 285

5. Principles of Unity 291

11. Form and Matter in Leibniz's Middle Years 308

1. Form 309

2. Matter 324

3. Realism 338

12. Primary Matter 341

1. Three Senses of "Matter" in a Letter to Arnauld 341

2. Matter and the Eucharist 349

3. Bernoulli's Questions 361

4. The Debate about Thinking Matter 364

13. Primitive and Derivative Forces 378

1. The "Mixed" Character of Derivative Forces 378

2. Primary Matter and Quantity 393.

Notes:

Originally published: 1994.

ISBN:

0195084608

0195126491

OCLC:

40981882