Leibniz on Primitive Concepts and Conceiving Reality

Studia Leibnitiana, 2006

In a recent paper, Dennis Plaisted examines an important argument that Leibniz gives for the existence of primitive concepts. Plaisted concentrates on a version of the argument found in a piece from the late 1670s called Of an Organum or Ars Magna of Thinking. However, truncated versions of essentially the same argument can be found in several other writings from the period. Plaisted begins his treatment by sketching a natural reading of Leibniz's argument. He points out that, on this reading, the argument implies something clearly inconsistent with Leibniz's other views. To save Leibniz from contradiction, Plaisted offers a revision. However, his account faces a number of serious difficulties and therefore does not successfully eliminate the inconsistency. We explain these difficulties and propose a more plausible alternative. Whilst our paper is constructed around a critique of Plaisted's article, it has a broader scope. For in responding to the interesting problem that he identifies, we discuss in detail the neglected topic of Leibniz's views on the nature of conceiving and, in the process, we bring to light his commitment to the somewhat surprising thesis that one can conceive something through a concept even if one has no conscious grasp of that concept.

Journal of the History of Philosophy, 2003

This paper aims at analyzing two aspects of Leibniz's epistemology: the first aspect concerns the important link between imagination and reason in the establishment of empirical and mathematical knowledge. The case of mathematical learning is particularly interesting, since very few commentators have underlined the relationship between mathematical idealities and their imaginary origin. The second aspect examines Leibniz' criticisms against the use of imagination in metaphysics. His rejections of both atomism and Cartesianism are well-known in the secondary literature, but I attempt to show that these are partially grounded, for Leibniz, on the confusion between rational and imaginary concepts. This article is most probably the first contribution entirely devoted to the functions of imagination in Leibniz philosophy of knowledge and to its relationship with reason.

2016

The thesis explains the link between Leibniz's philosophy of language, his theory of the imagination, and how both relate to his theory of harmony. The thesis is published on the open access repository of the University of Münster: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-05169689910

This contribution offers a succinct overview of Leibniz's interest in the 'natural' languages. The first section examines, by way of introduction, the significance attached to the topic of language in biographies of Leibniz throughout time. The second section focuses on recent specialized literature in the historiography of linguistics and explores to what extent new insights are giving way to a reassessment of Leibniz's objectives, methods, and beliefs. Finally, the third section outlines some new avenues for research.

International Philosophical Quarterly, 2006

A historically persistent way of reading Leibniz regards him as some kind of conceptualist. According to this interpretation, Leibniz was either an ontological con-ceptualist or an epistemological conceptualist. As an ontological conceptualist, Leibniz is taken to hold the view that there exist only concepts. As an epistemological conceptualist, he is seen as believing that we think only with concepts. I argue against both conceptual-ist renditions. I confront the ontological conceptualist view with Leibniz's metaphysics of creation. If the ontological conceptualist interpretation were right, then Leibniz could not invoke compossibility as a criterion of creation. But since he does invoke compossibility as a criterion of creation, the ontological conceptualist approach cannot be right. I confront the epistemological conceptualist interpretation with Leibniz's assertion of non-conceptual content. Since Leibniz acknowledges non-conceptual content at least when it comes to metaphysical knowledge, Leibniz could not have been an epistemological conceptualist either. So, Leibniz could not have been a conceptualist at all.

The paper is divided into two parts respectively published in the proceedings of the X. Leibniz-Kongress as: “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.

PhD Thesis, 2015

3 This might not have been made explicit in the classical or early modern atomistic accounts, but it seems to be a consequence of the structure of atoms. As Bayle points out, "for every extension, no matter how small it may be, has a right and a left side, an upper and a lower side" (Pierre Bayle, Historical and Critical Dictionary. Selections, transl., with an introduction and notes by Richard H. Popkin (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), 360, i.e. 'Zeno', Note G). This seems even clearer in the case of Gassendi's atoms, which are not perfectly round, but have also hooks that allow them to interlock. But not only in classical theories of atomism does the reverse relation from indivisibles to simplicity not hold, it does neither for the young Leibniz, whose early attempts to account for the continuum at some point entail the claim that infinitesimals "and are characterized as lacking extension, but nonetheless containing parts having no distance from one another, what he calls "indistant" parts." (Richard T. W. Arthur, "Actual Infinitesimals in Leibniz's Early Thought," in The Philosophy of the Young Leibniz, ed. Mark Kulstad et al. (Suttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2009), 12 [= Studia Leibnitiana Sonderhefte, Band 35.]) 8 The most extensive treatments of Leibniz's views concerning the continuum up to the 1680s can be found in the writings of Richard T. W. Arthur, especially his 'Introduction' to RA, and Philip Beeley's

2017

This book presents new research into key areas of the work of German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Reflecting various aspects of Leibniz’s thought, this book offers a collection of original research arranged into four separate themes: Science, Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Religion and Theology. With in-depth articles by experts such as Maria Rosa Antognazza, Nicholas Jolley, Agustín Echavarría, Richard Arthur and Paul Lodge, this book is an invaluable resource not only for readers just beginning to discover Leibniz, but also for scholars long familiar with his philosophy and eager to gain new perspectives on his work.