4th
Annual
Oxford Seminar in Early Modern Philosopy
Abstracts of papers
Mogens Laerke (University of Chicago)
"Cartesius et Spinoza plane
dissentiunt: A Reevaluation of Leibniz's 'Spinozist' Reading
of Descartes."
"Spinoza
begins where Descartes leaves off: in naturalism." This phrase,
written by Leibniz around 1707, has often been taken as an expression
of how the he deliberately confounded Spinoza and Descartes. Some
commentators even maintain that Leibniz diminished the differences
between their philosophies in order to create a link that served
his own anti-Cartesian campaign and thus to act in an intellectually
dishonest fashion when defending such a "crude" interpretation.
In this paper, I wish to defend Leibniz against such charges. I
will argue that Leibniz was keenly aware of the fundamental differences
between Descartes and Spinoza. Furthermore, if we consider more
closely Leibniz's comparative analysis, it will appear that it is
governed by series of interpretative devices which are anything
but crude.
Ohad Nachtomy (Princeton University)
"Existence and Possibility between
Leibniz and Kant."
This paper examines the Leibnizian background to
Kant's critique of the ontological argument in the Critique of Pure
Reason. I present Kant's point that existence is not a predicate
as a generalization of Leibniz's reasoning concerning created things.
The first section examines Leibniz's equivocations on the notion
of existence; the second examines Kant's early paper of 1763; the
third examines Kant's critical position. My thesis is that Kant's
view that existence is not a predicate in 1763 is a consequence
of the logical view of possibility, formulated by Leibniz and accepted
by Kant. Kant's position in 1781 that existence is not a real predicate
is related to his notion of real possibility whose material condition
must be satisfied by reference to human experience.
Michael Jacovides (Purdue University)
"Locke and the Visual Array."
According
to Locke, what we see in the first instance is two dimensional:
"When we set before our Eyes a round Globe, of any uniform colour,
v.g. Gold, Alabaster, or Jet, 'tis certain, that the Idea thereby
imprinted in our Mind, is of a flat Circle variously shadow'd, with
several degrees of Light and Brightness coming to our Eyes (Essay
2.9.8)." I explain and evaluate three Lockean arguments for this
thesis-first, from the anatomy of the eye, second, from our reactions
to realistic paintings, and third, from the phenomenology of the
particular case itself. I defend a limited version of the last reason
and draw some conclusions about the character of Lockean ideas.
Samuel
Newlands (University of Notre Dame)
"Another Kind of Spinozistic
Monism."
Spinoza's famed substance monism overshadows another
form of monism that is equally important to his system: metaphysical
dependence monism. I argue that all forms of metaphysical dependence
in Spinoza - existential, causal, inherence, conceptual - are reducible
to a single kind of dependence, what he often refers to as "conceptual
involvement." If correct, this priority of the conceptual has important
implications for his ontology and his explanatory rationalism. I
further argue that this interpretation does not commit Spinoza to
idealism, mentalism, or subjectivism. I also claim that Spinoza's
motivations for his brand of dependence monism is grounded in his
views on the demands of metaphysical perfection and the uniquely
well-suited character of conceptual relations for satisfying those
demands.
Andrew Youpa (Southern Illinois University)
"Spinoza's Model of Human Nature."
Some commentators hold that Spinoza's model of human
nature-the free man-is an inadequate idea. Others maintain that
it is adequate. On the interpretation I defend, both positions are
correct. Regarded as the idea of a perfectly free finite thing,
the idea is incoherent and, as a result, inadequate. Regarded as
the idea of a perfectly free being, the idea of the free man is
the idea of God and, therefore, adequate. The two aspects of the
free man mirror the two sides of human existence: as subjects of
external causal forces, on the one hand, and as determinate expressions
of God's power, on the other.
Gregory Brown (University of Houston)
"'Can I Present Infinities to You
and Compare Them Together?': Leibniz's Theodicy and the Perils of
Infinity"
It is the purpose of this paper to
argue that if Leibniz's theodicy requires that the actual world,
i.e., the best of all possible worlds, contain the most monadic
substances, the greatest phenomenal variety, the greatest perfection,
and the greatest happiness, then it will collapse in the face of
other possible worlds--indeed an infinity of other possible worlds--that
contain at least as many substances, at least as much phenomenal
variety, at least as much perfection, and as least as much happiness
as the actual world.
Monte Cook (University of Oklahoma)
"Cartesian Actualism."
I argue that Descartes himself was not a Cartesian Actualist and
that Arnauld was, but with Descartes and Arnauld I am mostly interested
in laying out the issues. I then show that Robert Desgabets was
a full-fledged actualist who believed that every good Cartesian
should be one. He explicitly denied that there were merely possible
objects. And he believed that if it was possible that something
was A, then some actual thing was possibly A. Moreover, he believed
that though there were possible but not actual modifications of
substances, there were no possible but not actual substances. Finally,
he believed that all of this followed from basic principles in Descartes's
philosophy
Martin Lin (Rutgers
University)
"Rationalism and Necessitarianism."
Stephen Puryear (Stanford University)
"Monadic Action."
Contrary to popular belief, Leibniz does not deny that created monads
interact. He does reject the possibility of any "real" or "physical"
interaction between such things, but on his view not all genuine
interaction is real or physical. He also acknowledges what he calls
"ideal" interaction, and monads, he claims, truly do interact in
this way both with one another and with bodies. In this paper, I
develop a detailed reading of the theory of ideal action (Part I),
show how Leibniz uses the theory to justify his distinction between
innate and adventitious ideas (Part II), and then argue that the
theory introduces irresolvable tensions into his system (Part III).
I conclude that the theory fails to achieve its intended purpose
of allowing that system to accommodate ordinary intuitions about
the activity and passivity of perceiving substances and the origin
of ideas.
Brandon Look (University of Kentucky)
"The Metaphysical and Logical Foundations of
Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles."
One of Leibniz's best-known and most
notorious philosophical theses concerns his Principle of the Identity
of Indiscernibles (PII): that in nature there exist no two (or more)
things that are qualitatively identical and yet numerically distinct.
While PII is often treated as a bedrock axiom in his system, Leibniz
actually argues for PII, showing that PII is dependent upon other
(truly bedrock) principles of his metaphysics. This paper examines
Leibniz's arguments establishing his well-known Principle of the
Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) and demonstrates the relations
between this principle and the Principle of Sufficient Reason, his
conception of truth, and the Principle of the Substitutivity of
Identicals. This paper will also discuss the relation between PII
and Leibniz's doctrine of striving possibles and his characterization
of the perfection of a world.
