Self and Substance in Leibniz

Self and Substance in Leibniz PDF Author: Marc Elliott Bobro
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402025823
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description
There is a close connection in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s mind between the notions of self and substance. R. W. Meyer, in his classic 1948 text, Leibnitz and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution, writes that “the monad ... is nothing but a 1 représentation (in both senses of the French word) of Leibniz’s personality in metaphysical symbols; and there was, under contemporary circumstances, no need 2 to ‘introduce’ this concept apart from ‘propounding’ it. ” It is not clear what Meyer means here except that from the consideration of his own self, in some way Leibniz comes to his concept of simple substance, or monad. Herbert Carr, in an even earlier work, notes that Leibniz held that “the only real unities in nature are formal, not material. ... [and] [f]or a long time Leibniz was content to call the formal unities or substantial forms he was speaking about, souls. This had the advantage that it referred at once to the fact of experience which supplies the very 3 type of a substantial form, the self or ego. ” Finally, Nicholas Rescher, in his usual forthright manner, states that “[i]n all of Leibniz’s expositions of his philosophy, 4 the human person is the paradigm of a substance.

Self and Substance in Leibniz

Self and Substance in Leibniz PDF Author: Marc Elliott Bobro
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402025823
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Get Book Here

Book Description
There is a close connection in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s mind between the notions of self and substance. R. W. Meyer, in his classic 1948 text, Leibnitz and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution, writes that “the monad ... is nothing but a 1 représentation (in both senses of the French word) of Leibniz’s personality in metaphysical symbols; and there was, under contemporary circumstances, no need 2 to ‘introduce’ this concept apart from ‘propounding’ it. ” It is not clear what Meyer means here except that from the consideration of his own self, in some way Leibniz comes to his concept of simple substance, or monad. Herbert Carr, in an even earlier work, notes that Leibniz held that “the only real unities in nature are formal, not material. ... [and] [f]or a long time Leibniz was content to call the formal unities or substantial forms he was speaking about, souls. This had the advantage that it referred at once to the fact of experience which supplies the very 3 type of a substantial form, the self or ego. ” Finally, Nicholas Rescher, in his usual forthright manner, states that “[i]n all of Leibniz’s expositions of his philosophy, 4 the human person is the paradigm of a substance.

Locke and Leibniz on Substance

Locke and Leibniz on Substance PDF Author: Paul Lodge
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317648234
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Locke and Leibniz on Substance gathers together papers by an international group of academic experts, examining the metaphysical concept of substance in the writings of these two towering philosophers of the early modern period. Each of these newly-commissioned essays considers important interpretative issues concerning the role that the notion of substance plays in the work of Locke and Leibniz, and its intersection with other key issues, such as personal identity. Contributors also consider the relationship between the two philosophers and contemporaries such as Descartes and Hume.

Leibniz's Metaphysics

Leibniz's Metaphysics PDF Author: Christia Mercer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139429027
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
Christia Mercer analyses Leibniz's early works, demonstrating that the metaphysics of pre-established harmony developed many years earlier than previously believed. A much deeper understanding of some of Leibniz's key doctrines emerges, which will prompt scholars to reconsider their basic assumptions about early modern philosophy and science.

Discourse on Metaphysics

Discourse on Metaphysics PDF Author: Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : First philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description


Leibniz on Causation and Agency

Leibniz on Causation and Agency PDF Author: Julia Jorati
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107192676
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
A fresh and thorough exploration of Leibniz's often controversial theories, including his thought on teleology, contingency, freedom, and moral responsibility.

The Minds of the Moderns

The Minds of the Moderns PDF Author: Janice Thomas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317492412
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This is a comprehensive examination of the ideas of the early modern philosophers on the nature of mind. Taking Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in turn, Janice Thomas presents an authoritative and critical assessment of each of these canonical thinkers' views of the notion of mind. The book examines each philosopher's position on five key topics: the metaphysical character of minds and mental states; the nature and scope of introspection and self-knowledge; the nature of consciousness; the problem of mental causation and the nature of representation and intentionality. The exposition and examination of their positions is informed by present-day debates in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of psychology so that students get a clear sense of the importance of these philosophers' ideas, many of which continue to define our current notions of the mental.Again and again, philosophers and students alike come back to the great early modern rationalist and empiricist philosophers for instruction and inspiration. Their views on the philosophy of mind are no exception and as Janice Thomas shows they have much to offer contemporary debates. The book is suitable for undergraduate courses in the philosophy of mind and the many new courses in philosophy of psychology.

The Monadology

The Monadology PDF Author: Gottfried Wilhelm Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781986704465
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
The Monadology (French: La Monadologie, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz's best known works representing his later philosophy. It is a short text which sketches in some 90 paragraphs a metaphysics of simple substances, or monads. In it, he offers a new solution to mind and matter interaction by means of a pre-established harmony expressed as the 'Best of all possible worlds' form of optimism.

Discourse on Metaphysics

Discourse on Metaphysics PDF Author: Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Metaphysics
Languages : en
Pages : 106

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Book Description


Leibniz's Mill

Leibniz's Mill PDF Author: Charles Landesman
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
ISBN: 9780268034115
Category : Dualism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Landesman claims that dualism must be preferred to materialism. The self cannot be reduced to the body, even although in some ways dependent on it.

Leibniz and the Natural World

Leibniz and the Natural World PDF Author: Pauline Phemister
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402034016
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In the present book, Pauline Phemister argues against traditional Anglo-American interpretations of Leibniz as an idealist who conceives ultimate reality as a plurality of mind-like immaterial beings and for whom physical bodies are ultimately unreal and our perceptions of them illusory. Re-reading the texts without the prior assumption of idealism allows the more material aspects of Leibniz's metaphysics to emerge. Leibniz is found to advance a synthesis of idealism and materialism. His ontology posits indivisible, living, animal-like corporeal substances as the real metaphysical constituents of the universe; his epistemology combines sense-experience and reason; and his ethics fuses confused perceptions and insensible appetites with distinct perceptions and rational choice. In the light of his sustained commitment to the reality of bodies, Phemister re-examines his dynamics, the doctrine of pre-established harmony and his views on freedom. The image of Leibniz as a rationalist philosopher who values activity and reason over passivity and sense-experience is replaced by the one of a philosopher who recognises that, in the created world, there can only be activity if there is also passivity; minds, souls and forms if there is also matter; good if there is evil; perfection if there is imperfection.