In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Leibniz on Innate Ideas and the Early Reactions to the Publication of the Nouveaux Essais (1765)* GIORGIO TONELLI LIzmNIz' Nouve~ Essais,written in 1703-1705 (citedhereafter as NE), were posthumously published by Raspe x in 1765, at the beginning of a Leibniz revivalwhich was alsomarked by thelargeDutens editionof 1768. As the greatupheaval in Kant's thought took place in 1769, and as thisupheaval had as one of itsmain characteristicsthe rejection of sensibility (...) as the sole source of knowledge,2 it is easy to infer that Kant's reading of the NE may have been one of the elements prompting him to adopt his new solution. It is not the ambition of this paper to answer that difficult question: rather it is an attempt towards clearing the ground for an answer to it, by inquiring into the early reactions of philosophical circles, especially German, to the appearance of the NE. To what extent was the significance of the particular doctrines expounded in the NE noticed? To what extent did contemporary philosophers realize that these were to profoundly modify the picture of Leibniz' psychological tenets? And, therefore, to what extent could Kant have been stimulated by a widespread reaction to pay special attention to the peeu!ia~lies of that work7 In conformity with this purpose, I shall focus my research on the question o/the origin of knowledge. As it is my task to reconstruct a general philosophical atmosphere, I will not confine my research to philosophic reactions prior to 1769, but will also take into consideration some attitudes of the following decade. As frequently happens in the history of ideas, the impact of a certain event may be noticed almost immediately after its occurrence, but the documentation of its effects may be available only after a certain delay. But they are nevertheless indicative of that prior impact. Before starting this enquiry, I shall: (1) point out the difference between the doctrine in question as it is expounded in the NE and as it appeared in the previously published works of Leibniz; (2) examine the interpretations of Leibniz' psychology prior to 1765, especially as represented in the version which was accepted by Wolff and incorporated into his system. * I want to expressmy gratitude to my friend Dr. Heinrieh Schepers,Director of the LeibnizStelle of Miinster University, for severalreferences and suggestions,and for his sympathy with the subjectof this paper. 1 Oeuvres philosophique$ latines et franfaises du feu Mr. de Leibniz tir~es de ses Manuscrits qui #e conservent dans la Biblioth~que royale ~ Hanovre et publi~es par M. Rud. Eric Raspe. Avec une preface de Mr. Kaestner, Professeur en math$matique d GOttingue (Amsterdam et Leipzig, 1765). Cf. (3. Tondli, "Die Umwiilzung yon 1769 bed Kant," Kant-Studien,LIV (1963), 369 ft. [437] 438 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY I. It is an obvious principle in Leibniz' metaphysics that all knowledge stems from the interior of the soul, or monad: from this point of view, it may correctly be stated that for Leibniz all knowledge is innate. It is equally obvious in our day that Leibniz held that there is a basic distinction between the way we know necesstwy and universal truths, emerging from the soul's intellect, and the way we know contingent and particular truths, emerging from the soul's sensibility. Therefore, from a psychological and exoteric point of view (as in the NE) the first kind of truths may be called innate (par excellence), while the second may be called acquired. As it happened, the works of Leibniz published prior to 1765 almost exclusively represented the general metaphysical point of view, and this led to a fatal distortion of his thought by his followers. The interpretations of Leibniz were from the very beginningm and still are in our day---profoundly influenced by the fact that many of Leibniz' works were not published in his lifetime, but appeared (and still shall appear) posthumously during more than two centuries. Consequently the distinction between the origin of necessary and the origin of contingent truths was generally overlooked. This is clearly explained by an examination of Leibniz' worksa which were published before his death (1716) and shortly thereafter. One of the most influential... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:New Light from Arabic Sources on Galen and the Fourth Figure of the Syllogism NICHOLAS RESCHER The Problem of the Origin of the Fourth Figure FLYING IN THE FACE of the long-standing tradition--going back in Europe to Renaissance times--which credits Galen of Pergamon with the origination of the fourth syllogistic figure, recent authorities have almost to a man evinced doubt about Galen's claim to this innovation. Heinrieh Scholz (...) speaks of "the Galenian syllogistic figure which has been attributed to him, probably wrongly." i j. W. Stakelum concludes his careful discussion of the matter with the categorical assertion that "Galen did not teach the fourth figure." ~ I. M. Bochenski--following Lukasiewicz (see below)--says that the fourth figure "was only ascribed to Galen by a misunderstanding." : William Kneale (also following Lukasiewicz) writes that "it is easy to see how misunderstanding.., by some Arabian philosopher... could have given rise to the tradition that Galen added a fourth figure to Aristotle's syllogistic theory." 4 The currently received account of the matter is that of Jan Lukasiewicz who, in his book on Aristotle's Syllogistic (1951; 2d ed., 1957), presents the known reports about Galen and the fourth figure as follows (I list them in the order in which they came to light) : 1) Several passages in Averroes' (d. 1198) Middle Commentary on Prior Analytics credit Galen with introducing a fourth figure (ad Anal. Pr. I, 5; I, 8; I, 23). These passages, known in Europe through a Renaissance Latin translation of a Hebrew version, provided the basis upon which Zabarella in his work, De Quarta Syllogismorum Figura (in his Opera [Leiden: 1587], pp. 41-53), popularized the "Galenian figure" in European logic. 2) In 1844 Minoides Mynas published in the Preface to his edition of Galen's EisagSg~ dialektik~ an anonymous Greek fragment (late, perhaps 6th century) which states that certain "later scholars" transformed the indirect moods of the first figure added by Theophrastus and Eudeffms into a new fourth figure, citing Galen as the originator of this doctrine.~ 1Abriss der Geschichte der Logik (Miinster: 1931), trans, into English by K. F. Leidecker, ConciseHistory of Logic (NewYork: 1961);p. 38ofthe Englishversion. "Why 'Galenian' Figure?" The New Scholasticism, XVI (1942),289-296. s Formale Logik (Miinchen-Freiburg:1956; 2nd. ed., 1962), trans, into English by Ivo Thomas, A History of Formal Logic (Notre Dame: 1961);p. 142of the Englishversion. Williamand Martha Kneale, The Developmentof Logic (Oxford: 1962),p. 184. Alsoprinted in Karl Kalbfieisch, ~ber Galen s Einleitung in die Logik, 2~. Supplementband der Jahrbi~cherfi~r klassische Philologie (Leipzig:1897), p. 707. This datum casts some 28 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3) A Greek fragment was found around 1858 by Karl Prantl in a logical work of the Byzantine scholar Ioannes Italus (llth century) which says that Galen taught the existence of a fourth figure, adding sarcastically that he (Galen) thought thus to appear cleverer than the older logical commentators (presumably Theophrastus and Eudemus are intended), but fell far short.6 4) In 1899 Maximilian Wallies published7 an anonymous Greek scholium (of perhaps the 6th or the 7th century) on Ammonins' commentary on Prior Analytics which states that Galen "says in his Apodictic that there are four figures, because he looks at the compound syllogisms consisting of four terms (i.e., with three premisses )" rather than the simple (three-term, two-premiss) syllogisms of Aristotle. (The scholiast goes on to explain at some length how such compound syllogisms can be sorted into four groups.) It is readily seen that, given these data, two possibilities stand before us: a) Galen did actually invent the traditional fourth figure. Reports (1)-(3) are correct, and the anonymous scholiast of (4) was put on the wrong track by the fact that Galen also said that compound syllogisms of four terms can be classed into four groups. b) Galen did not invent the traditional fourth figure. Only after his time when once the indirect moods of the first figure had--somehow--become systematized into a separate "figure," was this credited to Galen by a mistake along the lines described by the anonymous scholiast. Thus (4) alone is right, and (1)-(3) are mistaken. Which of... (shrink)