Brandon Look

Leibniz and Locke on Natural Kinds

One of the more interesting topics debated by Leibniz and Locke and one that has received comparatively little critical commentary is the nature of essences and the classification of the natural world. This topic, moreover, is of tremendous importance, occupying a position at the intersection of the metaphysics of individual beings, modality, epistemology, and philosophy of language. And, while it goes back to Plato, who wondered if we could cut nature at its joints, as Nicholas Jolley has pointed out, the debate between Leibniz and Locke has very clear similarities to the topic that has dominated the philosophy of language from the 1970s on: namely, the challenge mounted by Kripke, Kaplan, Putnam, and others against Russellian and Fregean descriptivist accounts of meaning. Yet, this topic is also, as Jolley writes, one of the “most elusive” in the debate between Leibniz and Locke. The purpose of this paper is to examine in detail Leibniz’s critique of Locke’s distinction between real and nominal essences. In doing so, I hope to show certain virtues in Leibniz’s account of metaphysics and philosophy of language that usually escape notice. While I wish to provide a general account of Leibniz’s disagreement with Locke, I also plan to focus on the nature of species and natural kinds. In my opinion, those who have treated this topic have not paid sufficient attention to Leibniz’s claims that “Essence is fundamentally nothing but the possibility of the thing under consideration” (A VI, vi, 293) and “essences are everlasting because they only concern

Grounding the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Leibnizian Rationalism and the Humean Challenge

This paper concerns the philosophical justifications of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and the main challenge to the PSR. Leibniz is most often associated with the PSR, and it is usually assumed that Leibniz accepts the PSR as simply an obvious principle of all our reasoning, one that requires no justification. This paper, however, reveals and analyzes two arguments that Leibniz gives purporting to justify or establish the truth of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: the first from one of his earliest pieces; the second from his work in the 1680s, principally from the Primary Truths. It then treats arguments given by his rationalist successors Wolff and Baumgarten—arguments that have generally been considered abject failures. Finally, the paper examines Hume’s challenge to the Universal Causal Principle. It is shown that Hume’s argument does not rule out all of the rationalist arguments for the PSR. Ultimately, it is argued that the acceptance of “brute facts” (other than in perhaps matters of quantum physics) is due mainly to a faux metaphysical machismo that even Hume rejected. If the results of this paper are correct, then the PSR has more going for it than is usually suggested in contemporary discussions.

Individuation und Einzelnsein: Nietzsche, Leibniz, Aristoteles (review)

Wissenschaftslehre, and then distinguishes two different Fichtean responses to the challenge of such skepticism (the “quid facti” argument yet again): the first is contained in Fichte’s theory of productive imagination and is dismissed by Beiser as “extravagant.” (Interestingly, Beiser seems unaware that, as is explained in Thielke’s and in Franks’ contributions to this same volume, Maimon himself, in his theory of the “differentials of perception,” seems to suggest something similar regarding the “production” by the intellect of the content as well as the form of experience). Fichte’s second response to Maimon’s challenge involves what Beiser (anachronistically) calls his “pragmatic” belief that knowledge is the result of action, though even this, according to Beiser, is anticipated by some remarks in Maimon’s Philosophisches Wörterbuch. As an interpretation of the relationship between action and cognition in the early Fichte, Beiser’s account leaves much to be desired. The last piece in this collection is a report by Florian Ehrensperger on an anonymously published 1795 review of Karl von Eckartshausen’s Zahlenlehre der Natur. Ehrensperger reprints this review from the Annalen der Philosophie and presents convincing evidence, both internal and external, that is was written by Maimon. The volume also includes a very useful complete catalog of Maimon’s disparate writings, as well as a welcome “concordance” to the contents of the Valerio Verra’s seven-volume edition of Maimon’s Gesammelte Werk and a useful bibliography and index. Along with recently published monographs by Engstler, Bransen and Buzaglo, and a forthcoming one by Franks, as well as Ehrensperger’s new edition of Maimon’s Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie (Philosophische Bibliothek 552), this stimulating volume of learned essays is evidence that the philosophical study of Maimon, especially in English, is finally beginning to flourish. Better late than never. D A N I E L B R E A Z E A L E University of Kentucky

Marks and Traces: Leibnizian Scholarship Past, Present, and Future

1. Books discussed in this essay include: Robert Merrihew Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994; Philip Beeley, Kontinuitat und Mechanismus: Zur Philosophie des jungen Leibniz in ihrem ideengeschichtlichen Kontext, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1996; Hubertus Busche, Leibniz’ Weg ins perspektivische Universum: eine Harmonie im Zeitalter der Berechnung, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1997; J. A. Cover and John O’Leary-Hawthorne, Substance and Individuation in Leibniz, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; Francois Duchesneau, Leibniz et la methode de la science, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993; Michel Fichant, Science et metaphysique dans Descartes et Leibniz, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998; Christia Mercer, Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001; Konrad Moll, Der junge Leibniz III: Eine Wissenschaft fur ein aufgeklartes Europa: Der Weltmechanismus dynamischer Monadenpunkte als Gegenentwurf zu den Lehren von Descartes und Hobbes, StuttgartBad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1996; Massimo Mugnai, Leibniz’ Theory of Relations, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1992; Patrick Riley, Leibniz’ Universal Jurisprudence: Justice as the Charity of the Wise, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996; Andre Robinet, G. W. Leibniz: le meilleur des mondes par la balance de l’Europe, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994 ; Donald Rutherford, Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. For references to Leibniz’s works, the following abbreviations will be used: A Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Samtliche Schriften und Briefe, ed. Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1923ff.), followed by series, volume, and page number; AG G.W. Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. and trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989); G Die philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz, 7 vols., ed. Carl Gerhardt (Berlin: Weidemann, 1875–90; reprint Hildesheim: Olms, 1965), followed by volume and page number; L Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. and trans. Leroy E. Loemker (2nd edition, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969). References will be to both an original language text and, when possible, the English translation and have the form, for example, ‘A II, i, 118/L 147.’