Donald Rutherford

Philosophy and language in Leibniz

Leibnizs views on language, and on the relationship of language to philosophy, constitute a rich and, until recently, little explored area of his thought. Unlike some of his seventeenth-century contemporaries, Leibniz was conscious of a deep connection between the human capacity for language and the capacity to comprehend reality. Language is less a barrier between the mind and the world that must so far as possible be overcome than a lens that necessarily intervenes between mind and world and that can, depending on the skill of the optician, either distort or magnify our apprehension of the world. Accordingly, a careful study of language forms an essential part of the method of philosophy. It is helpful at the outset to distinguish two primary focal points of Leibnizs interest in language. Within his writings these are represented, on the one hand, by the many sketches and plans associated with the notion of an ideal, artificial language - the “universal characteristic”; and, on the other, by numerous historical and philological investigations of natural languages, many of them directed towards uncovering the common roots of a multitude of human languages. On the face of it, there seems to be a tension between the aims and assumptions of these two very different approaches to the subject of language.

The Cambridge companion to early modern philosophy

Introduction Donald Rutherford 1. Innovation and orthodoxy in early modern philosophy Donald Rutherford 2. Knowledge, evidence, and method Stephen Gaukroger 3. From natural philosophy to natural science Denis Des Chene 4. Metaphysics Nicholas Jolley 5. The science of mind Tad Schmaltz 6. Language and logic Michael Losonsky 7. The passions and the good life Susan James 8. The foundations of morality: virtue, law, and obligation Stephen Darwall 9. Theories of the state A. John Simmons 10. Theology and the God of the philosophers Thomas M. Lennon 11. Scholastic schools and early modern philosophy M. W. F. Stone (This chapter has been omitted from the present printing for legal reasons) 12. Towards enlightenment: Kant and the sources of darkness J. B. Schneewind.

Spinoza and the Dictates of Reason

Spinoza presents the “dictates of reason” as the foundation of “the right way of living”. An influential reading of his position assimilates it to that of Hobbes. The dictates of reason are normative principles that prescribe necessary means to a necessary end: self‐preservation. Against this reading I argue that, for Spinoza, the term “dictates of reason” does not refer to a set of prescriptive principles but simply the necessary consequences, or effects, of the minds determination by adequate ideas. I draw on this conclusion in highlighting an abiding tension in Spinozas notion of the preservation of ones being, which reinforces his divergence from Hobbes.

Freedom as a Philosophical Ideal: Nietzsche and His Antecedents

Abstract Nietzsche defends an ideal of freedom as the achievement of a “higher human being”, whose value judgments are a product of a rigorous scrutiny of inherited values and an expression of how the answers to ultimate questions of value are “settled in him”. I argue that Nietzsches view is a recognizable descendent of ideas advanced by the ancient Stoics and Spinoza, for whom there is no contradiction between the realization of freedom and the affirmation of fate, and who restrict this freedom to rare individuals, who escape the bondage of conventional mores and passive emotional states. Although Nietzsche rejects key assumptions made by both the Stoics and Spinoza, his outlook is an extension of their efforts to elaborate the notion of freedom as an ideal.

Spinoza's conception of law: metaphysics and ethics

The God of the Hebrew Bible is a sovereign lawgiver to the Jewish people. God commands his people to act, or not to act, in certain ways and holds them responsible for their actions, punishing disobedience and rewarding obedience. Within the religious traditions that descend from Judaism, the idea of divine law is conceived of as a set of dictates or commands that God issues to all human beings—commands that establish inescapable obligations, on the basis of which humans are held accountable for their actions. One of Spinoza’s primary goals in the TTP is to offer a reinterpretation of the idea of divine law, according to which it is understood not as the literal command of a sovereign being, but as a law taught by the “natural light of reason” (III/10/7) and “inferred from the consideration of human nature alone” (III/61/24-25). In the TTP, this interpretation is developed against the background of a general analysis of the concept of law that has wide-ranging consequences for Spinoza’s philosophy. In what follows I focus on two of these consequences: Spinoza’s endeavor to use the notion of law (including divine law) to bridge the divide between the natural and the normative, and the role he assigns to the concept of law in underwriting the systematic unity of his ethical theory.

Leibniz and Mysticism

Leibniz’s scattered remarks about mysticism sound a consistent theme: there is something right in what the mystics say, but it is often badly or confusedly expressed. Never prepared to accept uncritically the claims of mystical writers, Leibniz also is unwilling to reject them entirely: “I strongly approve of applying oneself to correcting the abuses of the mystics, but as there is sometimes an excellent point mixed in with the errors... I would not want to lose the wheat with the chaff.”1 Remarks such as this go beyond a simple profession of tolerance or acceptance of the right of mystics to advance views that might be seen as heretical or inimical to the interests of established religion. In the case of at least some mystics, Leibniz voices support for the content of their teachings and suggests that despite the obscurity of their utterances, mystics are to be praised for their ability to arouse piety in their followers.

Nietzsche as perfectionist

Abstract Thomas Hurka has argued that Nietzsche’s positive ethical views can be formulated as a version of perfectionism that posits an objective conception of the good as the maximization of power and assigns to all agents the same goal of maximizing the perfection of the best. I show that Hurka’s case for both parts of this interpretation fails on textual grounds and that the kind of theory he proposes is in conflict with Nietzsche’s general approach to morality. The alternative reading for which I argue defends a form of perfectionism as the value perspective of a ‘noble type’ that may emerge in the wake of a revaluation of all values. The basis of this perfectionism is an individual’s projection of an ideal of life to which she ascribes intrinsic value and in terms of which the value of other things is assessed. Justifying this reading requires drawing a distinction between life-denying ideals – forms of the ‘ascetic ideal’ – and life-affirming ‘counterideals’. It also requires recognizing that the perfection of the noble type is expressed in an individual ideal that cannot be shared with others, as opposed to a common ideal of human perfection.

Leibniz’s ‘New System’ and Associated Contemporary Texts

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