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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.
Author: Pauline Phemister
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402034016
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Get Book Here
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.
Author: Pauline Phemister
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317408101
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 252
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Book Description
The work of seventeenth-century polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz has proved inspirational to philosophers and scientists alike. In this thought-provoking book, Pauline Phemister explores the ecological potential of Leibniz’s dynamic, pluralist, panpsychist, metaphysical system. She argues that Leibniz’s philosophy has a renewed relevance in the twenty-first century, particularly in relation to the environmental change and crises that threaten human and non-human life on earth. Drawing on Leibniz’s theory of soul-like, interconnected metaphysical entities he termed 'monads', Phemister explains how an individual’s true good is inextricably linked to the good of all. Phemister also finds in Leibniz’s works the rudiments of a theory of empathy and strategies for strengthening human feelings of compassion towards all living things. Leibniz and the Environment is essential reading for historians of philosophy and environmental philosophers, and will also be of interest to anyone seeking a metaphysical perspective from which to pursue environmental action and policy.
Author: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226112977
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216
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Book Description
Protogaea, an ambitious account of terrestrial history, was central to the development of the earth sciences in the eighteenth century and provides key philosophical insights into the unity of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s thought and writings. In the book, Leibniz offers observations about the formation of the earth, the actions of fire and water, the genesis of rocks and minerals, the origins of salts and springs, the formation of fossils, and their identification as the remains of living organisms. Protogaea also includes a series of engraved plates depicting the remains of animals—in particular the famous reconstruction of a “fossil unicorn”—together with a cross section of the cave in which some fossil objects were discovered. Though the works of Leibniz have been widely translated, Protogaea has languished in its original Latin for centuries. Now Claudine Cohen and Andre Wakefield offer the first English translation of this central text in natural philosophy and natural history. Written between 1691 and 1693, and first published after Leibniz’s death in 1749, Protogaea reemerges in this bilingual edition with an introduction that carefully situates the work within its historical context.
Author: Matthew L. Jones
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226409562
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 404
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Book Description
Amid the unrest, dislocation, and uncertainty of seventeenth-century Europe, readers seeking consolation and assurance turned to philosophical and scientific books that offered ways of conquering fears and training the mind—guidance for living a good life. The Good Life in the Scientific Revolution presents a triptych showing how three key early modern scientists, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Leibniz, envisioned their new work as useful for cultivating virtue and for pursuing a good life. Their scientific and philosophical innovations stemmed in part from their understanding of mathematics and science as cognitive and spiritual exercises that could create a truer mental and spiritual nobility. In portraying the rich contexts surrounding Descartes’ geometry, Pascal’s arithmetical triangle, and Leibniz’s calculus, Matthew L. Jones argues that this drive for moral therapeutics guided important developments of early modern philosophy and the Scientific Revolution.
Author: Franklin Perkins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521830249
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
Why was Leibniz so fascinated by Chinese philosophy and culture? What specific forms did his interest take? How did his interest compare with the relative indifference of his philosophical contemporaries and near-contemporaries such as Spinoza and Locke? In this highly original book, Franklin Perkins examines Leibniz's voluminous writings on the subject and suggests that his interest was founded in his own philosophy: the nature of his metaphysical and theological views required him to take Chinese thought seriously.
Author: Justin E. H. Smith
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691141789
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
"His book provides a comprehensive survey of G. W. Leibniz's deep and complex engagement with the sciences of life, in areas as diverse as medicine, physiology, taxonomy, generation theory, and paleontology. It is shown that these sundry interests were not only relevant to his core philosophical interests, but indeed often provided the insights that in part led to some of his most familiar philosophical doctrines, including the theory of corporeal substance and the theory of organic preformation"--Provided by publisher.
Author: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.
ISBN: 1605204595
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 94
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Book Description
The impact of the work of German mathematician GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ (1646-1716) on modern science and technology is all but incalculable. His notation for infinitesimal calculus-which he developed independently of Newton-remains in use today, and his invention of binary counting is the basis for modern computing. He was a powerfully influential philosopher as well, and is still considered, alongside Descartes and Spinoza, one of the great 17th-century rationalists. Because much of Leibniz's thinking in the realm of the sciences flowed from his philosophy, understanding how he approached the natural world and humanity's place in it is vital to understanding his contributions to modern science. This edition collects two of Leibniz's foundational works, "Discourse on Metaphysics" and "The Monadology," which expound on concepts of philosophical "optimism"-that we live in the best of all possible worlds-and consequently features Leibniz's thoughts on the nature of physical matter. This classic work will intrigue all students of science and philosophy.
Author: Larry M. Jorgensen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191023973
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
Larry M. Jorgensen provides a systematic reappraisal of Leibniz's philosophy of mind, revealing the full metaphysical background that allowed Leibniz to see farther than most of his contemporaries. In recent philosophy much effort has been put into discovering a naturalized theory of mind. Leibniz's efforts to reach a similar goal three hundred years earlier offer a critical stance from which we can assess our own theories. But while the goals might be similar, the content of Leibniz's theory significantly diverges from that of today's thought. Perhaps surprisingly, Leibniz's theological commitments yielded a thoroughgoing naturalizing methodology: the properties of an object are explicable in terms of the object's nature. Larry M. Jorgensen shows how this methodology led Leibniz to a fully natural theory of mind.
Author: Jan Patocka
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810133636
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 356
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Book Description
The first text to critically discuss Edmund Husserl’s concept of the "life-world," The Natural World as a Philosophical Problem reflects Jan Patocka's youthful conversations with the founder of phenomenology and two of his closest disciples, Eugen Fink and Ludwig Landgrebe. Now available in English for the first time, this translation includes an introduction by Landgrebe and two self-critical afterwords added by Patocka in the 1970s. Unique in its extremely broad range of references, the work addresses the views of Russell, Wittgenstein, and Carnap alongside Husserl and Heidegger, in a spirit that considerably broadens the understanding of phenomenology in relation to other twentieth-century trends in philosophy. Even eighty years after first appearing, it is of great value as a general introduction to philosophy, and it is essential reading for students of the history of phenomenology as well as for those desiring a full understanding of Patocka’s contribution to contemporary thought.
Author: Christopher Johns
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1780936737
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 206
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Book Description
A new understanding of the foundations of Gottfried Leibniz's moral and political philosophy based on formal deontic principles rather than consequentialism.
