Books by Pauline Phemister
Papers by Pauline Phemister
Leibniz believed the ‘true concept of substance’ is found in ‘the concept of forces or powers’. A... more Leibniz believed the ‘true concept of substance’ is found in ‘the concept of forces or powers’. Accordingly, he conceived monadic substances as metaphysically primitive forces whose modifications manifest both as monads’ appetitions and perceptions and as derivative forces in monads’ organic bodies. Relationships between substances, and in particular the ethical relationships that hold between rational substances, are also foregrounded by Leibniz’s concept of substances as forces. In section one, we discuss the derivative forces of bodies. In section two, we consider monads’ perceptions and appetitions. Section three attends to ethical aspects of Leibniz’s account, focusing in particular on souls’ representative natures and the correspondence that obtains between perceptions in one and perceptions in all others. In section four, however, I argue that Leibniz’s commitment to the doctrine of the conservation of force makes it impossible for any one substance to pursue its own advantag...
Drawing on a Leibnizian panpsychist ontology of living beings comprising both body and soul, thi... more Drawing on a Leibnizian panpsychist ontology of living beings comprising both body and soul, this chapter outlines a theory of space based on the perceptual and appetitive relations among these creatures’ souls. Co-extensive with physical space founded on relations among bodies subject to efficient causation, teleological space results from relations among souls subject to final causation, and is described qualitatively in terms of creatures’ pleasure and pain, wellbeing and happiness. Particular places within this space include the kingdom of grace, where morally responsible, rational beings act as far as possible in accord with the ideal of justice as universal love and wise benevolence. However, while Leibniz considered love as properly directed only towards rational beings, it is argued here that the truly wise person will direct their love and benevolence towards all living things.
One of the most intriguing – and arguably counter-intuitive – doctrines defended by environmental... more One of the most intriguing – and arguably counter-intuitive – doctrines defended by environmental philosophers is that of positive aesthetics, the thesis that all of nature is beautiful. The doctrine has attained philosophical respectability only comparatively recently, thanks in no small part to the work of Allen Carlson, one of its foremost defenders. In this paper, we argue that the doctrine can be found much earlier in the work of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who devised and defended a version of positive aesthetics (avant la lettre) in the early modern period, grounded in a conception of the world as a world of monads, each of which individually fulfils the rationalist aesthetic criteria of multiplicity-in-unity and that taken together ensure that the world as a whole is a harmoniously ordered system of multiple and diverse individuals, whose intelligible order and variety is made known to us through natural scientific endeavour. In showing this, we advance two further theses: fir...
RefDoc Bienvenue - Welcome. Refdoc est un service / is powered by. ...
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 2015
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 09608789908571015, Jun 3, 2008
Revue Roumaine De Philosophie, 2007
Uploads
Books by Pauline Phemister
Papers by Pauline Phemister