Abstract
Leibniz made major contributions to the development of philosophy in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, giving the history of philosophy well known concepts. These include, most famously, the monad and the monadological approach to metaphysics. Leibniz advanced what he called the reformed philosophy, philosophia reformata, and his influence on subse-quent philosophers such as Christian Wolff, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, and, much later, Alfred North Whitehead will remain the subject of scholarly inquiry for many years to come. In recent decades Leibniz has come to increas-ing prominence in the canon of “modern” European philosophy. In addition, Leibniz’s importance for contemporary philosophy, Anglo-American philos-ophy especially, cannot be overstated, given that so many of his concepts continue to command philosophical attention, such as the principle of suffi-cient reason, crucial revisions to the ontological argument for the existence of God, and the principle of the identity of indiscernibles.
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See Catherine Wilson, Leibniz’s Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989 );
Robert G. Sleigh, Leibniz and Arnauld: A Commentary on their Correspondence ( New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990 );
Nicholas Jolley (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 ).
Laurence B. McCullough, John Gregory and the Invention of Professonal Medical Ethics and the Profession of Medicine (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997 ).
Samuel Haber, The Quest for Authority and Honor in the American Professions ( Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991 ).
Bertrand Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1971) (first published in 1900).
Louis Couturat, La Logique de Leibniz (Hildesheim, Federal Republic of Germany: Georg Olms Verlag, 1969) (facsimile of original, published in 1901 ).
Benson Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language ( New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1986 ).
Baruch Brody takes a similar approach to the interpretation of the Leibnizian principle that “the predicate is contained in the subject in every true proposition.” (p.43) See Baruch Brody, “Leibniz’s Metaphysical Logic,” in Mark Kulstad (ed.), Essays on the Philosophy of Leibniz,Rice University Studies 63 (Houston, TX: William Marsh Rice University, 1977), pp. 43–55.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Disputatio Metaphysica de Principio Individui, in Gottfried Welhelm Leibniz, Stimtliche Schriften und Briefe, Sechste Reihe, Erste Band (Darmstadt, Germany: Otto Reichl Verlag, 1930 ), pp. 3–19.
H.W. Carr, Leibniz ( New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1960 ), p. 10.
Nicholas Rescher, Leibniz: An Introduction to his Philosophy (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979), p. 2. See also Nicholas Rescher, Leibniz: An Introduction to his Philosophy (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1986 ), p. 2.
G. Guhrauer, Gottfried Wilhelm F reiherr von Leibniz: Eine Biographie (Breslau, Germany: F. Hirt, 1842 ).
John H. Mackie, Life of Godfrey William von Leibniz, on the Basis of the German Work of Dr G.E. Guhrauer (Boston: Gould, Kendall, and Lincoln, 1845 ), p. 30.
G. MacDonald Ross, Leibniz (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 77. Wil-son acknowledges Leibniz’s acquaintance with scholastic philosophers, such as Zabarella, Ruvio, Fonseca, and Suarez, but she fails to appreciate their profound influence on Leibniz. See Wilson, Leibniz’s Metaphysics,p. 12 and passim.
H.W.B. Joseph, Lectures on the Philosophy of Leibniz ( Oxford, England: The Clarendon Press, 1949 ), p. 14.
C.A. van Peursen, Leibniz ( New York, NY: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1970 ), pp. 27–28.
P.F. Strawson, Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics ( Garden City, NJ: Anchor Books, 1963 ), p. 2.
Clifford Brown, Leibniz and Strawson: A New Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (Munich, Federal Republic of Germany: Philosophia Verlag, 1990 ).
Milton K. Munitz (ed.), Identity and Individuation (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1971), p. iii, emphasis added.
David Wiggins, Sameness and Substance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 1, emphasis original.
W.V.O. Quine, Ontological Relativity and Other Essays ( New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1969 ), p. 9.
Nelson Goodman, The Structure of Appearance ( Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1977 ), p. 33.
Charles Landesman (ed.), The Problem of Universals ( New York, NY: Basic Books, Inc., 1971 ).
John A. Trentman, “Scholasticism in the Seventeenth Century,” in Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (eds.), The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy ( Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1982 ), p. 823.
Michael J. Loux, “Particulars and their Individuation,” in Michael J. Loux (ed.), Universals and Particulars: Readings in Ontology ( Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970 ), p. 235.
Jorge J.E. Gracia, Introduction to the Problem of Individuation in the Early Middle Ages ( Munich, Federal Republic of Germany: Philosophia Verlag, 1984 ), pp. 48–53;
Jorge J.E. Gracia, Introduction to the Problem of Individuation in the Early Middle Ages
nd ed., (Munich, Federal Republic of Germany: Philosophia Verlag, 1988 ), pp. 48–53.
For a concise summary of Gracia’s analytical framework, see Jorge J.E. Gracia, “Introduction: The Problem of Individuation,” in Jorge J.E. Gracia (ed.), Individuation in Scholasticism. The Later Middle Ages and Counter-Reformation, 1150–1650 (Albany
NY: State University of New York Press, 1994), pp. 1–20.
See also Jorge F.E. Gracia, Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics ( Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988 ), pp. 183–200.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “The Controversy between Leibniz and Clarke,” in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, trans., Leroy E. Loemker (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 1969), p. 704 (Leibniz’s Fifth Letter). Leibniz’s concept of an “ideal thing” will be explained in greater detail in later chapters, especially chapter 6’s treatment of abstraction. For a useful account of relevant texts, see Glenn A. Hartz and J.A. Cover, “Space and Time in the Leibnizian Metaphysic,” Nous 22 (1988), 495–519.
Goodman, The Structure of Appearance,p. 33.
G.W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, trans. and ed., Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett ( Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981 ), p. 230.
W.V.O. Quine, From a Logical Point of View, 2nd. ed., ( New York, NY: Harper and Row Publishers, 1961 ), p. 4.
Existence makes no difference to the individuation of individuals. See chapter 3, pp. 70–71.
On the uncertain status of existence as a property in Leibniz, see Ishiguro, Leibniz’s Philosophy of Logic and Language,2nd. ed., pp. 191–193.
G.W. Leibniz, The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence,ed. and trans. H.T. Mason, with intro. H.G.R. Parkinson (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1967), p. 161. Reprinted in series, The Philosophy of Leibniz,ed., R.G. Sleigh (New York, NY: Garland Publishing Co., 1985): “… every substance has a genuine unity, in metaphysical rigor…”
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McCullough, L.B. (1996). Introduction to Leibniz’s Individuals and Their Individuation. In: Leibniz on Individuals and Individuation. Philosophical Studies in Contemporary Culture, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8684-9_1
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