Books by Lucia Oliveri
Through the reconstruction of Leibniz's theory of the degrees of knowledge, this e-book investiga... more Through the reconstruction of Leibniz's theory of the degrees of knowledge, this e-book investigates and explores the intrinsic relationship of imagination with space and time. The inquiry into this relationship defines the logic of imagination that characterizes both human and non-human animals, albeit differently, making them two different species of imaginative animals.
Lucia Oliveri explains how the emergence of language in human animals goes hand in hand with the emergence of thought and a different form of rationality constituted by logical inferences based on identity and contradiction, principles that are out of reach of the imagination. The e-book concludes that the presence of innate principles in human animals transforms the way in which they sense-perceive the world, thereby constantly increasing the distinction between human and non-human animals.
Keywords: human and non-human animals, Leibniz and Locke on ideas, Leibniz on bodies, Leibniz on conceivability, Leibniz on degrees of knowledge, Leibniz on degrees of perception, Leibniz on innate ideas, Leibniz on modality, Leibniz on similarity and congruence, Leibniz on space and time, Leibniz’s philosophy of language, theory of types
Doctoral Thesis by Lucia Oliveri
Papers by Lucia Oliveri
Alvearium, 2023
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw a flourishing production of treatises devoted to the... more The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw a flourishing production of treatises devoted to the cognitive
nature of man in order to determine his capacities and limitations. The purpose of such an operation is not confined
to the epistemic sphere, as it is proposed as a kind of critique of society: in separating what we can know from what
is instead only the object of belief, the critique of knowledge becomes a cure for error and prejudice, including in the
moral and political spheres, to which the human mind is prone. Without pretending to a complete mapping of the
figures who engage in such an enterprise, the essay offers criteria for understanding some of the productions of essays
on the human intellect that appeared in this period.
Studia Leibnitiana, 2023
There are two axes of Leibniz's philosophy about bodies that are deeply intertwined, as this pape... more There are two axes of Leibniz's philosophy about bodies that are deeply intertwined, as this paper shows: the scientific investigation of bodies due to the application of mathematics to nature-Leibniz's mixed mathematics-and the issue of matter/bodies idealism. This intertwinement raises an issue: How did Leibniz frame the relationship between mathematics, natural sciences, and metaphysics? Due to the increasing application of mathematics to natural sciences, especially physics, philosophers of the early modern period used the reliability of mathematics to predict phenomena as the basis to infer the metaphysical outlook of nature. I argue that although Leibniz thought metaphysics must be scientifically informed and that mathematics is a valuable instrument to understand nature, metaphysics is more fundamental than mathematics and natural sciences. By highlighting the foundational relation between metaphysics and the sciences, this paper showcases an argument for the reality of bodies: the ideality of bodies, necessary for epistemic purposes, is not proof that they are not real.
Archivio di Filosofia XCII, 1, 2024
G. W. Leibniz on Making Knowledge Sensible · G. W. Leibniz’s contribution to logic and
a proposit... more G. W. Leibniz on Making Knowledge Sensible · G. W. Leibniz’s contribution to logic and
a propositional theory of truth, based on the idea that concepts are composed of definitional
notes, has been considered the core of his philosophical system and metaphysics. However,
Leibniz thought that there are other forms of knowledge that are perceptual and, therefore,
non-propositional and non-conceptual. This essay explores forms of non-conceptual knowledge
and argues that they depend on the imagination. Despite the distinction between conceptual
and non-conceptual forms of knowledge, there are two senses in which conceptual knowledge
depends on non-conceptual knowledge : there is a constitutive sense in which non-conceptual
knowledge has a constitutive function because it allows one to conceive of beings in concreto,
and thus anchors human knowledge to reality ; there is a second sense in which non-conceptual
knowledge has the function of making imaginable intellectual concepts that could not be other-
wise represented by the human mind. The essay shows that these functions are interrelated.
History and Philosophy of Logic, 2024
Reasoning with diagrams is considered to be a peculiar form of reasoning. Diagrams are often asso... more Reasoning with diagrams is considered to be a peculiar form of reasoning. Diagrams are often associated with imagistic representations conveyed by spatial arrangements of lines, points, figures, or letters that can be manipulated to obtain knowledge on a subject matter. Reasoning with diagrams is not just 'peculiar' because reasoners use spatially arranged characters to obtain knowledge-diagrams apparently have cognitive surplus: they enable a quasi-intuitive form of knowledge. The present paper analyses the issue of diagrams' cognitive value by enquiring into the tradition of symbolic cognition developed by Leibniz, Lambert, and Kant. The proposal resulting from this enquiry is to question the idea that the cognitive value of diagrams lies solely in allowing evidence for inferences. The imaginative dimension of diagrams connects reasoning to doxastic attitudes of meditation and enquiry.
W. Mesch, M. Staetdler, C. Thein, Einheit und Vielheit metaphysischen Denkens: Festschrift für Thomas Leinkauf, Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 2022
I chose this paper of mine as sample of my methodology to the history of philosophy because it ma... more I chose this paper of mine as sample of my methodology to the history of philosophy because it manifests my tendency to read philosophers as in constant dialogue with their present and past tradition, while capturing their ways of rethinking theoretical issues. It further shows my attempt to advance interpretation based on careful reconstruction of conceptual distinctions by means of a confrontation with primary sources. The paper topic offers a glimpse into my current work on Leibniz by gesturing toward a revision of the classical topic of the degrees of knowledge and on why the imagination is essential to knowledge once Leibniz rejects the Cartesian metaphysical and epistemological framework. Early Draft-Do not quote 1 The plural is simply a reminder of the fact that I refer to a broader philosophical movement which can be traced back to Plato or Aristotle respectively, but has multiple manifestations and facets, even internal controversies. 2 Leibniz writes in NE 71: "This system [i.e. his system of pre-established harmony LO] appears to unite Plato with Democritus, Aristotle with Descartes, the Scholastics with the moderns, theology and morality with reason. Apparently it takes the best from all systems and then advances further than anyone has yet done." 3 In relation to theory of cognition, Leibniz writes in NE 48: "Indeed, although the author of the Essay says hundreds of fine things which I applaud, our systems are very different. His is closer to Aristotle and mine to Plato, although each of us parts company at many points from the teachings of both of these ancient writers."
2 | 2 | 2021 Leibniz on Language and Cognition, 2021
n the years 1675-84, Leibniz sought to disprove Descartes’s account of clear and distinct percept... more n the years 1675-84, Leibniz sought to disprove Descartes’s account of clear and distinct perception by implementing a three-step argumentative strategy. The first part of the paper reconstructs the argument and highlights what aspects of Descartes’s epistemology it addresses. The reconstruction shows that the argument is based on conceivability errors. These are a kind of symbolic cognition that prove Descartes’s clear and distinct perception as introspectively indistinguishable from Leibniz’s symbolic cognition. The second part of the paper explores the epistemic implication of the indistinguishability between clear and distinct perception and symbolic cognition: the mind constitutively depends on products of the imagination. My conclusion addresses the role of the imagination in symbolization. Symbolization does not exceed imagination; it rather is an idealized use of cognitive surrogates, like characters, to submit to the imagination what is not subject to it.
Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, 2020
Through the reconstruction of Leibniz's theory of the degrees of knowledge, this e-book inves... more Through the reconstruction of Leibniz's theory of the degrees of knowledge, this e-book investigates and explores the intrinsic relationship of imagination with space and time. The inquiry into this relationship defines the logic of imagination that characterizes both human and non-human animals, albeit differently, making them two different species of imaginative animals. Lucia Oliveri explains how the emergence of language in human animals goes hand in hand with the emergence of thought and a different form of rationality constituted by logical inferences based on identity and contradiction, principles that are out of reach of the imagination. The e-book concludes that the presence of innate principles in human animals transforms the way in which they sense-perceive the world, thereby constantly increasing the distinction between human and non-human animals.
JOLMA, 2021
In the years 1675-84, Leibniz sought to disprove Descartes’s account of clear and distinct percep... more In the years 1675-84, Leibniz sought to disprove Descartes’s account of clear and distinct perception by implementing a three-step argumentative strategy. The first part of the paper reconstructs the argument and highlights what aspects of Descartes’s epistemology it addresses. The reconstruction shows that the argument is based on conceivability errors. These are a kind of symbolic cognition that prove Descartes’s clear and distinct perception as introspectively indistinguishable from Leibniz’s symbolic cognition. The second part of the paper explores the epistemic implication of the indistinguishability between clear and distinct perception and symbolic cognition: the mind constitutively depends on products of the imagination. My conclusion addresses the role of the imagination in symbolization. Symbolization does not exceed imagination; it rather is an idealized use of cognitive surrogates, like characters, to submit to the imagination what is not subject to it.
Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, 2020
Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, 2020
Das Projekt einer ‚Idéologie‘ Destutt de Tracys Ideenlehre als Wissenschaftsbewegung der Spätaufklärung, 2020
Destutt de Tracy zielt darauf ab, zu erklären, wie inter- und transsubjektive Prozesse auf das ei... more Destutt de Tracy zielt darauf ab, zu erklären, wie inter- und transsubjektive Prozesse auf das einzelne Individuum wirken und es gestalten. Dafür braucht er eine externalistische Sprachtheorie und eine sensualistische kognitive Architektur, nach der Denken Empfinden ist. Das Denken ist relational, aber wird nicht auf kognitiver Ebene durch sprachähnliche Strukturen – durch die Syntax und Semantik einer Mentalsprache – implementiert. Obwohl Externalismus und sensualistische Architektur in eine inkohärente Theorie zu münden scheinen, versucht Destutt de Tracy die Spannung durch seine Entwicklungsgeschichte zu lösen, nach der Systematizität als assoziativ und symbolisch, aber nicht als sprachlich analysiert wird. Zum Denken ist eine Sprache notwendig, aber das Denken ist keine Mentalsprache.
„[Wir sind] fast gänzlich das Werk
Der Umstände, die uns umgeben.“
[Ideenlehre I, 273/388]
Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences Living Edition | Editors: Dana Jalobeanu, Charles T. Wolfe, 2020
“Leibniz on the Role of Innate Ideas in Human Cognition” in: „Für unser Glück oder das Glück anderer.“ Vorträge des X. Internationalen Leibniz-Kongress, ed. Li Wenchao et al., pp. 37-48, Hildesheim: Olms, 2016
In his Essay, Locke criticizes innate principles and ideas as a necessary presumption for explain... more In his Essay, Locke criticizes innate principles and ideas as a necessary presumption for explaining how certain kind of knowledge can be present in the mind. Locke focuses on how ideas and principles can be in the mind without the mind’s being aware of them, and argues that nothing can be in the mind that was not already present to the senses. Leibniz’s comments on Locke’s book, New Essays on Human Understanding (henceforth NE), show that Locke’s criticism is pertinent if and only if under “innate ideas and principles” one understands some contents as notions or propositions. If conceived as acts, there cannot be innate ideas and principles, but if we conceive ideas as dispositions or faculties, then innate principles and ideas are necessary in order to acquire general knowledge.
My aim here is to understand what ideas as dispositions or faculties are. I propose considering innate ideas as constraints on thought. Ideas and principles are kinds of dynamic structures that determine a mind’s space of thinkability. From this, two things follow: first, Leibniz never rejects sense experience as necessary for the process of knowledge acquisition. Sense experience simply plays a different role to the one attributed to it by Locke. This implies a distinction between what Leibniz calls innate ideas and concepts or notions: the first are innate, and are not formed; the second are formed and conceived, i.e. are not innate. Moreover, concepts express possibilities. This leads us to the second aspect: in contrast to Locke, for Leibniz there is a sharp distinction between perceptual and conceptual or thinking activity. This different perspective implies a difference with regard to how Leibniz and Locke understand “ideas”. The two aspects point at different conceptions of generality, which in Leibniz’s view can obtain only by assuming that the intellect faces some kind of constraint. By analyzing Leibniz’s theory from this perspective, we see why Leibniz thinks that nothing can be in the intellect that was not already in the senses, except the intellect itself.
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Books by Lucia Oliveri
Lucia Oliveri explains how the emergence of language in human animals goes hand in hand with the emergence of thought and a different form of rationality constituted by logical inferences based on identity and contradiction, principles that are out of reach of the imagination. The e-book concludes that the presence of innate principles in human animals transforms the way in which they sense-perceive the world, thereby constantly increasing the distinction between human and non-human animals.
Keywords: human and non-human animals, Leibniz and Locke on ideas, Leibniz on bodies, Leibniz on conceivability, Leibniz on degrees of knowledge, Leibniz on degrees of perception, Leibniz on innate ideas, Leibniz on modality, Leibniz on similarity and congruence, Leibniz on space and time, Leibniz’s philosophy of language, theory of types
Doctoral Thesis by Lucia Oliveri
Papers by Lucia Oliveri
nature of man in order to determine his capacities and limitations. The purpose of such an operation is not confined
to the epistemic sphere, as it is proposed as a kind of critique of society: in separating what we can know from what
is instead only the object of belief, the critique of knowledge becomes a cure for error and prejudice, including in the
moral and political spheres, to which the human mind is prone. Without pretending to a complete mapping of the
figures who engage in such an enterprise, the essay offers criteria for understanding some of the productions of essays
on the human intellect that appeared in this period.
a propositional theory of truth, based on the idea that concepts are composed of definitional
notes, has been considered the core of his philosophical system and metaphysics. However,
Leibniz thought that there are other forms of knowledge that are perceptual and, therefore,
non-propositional and non-conceptual. This essay explores forms of non-conceptual knowledge
and argues that they depend on the imagination. Despite the distinction between conceptual
and non-conceptual forms of knowledge, there are two senses in which conceptual knowledge
depends on non-conceptual knowledge : there is a constitutive sense in which non-conceptual
knowledge has a constitutive function because it allows one to conceive of beings in concreto,
and thus anchors human knowledge to reality ; there is a second sense in which non-conceptual
knowledge has the function of making imaginable intellectual concepts that could not be other-
wise represented by the human mind. The essay shows that these functions are interrelated.
„[Wir sind] fast gänzlich das Werk
Der Umstände, die uns umgeben.“
[Ideenlehre I, 273/388]
My aim here is to understand what ideas as dispositions or faculties are. I propose considering innate ideas as constraints on thought. Ideas and principles are kinds of dynamic structures that determine a mind’s space of thinkability. From this, two things follow: first, Leibniz never rejects sense experience as necessary for the process of knowledge acquisition. Sense experience simply plays a different role to the one attributed to it by Locke. This implies a distinction between what Leibniz calls innate ideas and concepts or notions: the first are innate, and are not formed; the second are formed and conceived, i.e. are not innate. Moreover, concepts express possibilities. This leads us to the second aspect: in contrast to Locke, for Leibniz there is a sharp distinction between perceptual and conceptual or thinking activity. This different perspective implies a difference with regard to how Leibniz and Locke understand “ideas”. The two aspects point at different conceptions of generality, which in Leibniz’s view can obtain only by assuming that the intellect faces some kind of constraint. By analyzing Leibniz’s theory from this perspective, we see why Leibniz thinks that nothing can be in the intellect that was not already in the senses, except the intellect itself.
Lucia Oliveri explains how the emergence of language in human animals goes hand in hand with the emergence of thought and a different form of rationality constituted by logical inferences based on identity and contradiction, principles that are out of reach of the imagination. The e-book concludes that the presence of innate principles in human animals transforms the way in which they sense-perceive the world, thereby constantly increasing the distinction between human and non-human animals.
Keywords: human and non-human animals, Leibniz and Locke on ideas, Leibniz on bodies, Leibniz on conceivability, Leibniz on degrees of knowledge, Leibniz on degrees of perception, Leibniz on innate ideas, Leibniz on modality, Leibniz on similarity and congruence, Leibniz on space and time, Leibniz’s philosophy of language, theory of types
nature of man in order to determine his capacities and limitations. The purpose of such an operation is not confined
to the epistemic sphere, as it is proposed as a kind of critique of society: in separating what we can know from what
is instead only the object of belief, the critique of knowledge becomes a cure for error and prejudice, including in the
moral and political spheres, to which the human mind is prone. Without pretending to a complete mapping of the
figures who engage in such an enterprise, the essay offers criteria for understanding some of the productions of essays
on the human intellect that appeared in this period.
a propositional theory of truth, based on the idea that concepts are composed of definitional
notes, has been considered the core of his philosophical system and metaphysics. However,
Leibniz thought that there are other forms of knowledge that are perceptual and, therefore,
non-propositional and non-conceptual. This essay explores forms of non-conceptual knowledge
and argues that they depend on the imagination. Despite the distinction between conceptual
and non-conceptual forms of knowledge, there are two senses in which conceptual knowledge
depends on non-conceptual knowledge : there is a constitutive sense in which non-conceptual
knowledge has a constitutive function because it allows one to conceive of beings in concreto,
and thus anchors human knowledge to reality ; there is a second sense in which non-conceptual
knowledge has the function of making imaginable intellectual concepts that could not be other-
wise represented by the human mind. The essay shows that these functions are interrelated.
„[Wir sind] fast gänzlich das Werk
Der Umstände, die uns umgeben.“
[Ideenlehre I, 273/388]
My aim here is to understand what ideas as dispositions or faculties are. I propose considering innate ideas as constraints on thought. Ideas and principles are kinds of dynamic structures that determine a mind’s space of thinkability. From this, two things follow: first, Leibniz never rejects sense experience as necessary for the process of knowledge acquisition. Sense experience simply plays a different role to the one attributed to it by Locke. This implies a distinction between what Leibniz calls innate ideas and concepts or notions: the first are innate, and are not formed; the second are formed and conceived, i.e. are not innate. Moreover, concepts express possibilities. This leads us to the second aspect: in contrast to Locke, for Leibniz there is a sharp distinction between perceptual and conceptual or thinking activity. This different perspective implies a difference with regard to how Leibniz and Locke understand “ideas”. The two aspects point at different conceptions of generality, which in Leibniz’s view can obtain only by assuming that the intellect faces some kind of constraint. By analyzing Leibniz’s theory from this perspective, we see why Leibniz thinks that nothing can be in the intellect that was not already in the senses, except the intellect itself.
“Leibniz on the Role of Innate Ideas in Human Cognition” in: „Für unserer Glück oder das Glück anderer.“ Vorträge des X. Internationalen Leibniz-Kongress, ed. Li Wenchao et al., pp. 37-48, Hildesheim: Olms, 2016.
“Leibniz on the Cognitive Conditions for the Origins of Natural Languages.” In: „Für unserer Glück oder das Glück anderer.“ Vorträge des X. Internationalen Leibniz-Kongress, ed. Li Wenchao et al., pp.467-478, Hildesheim: Olms, 2016.
The version uploaded here is a early draft.
The re-discovery of Leibniz’s many facets depends on texts and letters made available to the scientific community; an enterprise decisively boosted by the systematic, critical edition produced by Akademie Ausgabe. Unlike previous editions of Leibniz’s papers – based mostly on a selection of texts – the Academy undertook a complete edition of Leibniz’s manuscripts found in the Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek in Hannover and elsewhere. Papers and letters have been published in chronological order, organized thematically in eight series of ‘der schwarzen Bänden’. The value of the Akademie Ausgabe work can hardly be underestimated: besides being an incredible effort to date and order Leibniz’s papers and letters chronologically, so that we can now reconstruct the genealogy of Leibniz’s ideas; the edition uncovered papers displaying some original and ground-breaking ideas by Leibniz, while their critical edition highlighted the sometimes tormented genesis of Leibniz’s view: the critical apparatus, reporting Leibniz’s and other’s intervention on papers and letters, registers both his accurate search for terminology and his constant improvement of demonstrations.