Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics

Name: Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics | A New Translation and Commentary
Author: Christopher Johns
ISBN: 978-1-4744-5780-4

A New Translation and Commentary

Christopher Johns(Autor*in)

Edinburgh University Press

1. Auflage

Erschienen am 8. März 2023

360 Seiten

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Inhalt

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Introduction to Leibniz's Life and Work
The seventeenth-century political, scientific, and intellectual background
The Discourse in the context of Leibniz's life and work
The provenance of the 'little discourse'
Guide to the Akademie Edition, its variant-apparatus, and the present translation
How to track the variants in the translation
Why another English translation?
Why a commentary?
Summary of symbols used in the translation, footnotes, and commentary
Topical summary of the Discourse on Metaphysics, by article
Translation of the Discourse on Metaphysics
Commentary on the Discourse on Metaphysics
1. On the very idea of an absolutely perfect being.
2. On the charge that moral goodness is arbitrary.
3. On those who say that God could have done better.
4. The love of God requires our complete satisfaction in him
but this does not imply we should not strive to act for the best.
5. On the rules of perfection: the simplest means and the richest effects.
6. God's actions are most orderly. Nothing occurs without a determinable order.
7. That miracles conform to the general order, though counter to natural laws
and how God permits evil but does not will it.
8. On the complete notion (concept) of an individual substance: the principal motive for the doctrine
the philosophical conception of substance
the problem of individuation
Leibniz's early conception of individuation
the complete notion of an individu
9. Several 'paradoxes' following from the complete notion
and that 'each unique substance expresses the whole universe in its manner', that is, according to its unique degree of perfection.
10. That substantial forms have their place in physics, but not as explanations of the details of phenomena.
11. The Scholastics, who upheld substantial forms, are not to be despised entirely.
12. Critique of Descartes' conception of extension: that extension involves imaginary notions and therefore cannot constitute the substance of body.
13. On whether the complete notion entails a fatal necessity
on distinctions between necessary and contingent propositions and consecutions
on God's foreknowledge of future contingents
on inclination without necessitation.
14. That God produces diverse substances, each of which uniquely expresses God's view of the universe, thus increasing the glory of God. That substances do not enter into causal relations, but God makes all of their actions correspond.
15. On the causal and moral implications of expression, perfection, and accommodation.
16. God's 'extraordinary concourse' is included in each individual notion, thus accounting for the compatibility of miracles with natural laws.
17. God conserves the same quantity of force in the universe that he originally put into it, not the same quantity of motion, against Descartes.
18. Thus, to explain the cause of motion in bodies, 'one must have recourse to metaphysical considerations separate from extension'.
19. On the utility of final causes in physics.
20. The passage in Plato's Phaedo explaining the difference between efficient and final causes.
21. If the laws of nature depended solely on Cartesian mechanics, without Metaphysics, the phenomena of nature would be entirely different.
22. Reconciliation of final and efficient causes, as exemplified by the laws of reflection and refraction.
23. The nature of ideas
how God acts on the understanding
and how ideas can be illusory: a critique of Descartes' supposed proof for God's existence.
24. The degrees and varieties of ideas and knowledge: Ideas clear, confused, distinct, adequate, intuitive, and suppositive. Definitions: nominal, real, causal, and essential.
25. Symbolised ideas require contemplation.
26. That we already have all ideas in us
and on Plato's doctrine of reminiscence.
27. Thus, the soul is not a 'blank tablet'.
28. The sense in which God is the immediate object of our perceptions.
29. The sense in which we think immediately through our own ideas.
30. On divine concurrence
on the spontaneity of the soul
that the will should always tend to the apparent good
on the indifference of the will
on precautions against the surprises of appearances
on the assurance from all eternity that the soul will n
31. On God's dispensation of grace
on middle knowledge and God's reasons for admitting a possible individual into existence - thus resolving all the difficulties.
32. The utility of metaphysics for piety and religion
on the accommodation of all substances
on the immortality of the soul.
33. On the metaphysical 'commerce' of soul and body
and on the source of confused perceptions.
34. On the differences between spirits (minds), animal souls, and substantial forms
and that immortality implies continuity of memory.
35. The excellence of minds and that they express God.
36. God is the monarch of the most perfect republic of minds, and their felicity is his principal purpose.
37. That Jesus Christ has revealed the mystery of the admirable laws of the Kingdom of Heaven and the grandeur of the supreme felicity God prepares for those who love him.
Context I: Two Years of The Life and Work of G. W. Leibniz: January 1685 to December 1686
Context II: Translations of Letters Selected from 1685
Letter from Leibniz to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff: 29 December 1684
Leibniz to the Landgrave Ernst Von Hessen-Rheinfels: 29 December (8 January 1685)
Leibniz to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff: End of May 1685
Leibniz to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff: 26 July 1685
Leibniz to Duke Ernst August of Hannover: August 1685-October 1687
Leibniz for the Landgrave Ernst: Second half of October (?) 1685
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Terms

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