This paper examines Leibniz’s views on the theistic doctrine of continual creation and considers their implications for his theory of finite substance. Three main theses are defended: (1) that Leibniz takes the traditional account of continual creation to involve the literal re-creation of all things in a successive series of instantaneous states, (2) that a straightforward commitment to the traditional account would give rise to serious problems within Leibniz’s theory of finite substance and his metaphysics more generally, and (3) that (...) Leibniz does not straightforwardly affirm the continual creation doctrine, despite certain texts that initially seem to suggest otherwise. I also present a more speculative interpretive hypothesis about what Leibniz’s considered view of creation might have been, namely that in a single act, God creates and conserves substances that are non-spatial and atemporal at the deepest level of reality. (shrink)

This article discusses Leibniz’s claim that every substance is endowed with the property of perception in connection with Platonism, rationalism and the problem of substance monism. It is argued that Leibniz’s ascription of perception to every substance relies on his Platonic conception of finite things as imitations of God, in whom there is ‘infinite perception’. Leibniz’s Platonism, however, goes beyond the notion of imitation, including also the emanative causal relation and the logical (i.e. definitional) priority of the absolute over the (...) limited. It is proposed that Leibniz’s endorsement of Platonism, in conjunction with some rationalist elements of his philosophy, implies a monistic conception of particulars as modifications of a single substance. Following some scholars and opposing others, the article offers evidence that Leibniz accepted this implication during the last years of his Paris period. However, it is further argued that it was precisely the idea of perception as a property of every substance that allowed Leibniz to find a way out of monism after that period. More specifically, the article defends the view that what made room for ontological pluralism within Leibniz’s rationalist and Platonic outlook was the idea that perception is the property which constitutes the very being of substances: substances are their perceptions. (shrink)

Leibniz argues that there must be a fundamental level of simple substances because composites borrow their reality from their constituents and not all reality can be borrowed. I contend that the underlying logic of this ‘borrowed reality argument’ has been misunderstood, particularly the rationale for the key premise that not all reality can be borrowed. Contrary to what has been suggested, the rationale turns neither on the alleged viciousness of an unending regress of reality borrowers nor on the Principle of (...) Sufficient Reason, but on the idea that composites are phenomena and thus can be real only insofar as they have a foundation in substances, from which they directly ‘borrow’ their reality. The claim that composites are phenomena rests in turn on Leibniz's conceptualism about relations. So understood, what initially looked like a disappointingly simple argument for simples turns out to be a rather rich and sophisticated one. (shrink)

Leibniz holds that created substances do not causally interact with each other but that there is causal activity within each such creature. Every created substance constantly changes internally, and each of these changes is caused by the substance itself or by its prior states. Leibniz describes this kind of intra-substance causation both in terms of final causation and in terms of efficient causation. How exactly this works, however, is highly controversial. I will identify what I take to be the major (...) interpretive issues surrounding Leibniz's views on causation and examine several influential interpretations of these views. In ‘Leibniz on Causation – Part 2’ I will then take a closer look at final causation. (shrink)

This paper explores the theory of freedom that Emilie du Châtelet advances in her essay “On Freedom.” Using contemporary terminology, we can characterize this theory as a version of agent-causal compatibilism. More specifically, the theory has the following elements: (a) freedom consists in the power to act in accordance with one’s choices, (b) freedom requires the ability to suspend desires and master passions, (c) freedom requires a power of self-motion in the agent, and (d) freedom is compatible with moral necessity (...) but not with physical necessity. While these elements may at first appear disparate, the paper shows that they fit together quite well. The resulting theory is a surprising combination of doctrines that appear to be based on Samuel Clarke’s libertarian account of free will and doctrines that are reminiscent of the compatibilist accounts of John Locke, Anthony Collins, Gottfried Leibniz, and Thomas Hobbes. (shrink)