Paul Lodge

LEIBNIZ'S NOTION OF AN AGGREGATE

ophy at Rice University, The Philosophy Department Current Research Seminar at Tulane University, and the Southeastern Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy at Duke University. I am very grateful to members of the audiences on these occasions for their suggestions. I should also like to offer special thanks to the following people for their helpful advice on reading earlier drafts of this material: Marc Bobro, Martha Bolton, Glenn Hartz, Nicholas Jolley, Antonia LoLordo, Andrew Pavelich, Pauline Phemister, and Roger Woolhouse. Research for this paper was funded in part by a Summer Research Fellowship from the Tulane University Committee on Summer Research. 2 This is not to say that bodies are exclusively aggregates of substances for Leibniz. For example in the Metaphysical Consequences of the Principle of Reason, he allows that they may be aggregates of other bodies as well (cf. C. 13–14/MP 174–5). 3 Cf. the letter to Arnauld of 28 November/8 December 1686 (GP II, 75/LA 93; GP II, 77/LA 95). 4 This is found in the margin of notes that Leibniz composed in 1695 as a response to comments by Michel Angelo Fardella (cf. AG 104 n.148). 5 Cf. The letter to Thomas Burnett of 1699; letters to De Volder from 1699–1700 GP II, 193/L 521; GP II, 205–6; GP II, 252/L 530; comments on Wachter’s Elucidarius cabalisticus c.1707 (AG 274); and Metaphysical Consequences of the Principle of Reason c.1712 (C 13/MP 174–5). It is interesting to note that, although Leibniz continues to speak of aggregates in connection with bodies after this time (e.g. in Anti-barbarus Physicus c.1712–16 (GP VII, 344/AG 319), and the Conversation of Philarete and Ariste – revised version – from 1715 (GP VI, 586/AG 262), there seems to be no explicit statement to the effect that bodies are aggregates of substances. LEIBNIZ’S NOTION OF AN AGGREGATE1

Infinite analysis, lucky proof, and guaranteed proof in Leibniz

Abstract According to one of Leibnizs theories of contingency a proposition is contingent if and only if it cannot be proved in a finite number of steps. It has been argued that this faces the Problem of Lucky Proof, namely that we could begin by analysing the concept ‘Peter’ by saying that ‘Peter is a denier of Christ and …’, thereby having proved the proposition ‘Peter denies Christ’ in a finite number of steps. It also faces a more general but related problem that we dub the Problem of Guaranteed Proof. We argue that Leibniz has an answer to these problems since for him one has not proved that ‘Peter denies Christ’ unless one has also proved that ‘Peter’ is a consistent concept, an impossible task since it requires the full decomposition of the infinite concept ‘Peter’. We defend this view from objections found in the literature and maintain that for Leibniz all truths about created individual beings are contingent.

The debate over extended substance in Leibniz's correspondence with De Volder

Between 1698 and 1706 Leibniz was engaged in one of his most interesting correspondences, with the Dutch philosopher and physicist Burcher de Volder. The two men were concerned primarily with the question of how the motion of bodies can be explained without appeal to the direct intervention of God. Leibniz presented a naturalistic account of motion to De Volder, but failed to convince him of its adequacy. I shall examine one reason for this failure - the disagreement that arose over the issue of whether there is a substance whose nature is constituted by extension.

Eternal Punishment, Universal Salvation and Pragmatic Theology in Leibniz

In this chapter I will consider Leibniz’s attitude towards the doctrines of eternal punishment and universal salvation. The question of Leibniz’s views on this issue was the subject of a debate around half a century after Leibniz’s death between Johann August Eberhard, who argued in his New Apology for Socrates (1772) that Leibniz had been a secret advocate of universal salvation, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who argued in his Leibniz on Eternal Punishment (1773) that he adhered to the doctrine of eternal damnation.

Corporeal Substances as Monadic Composites in Leibniz’s Later Philosophy

Paul Lodge (Mansfield College Oxford, UK), in the paper Corporeal Substances as Monadic Composites in Leibniz’s Later Philosophy, considers whether there is a defensible reading of the claim that, in his later philosophy, Leibniz characterizes entities composed of a dominating monad and a plurality of subordinate monads as “corporeal substances” (the M-Composite View). This reading has been subject to a number of criticisms by Brandon Look and Donald Rutherford in the introduction to their translation of Leibniz’s Correspondence with Des Bosses. The author argues that there is room for the claim that the M-Composite View accurately captures Leibniz’s intention in this passage, and, contra Look and Rutherford, that at this time in his career Leibniz was sincere in his assertion that entities of this kind are substances. The author finishes by presenting, as a working hypothesis, the suggestion that Leibniz may have been happy with the M-Composite View throughout the remainder of his life.

Heidegger on the Being of Monads: Lessons in Leibniz and in the Practice of Reading the History of Philosophy

This paper is a discussion of the treatment of Leibnizs conception of substance in Heideggers The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic. I explain Heideggers account, consider its relation to recent interpretations of Leibniz in the Anglophone secondary literature, and reflect on the ways in which Heideggers methodology may illuminate what it is to read Leibniz and other figures in the history of philosophy.