Leibniz's Argument for the Identity of Indiscernibles in his Correspondence with Clarke

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (4):429 – 438 (1999)
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Abstract

In Section 21 of his fifth letter to Clarke Leibniz attempts to derive the Identity of Indiscernibles from an application of the Principle of Sufficient Reason to God´s act of creation, namely that God has a reason to create the world he creates. In this paper I argue that this argument fails, not just because the Identity of Indiscernibles is false, but because there is a counterexample to one of the premises that Leibniz cannot satisfactorily rule out.

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Citations of this work

Do identity and distinctness facts threaten the PSR?Erica Shumener - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (4):1023-1041.
Leibniz and Newton on Space.Ori Belkind - 2013 - Foundations of Science 18 (3):467-497.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.Brandon C. Look - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

The identity of indiscernibles.Max Black - 1952 - Mind 61 (242):153-164.
Quantum physics and the identity of indiscernibles.Steven French & Michael Redhead - 1988 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (2):233-246.
Leibniz's philosophy of logic and language.Hide Ishiguro - 1972 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Leibniz's Philosophy of Logic and Language.Hideko Ishiguro - 1974 - Philosophy East and West 24 (3):376-378.

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