Leibniz on spontaneity: A sketch of formal and final causation

Abstract

According to a standard picture of Leibniz’s mature views on creaturely causation, Leibniz held what some interpreters have described as his ‘thesis of spontaneity’: “every non-initial, nonmiraculous state of every created substance has as a real cause some preceding state of that very substance.”2 Evidence for this thesis is abundantly available throughout Leibniz’s mature work and here are some prominent instances.

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Du Châtelet on Freedom, Self-Motion, and Moral Necessity.Julia Jorati - 2019 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 57 (2):255-280.

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