While he was in the employ of the Elector of Mainz, between 1668 and 1671, Leibniz produced a series of important studies in natural law. One of these, dated between 1670 and 1671, is especially noteworthy since it contains Leibniz's earliest sustained attempt to develop an account of justice. Central to this account is the notion of what Leibniz would later come to call `disinterested love', a notion that remained essentially unchanged in Leibniz's work from this period to the end (...) of his life. Through his notion of disinterested love, Leibniz sought to resolve the supposed conflict between self- and other-regarding motives. For a variety of reasons, many commentators have failed to understand the basis of Leibniz's proposed resolution. My purpose in the present paper is to clarify the terms in which Leibniz effected this resolution, as well as to point out important developments in his later thought concerning the relation between pleasure, good, and happiness. (shrink)

One argument that Leibniz employed to rule out the possibility of a world soul appears to turn on the assumption that the very notion of an infinite number or of an infinite whole is inconsistent. This argument was considered in a series of three papers published in The Leibniz Review: in the first, by Laurence Carlin, the argument was delineated and analyzed; in the second, by myself, the argument was criticized and rejected; in the third, by Richard Arthur, an attempt (...) was made to defend Leibniz’s argument against my criticisms. In the present paper, I take up the matter again in an attempt to clarify the issues involved and to defend my original criticisms of the argument against the objections raised by Arthur. (shrink)

One argument that Leibniz employed to rule out the possibility of a world soul appears to turn on the assumption that the very notion of an infinite number or of an infinite whole is inconsistent. This argument was considered in a series of three papers published in The Leibniz Review: in the first, by Laurence Carlin, the argument was delineated and analyzed; in the second, by myself, the argument was criticized and rejected; in the third, by Richard Arthur, an attempt (...) was made to defend Leibniz’s argument against my criticisms. In the present paper, I take up the matter again in an attempt to clarify the issues involved and to defend my original criticisms of the argument against the objections raised by Arthur. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to elucidate Leibniz’s account of moral normativity and the relation between motivation and obligation. I argue against the recent interpretation of Christopher Johns, according to which Leibniz’s moral theory is actually a deontological theory, having more in common with Kantian moral theory than with any form of consequentialism. I argue that for Leibniz reason is not itself the source of practical normativity and real obligation; the source of that is rather the agent’s desire for (...) his own happiness or perfection. For Leibniz, reason in its practical role functions instrumentally: the desire for one’s own happiness is the source of practical normativity, and reason functions only to transfer that normativity from the end that it does not determine to the means to those ends that it does determine. (shrink)

In the first section of this paper I discuss what Leibniz meant by a miracle and why Leibniz’s definition of the best of all possible worlds implies that it is a world in which miracles are minimized. In the second part of the paper I argue that human happiness within the best of all possible worlds also requires, on Leibniz’s principles, that miracles must there be minimized. In the third section of the paper I consider what, if any, miracles actually (...) remain possible for Leibniz within the best of all possible worlds. In the final section I discuss one important kind of event upon which Leibniz vacillated whether it required miraculous intervention -- namely, the elevation of the sensitive soul to rationality -- and some speculation about the cause of this vacillation in Leibniz is offered. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to examine the nature and role of "the phenomena of God" in Leinbiz's mature thought. In the first part of the paper, I discuss the nature of the universal harmony and argue that they are the perceptiual states of finite substances and the relations among them that constitute God's phenomena. In the second part of the paper, I attempt to specify the theoretical role that God's phenomena play in Leibniz's phenomenalism. This leads finally to a (...) discussion of Leibniz's teleological reasoning in the investigation of nature and of how that justification undercuts the argument for God's existence from the pre-established harmony. (shrink)

I undertake to examine how Descartes understood the relationship between physics and mathematics. My thesis is that what distinguishes the objects of mathematics from those of physics on Descartes's view is that the former are considered in abstraction from a material substratum while the latter are considered as involving a material substratum. Since it has often been maintained that Descartes identified matter with extension, and hence rejected the notion of a material substratum, I attempt in the first part of my (...) paper to establish the textual basis for ascribing a substratum view to Descartes. In the second part of the paper, I present the case for my thesis concerning Descartes's account of the difference between the objects of mathematics and those of physics. (shrink)

"The documents gathered in this volume cut a winding path through the tumultuous final thirty-three months of Leibniz's life, from March 1714 to his death on 14 November 1716. The disputes with Newton and his followers over the discovery of the calculus and, later, over the issues in natural philosophy and theology that came to dominate Leibniz's correspondence with Samuel Clarke certainly loom large in the story of these years. But as the title of this volume is intended to convey, (...) the letters exchanged between Leibniz and Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Electoral Princess of Braunschweig-Luneburg and later Princess of Wales, also figure prominently in their telling, and I have included their complete extant correspondence from 1714 to 1716. These letters are of particular interest inasmuch as they provide valuable insights into how and why Leibniz's correspondence with Clarke arose, and why it developed as it did, with Caroline in the role of influential go-between; whence the title, The Leibniz-Caroline-Clarke Correspondence. But there is more; for these letters provide a window into the evolving personal relationship between Leibniz and Caroline. Much of the early correspondence between Leibniz and Caroline after her arrival in England is filled with thoughtful and engaging exchanges about philosophy, literature, and politics, about people Caroline was meeting in England, about those known by Leibniz far and wide, about the new royal family in England, headed by George I (Georg Ludwig of Braunschweig-Luneburg), as well as gossip about affairs of state in both England and Europe at large. Beyond the interest they hold for Leibniz scholars in particular, many of these exchanges should also be of interest to historians of early 18th-century England and Europe, and especially to those interested in the period immediately preceding and following the Hanoverian succession to the throne of England. But even quite early on in their correspondence Leibniz seemed to sense a threat to his relationship with Caroline, and a worrisome paranoia began to creep into some of his letters to her, letters in which he expressed concerns about her continuing allegiance to him now that she had been installed in England amongst his rivals. As the correspondence progressed, Leibniz's paranoia only deepened; but it was nevertheless prophetic of a tragic truth to come. For the letters exchanged between Leibniz and Caroline document the rather sad story of the slow but steady erosion of Caroline's loyalty to Leibniz after she departed Hanover on 12 October 1714 and landed in England at Margate in Kent on 22 October as the new Princess of Wales and future Queen of England. In 1727 the Scottish poet James Thomson penned A Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, calling him "our philosophic sun," and it was by force of the political and cultural mass of this sun that Caroline was eventually, and inexorably, drawn into its orbit, and away from Leibniz". (shrink)

In 1676 Leibniz reluctantly left Paris, headed for Hanover, to take up the position of counselor and librarian to Johann Friedrich, duke of Brunswick—Lüneburg—Calenberg. He was to remain in the employ of a succession of dukes and electors of Hanover—the last being Georg Ludwig, who became George I of England in 1714—until his death in November 1716. During this time he also became a familiar at the court in Berlin of the elector of Brandenburg (later King of Prussia) and at (...) the imperial court in Vienna. This paper traces the important relationships that developed between Leibniz and a number of the ladies of these courts. (shrink)

This is a superbly crafted and exhaustively researched account of the development of Leibniz’s thought, his ambitious plans and undertakings, his myriad intellectual engagements, and his ceaseless comings and goings across Europe. It captures, accurately and in great detail, the remarkably expansive mind of a singularly creative thinker. It is an extraordinary achievement, for the task of writing an intellectual biography of Leibniz is huge. To read even a portion of what he wrote and read, in the languages in which (...) he wrote and read it, to come to grips with the nuances of religion, politics, and intellectual practice that define his world, and to identify the hundreds of individuals, illustrious and forgotten, with whom he interacted would challenge even the most skilled and dedicated scholar. There is no doubt that Antognazza has met this challenge with a biography that surpasses any available account of Leibniz’s life.The book is divided into three parts. A brief introduction surveys past attempts at capturing the breadth of Leibniz’s thought and articulates “four basic, underlying theses” that unify the chapters to follow. They are: first, that Leibniz’s life and work need to be assessed as a whole as opposed to focusing narrowly on his contributions to one or another field; second, that Leibniz’s life and thought are integrated to a remarkable degree and that it is a mistake to. (shrink)