Leibniz Lecture Notes

Epistemology:

• Logical Methodology

• Envisions the ideas of a universal language and logical calculus to show that perfect demonstrations are possible in all disciplines.

• This would fulfill his dream of comprehensive scientific knowledge.

• His logical calculus anticipates the later development of symbolic logic. It would employ mathematical symbols for strict reasoning in all areas of human knowledge. (cf. quote pg. 155, 156). An alphabet of human thought.

• All objects in experience could be represented in the calculus.

• This leads to the consequence that ALL the predicates of a substance are contained in the concept of subject.

• All truth therefore may be reduced to the principle of contradiction, if we understand the terms completely. Thus all truths are a priori and logically necessary (See extraterrestrial example.)

• Three axioms which follow from the view that truth is identity: (1) Principle of Sufficient Reason; (2) Leibniz's Law of Identity; (3) All denominations have a basis in the object itself.

Critiques of Descartes:

• The weakness in Descartes's method is that he fails to be sufficiently rigorous and cogent.

• He fails to give an adequate count of the clarity and distinctness of ideas. Better criteria are needed than those given by Descartes.

• Leibniz praises Descartes for his commitment to the cogito but denies it is a foundational truth.

• Leibniz observes that Descartes has borrowed Anselm's Ontological Argument for God, but that the argument takes for granted that an ens perfectissimum is logically possible (non-contradictory).

• Leibniz thus reduces the ontological argument to the task of showing whether the concept of God (Most Perfect Being) is possible. I.e. it is a modal argument.

• Descartes fails to include God in his account of physics. This reduces God to a "deus ex machina."

Critiques of Locke:

• The senses give us only particular examples, not general or universal knowledge.

• Unless mathematical, logical, metaphysical, and ethical truths are innate, they must be dismissed as contingent rather than necessary.

• The mind or rational soul can always be aware of itself prior to and independent of experience.

• By reflection, the mind can become aware of innate ideas contained within it.

• The nature of things and the nature of mind agree.

• 3 particular problems: (1) Knowledge seems to be about more than mere ideas; (2) Our experience is not as particular as Locke claims. Our experience involves the connection of those things which take place at different times and places. Beginnings of the coherence theory of truth; (3) Locke fails to give an adequate account of the reality of our ideas.

• In regards to Locke's cosmological argument for God, Leibniz thinks that Locke's empiricism is ultimately inadequate to give an account of the notions of infinity or perfection.

Epistemological and Metaphysical Implications:

• We have innate ideas of substance, action, identity, and others.

• We have these ideas even when we are not reflecting on them. Thus we may be mistakenly led, as Locke was, to think that we begin as a tabula rasa.

• In order for an idea to lead to knowledge, an idea must not only be clear and distinct but also adequate and intuitively apprehended. An idea which meets these criteria will lead to a conception so complete that it is possible to deduce all the predicates of the concept.

• But only God can have this level of knowledge, so we cannot know any existing being so comprehensively (this does not lead to skepticism. He admits levels or shades of knowledge).

• The principle of Sufficient Reason provides Leibniz's own argument for God's Existence: The universe as a whole requires a sufficient reason for being, which could only be God.

• We live in the best of all possible worlds. Out of all the worlds which might have been possible, God has chosen the most perfect.

• World is designed with a pre-established harmony between all substances, so spiritual progress can occur through natural means.

Monadic Theory of Substances:

• Leibniz, like Locke, had a substance-based metaphysics. Reality is built of various types of substances and their relationships (Humans, God, Oceans, etc.)

• There are simple and complex substances. Simple substances are called monads.

• These monads are the true atoms (building-blocks) of the nature. The elements of all things.

• Metaphysics, then, for Leibniz is essentially a "monadology".

• God is the only perfect substance; all other substances are sub-perfect because they are not self-sufficient (they are created). It is thus logically impossible for God to create a perfect world. But we live in the best of all possible worlds.

Leibniz's Arguments for God:

• Cosmological (see pg. 175)

• Ontological. As above, he reduces the ontological argument to the task of showing that a being with all perfections is non-contradictory (possible). If a necessary being is possible, then it must exist.

• Argument from Design. Pre-established harmony is the basis for his argument here. Only a designer could have created this harmony. This also leads to the conclusion that miracles are unnecessary for purely natural actions. Miracles should always conform to natural laws.

Theodicy (attempted justification or vindication of God):

• Being of finite minds, it is impossible for us to understand God's motivation in the creation of the order of this world, including the evil in it.

• Recall, though, that it is impossible for God to have created a perfect world, so presumably this is the best possible world.

• The problem of evil has two parts: (1) Showing that man is free. Otherwise evil is either illusory or unavoidable; and (2) showing that God is not to blame for the evil.