Abstract

This dissertation is a study of the ways Leibniz relocated and modified his personal and social circumstances into scientific objects, self-consciousness, and distinctive social interactions in the newly established Berlin academy. I consider these three relocations as essential phases in the process whereby intellectuals engage when they construct for themselves a cultural and epistemological sphere of activity. ;I present Leibniz's sphere of activity as a non-perceivable metaphysical realm that is not located in physical space and promotes what I call a monadic social interaction. Spheres of activity arise through the relocation and modification of personal and social dispositions into new objects . The preliminary objects become the basic furniture of that sphere and enable the intellectual to discover him/herself both as a perceiving subject and as a recognized object living among other objects. The discovery and understanding of the self further clarifies the nature of the social interaction occurring in the sphere. ;First I point out that Leibniz's early geometrical entities prefigure his mature notions of physical and metaphysical forces and the perceptual reality of monads. Second, I present the nature of the self in Leibniz's sphere of activity and oppose it to that of Locke . Leibniz develops and discovers his self through correspondence with other men of letters. This leads him to construct a monadic rational self that owns an internal mirror. Yet Leibniz's monadic self is also rooted in the public life of princely courts; we find him shifting his personal disposition as a court official into a metaphysical realm where his rational self flourishes. In contrast, Locke's person is realized in a very different public sphere of face-to-face interaction among distinguished peers. His self relocates and epitomizes the English gentleman's position as a property owner secured with private rights. Finally, I analyze a few of Leibniz's unsuccessful attempts to use his metaphysical sphere as a vehicle for self-fashioning and for the establishment of new scientific academies that would reinforce his intellectual self