Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist / Edition 2

by Robert Merrihew Adams

Overview

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 classic 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 interpretation of three important parts of Leibniz's metaphysics, 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).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195126495
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/12/1998
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	9.13(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.02(d)

About the Author

Yale University

Table of Contents

	Introduction	3
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
4.	Conclusions	106
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
5.	Conclusions	375
13.	Primitive and Derivative Forces	378
1.	The "Mixed" Character of Derivative Forces	378
2.	Primary Matter and Quantity	393
	Bibliography	401
	Index of Leibniz Texts Cited	411
	General Index	423

Editorial Reviews

"A thorough and well-researched book that deserves to be placed in every library, next to Russell's classic Leibniz text."—Choice

"Professor Adams has produced a finely detailed and elaborately worked-out apology for the German metaphysician....This is an austere and often daunting work which makes few concessions to those who are not already closely interested in Leibniz's philosophy. Its range is impressive....On any showing, it must be counted a formidable scholarly achievement."—The Times Literary Supplement

"Leibniz could not have hoped for a more thoughtful and penetrating, more careful, sensitive, and positive, examination of his ideas than this....Given the evident ‘love of truth' exhibited in Adam's book, he surely would have welcomed it."—The Times Higher Education Supplement

"...Adams has produced a work on Leibniz of outstanding significance. Adams deftly handles the massive historical resources now available to Leibniz scholars, producing a major philosophical work which is a joy to read."—The Review of Metaphysics

From the Publisher