In God existence is the same as essence; or—the same thing ·put differently·—it is essential for God to exist. So God is a necessary being, ·a being who exists necessarily·.

Gottfried Gabriel is interviewed by Todor Polimenov about the relationship between analytic and continental philosophy.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Les etudes leibniziennes consacrees au droit positif, telles que le De Conditionibus de 1665, sont encore mal connues pour des raisons d'accessibilite et de complexite. En effet, ecrites en latin, impregnees de references prelevees dans le Corpus justinien (Digeste, Codex et Institules) ou dans le Droit Canonique (Decretales et Extravagantes) et souvent hermetiques dans leur abstraction apparente, elles ont ete delaissees au profit des reflexions jusnaturalistes dont la lecture ne semblait pas requerir les competences d'un juriste et encore moins celle (...) d'un romaniste. Mais on a ainsi occulte des travaux qui representent un apport essentiel pour toute philosophie pretendant depasser l'utilisation superficielle des principes du Droit Naturel dans la question du fondement des legislations positives. Et l'on s'est prive, sans le savoir, des moyens techniques de reconnaitre les diverses manifestations d'une raison commune dans le detail du systeme des obligations conditionnelles. Bien plus, on a totalement meconnu la vigueur et l'actualite d'une enquete portant sur les conditions de validite des dispositions juridiques affectes d'une modalite et soulevant en definitive ces questions esentielles que sont la constituion d'une theorie generale des conditions juridiques, la rationalisation du Droit et les limites de son traitement deductif. (shrink)

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) gehört unangefochten zu den Klassikern der europäischen Geistesgeschichte. Seinen Lebensunterhalt verdiente er im Predigeramt, seine erste Anstellung nach dem Studium im ostpreußischen Königsberg fand er in Riga. Hier in Livland beginnt ein homiletisches Schaffen, das ihn über seine Lebensstationen hinweg bis nach Weimar beschäftigen wird. Die vorliegende Edition erschließt erstmals vollständig Herders Predigtnachlaß, zunächst für die erste Epoche seines Wirkens. Sie umfaßt die Zeit bis Mai 1769, ediert sämtliche erhaltenen Predigten aus der Rigaer Periode, weist (...) verlorene Texte nach und berücksichtigt auch die Entwürfe aus Schul- und Studienzeit, die bis etwa 1758 zurückgehen. Einleitende Aufsätze und ein Kritischer Apparat erschließen das Corpus und machen es auch für Nichtfachleute zugänglich. (shrink)

Redigee a Paris en 1673, editee pour la premiere fois en 1915, la Confessio philosophi presente la premiere formulation de ce qui deviendra un theme majeur, l'un des plus mal compris aussi par les critiques, de l'oeuvre de maturite. Dans sa Theodicee, Leibniz en rappellera lui-meme le sujet central: Un dialogue latin de ma facon, ou je mettais deja en fait que Dieu ayant choisi le plus parfait de tous les mondes possibles, avait ete porte par sa sagesse a permettre (...) le mal qui y etait annexe, mais qui n'empechait pas que tout compte et rabattu ce monde ne fut le meilleur qui put etre choisi. L' optimisme leibnizien s'exprime ici au plus pres de sa source religieuse; la justification de la realite reconnait l'ombre comme la contre-partie ineluctable de toute illumination. (shrink)

Während die Bedeutung Freges für die Philosophie der Gegenwart, soweit sich diese der analytischen Philosophie verpflichtet fühlt, allgemeine Anerkennung gefunden hat, ist seine Stellung innerhalb der eigenen Zeit noch weitgehend unaufgeklärt geblieben. So herrscht die Auffassung vor, Frege habe seine Ideen ganz aus sich selbst oder geradezu im Gegensatz zur deutschen philosophischen Tradition seiner Zeit gewonnen. Bei genauerer Textanalyse weisen Freges Schriften dagegen vielfältige Beziehungen zur zeitgenössischen Logik, Erkenntnistheorie, Sprachphilosophie und Philosophie der Mathematik auf, so dass bei ihm von einem (...) Bruch mit der kontinentalen Philosophie nicht die Rede sein kann. Weil die historischen Voraussetzungen unberücksichtigt geblieben sind, ist ein unzutreffendes Bild von Freges Einsichten entstanden. Dieses Bild wird durch die Entfaltung des historischen Kontextes korrigiert. Bestimmend ist dabei ein problemorientierter Zugang, der sich systematischer Bewertungen und Weiterführungen nicht enthält. (shrink)

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating (...) and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition (published in 1962), first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

This paper presents arguments from empirical research and from philosophical considerations to the effect that phenomenality and content are two distinct and independent features of mental representations, which are both relational. Thus, it is argued, classical arguments that infer phenomenality from content have to be rejected. Likewise, theories that try to explain the phenomenal character of experiences by appeal to specific types of content cannot succeed. Instead, a dynamic view of consciousness has to be adopted that seeks to explain consciousness (...) by certain ways of processing representations. Therefore, only empirical methods that are able to investigate the dynamics of the mind can be used for the “quest for consciousness” proper. Moreover, the central intuitions about consciousness are best explained when phenomenality and content are clearly distinguished. (shrink)

Gottfried Achenwall, _Prolegomena to Natural Law_, ed. Pauline Kleingeld, trans. Corinna Vermeulen. Groningen: University of Groningen Press, 2020. Open Access, available via the 'direct download' link below. This is the first English translation of _Prolegomena iuris naturalis_ by Gottfried Achenwall (1719–1772). In this book, Achenwall presents the philosophical foundation for his comprehensive theory of natural law. The book is of interest not only because it provides the basis for a careful, systematic, and well-respected eighteenth-century theory of natural law (...) in the Leibniz-Wolffian tradition, but also because it sheds important light on the work of Immanuel Kant. Achenwall’s work influenced Kant’s legal and political philosophy as well as his ethics, and it is indispensable for understanding Kant’s _Feyerabend Lectures on Natural Law_ and his _Metaphysics of Morals_. The present volume complements the translation of Achenwall’s handbook, _Natural Law_ (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). (shrink)

The selections contained in these volumes from the papers and letters of Leibniz are intended to serve the student in two ways: first, by providing a more adequate and balanced conception of the full range and penetration of Leibniz's creative intellectual powers; second, by inviting a fresher approach to his intellectual growth and a clearer perception of the internal strains in his thinking, through a chronological arrangement. Much confusion has arisen in the past through a neglect of the develop ment (...) of Leibniz's ideas, and Couturat's impressive plea, in his edition of the Opuscu/es et fragments (p. xii), for such an arrangement is valid even for incomplete editions. The beginning student will do well, however, to read the maturer writings of Parts II, III, and IV first, leaving Part I, from a period too largely neglected by Leibniz criticism, for a later study of the still obscure sources and motives of his thought. The Introduction aims primarily to provide cultural orientation and an exposition of the structure and the underlying assumptions of the philosophical system rather than a critical evaluation. I hope that together with the notes and the Index, it will provide those aids to the understanding which the originality of Leibniz's scientific, ethical, and metaphysical efforts deserve. (shrink)

Translations of some of Leibniz's most important logical works. A long introduction provides explanatory comment and gives an estimate of Leibniz as a logician.

Copyright © 2010–2015 All rights reserved. Jonathan Bennett [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is (...) worth. (shrink)

Protogaea, an ambitious account of terrestrial history, was central to the development of the earth sciences in the eighteenth century and provides key philosophical insights into the unity of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s thought and writings. In the book, Leibniz offers observations about the formation of the earth, the actions of fire and water, the genesis of rocks and minerals, the origins of salts and springs, the formation of fossils, and their identification as the remains of living organisms. Protogaea also (...) includes a series of engraved plates depicting the remains of animals—in particular the famous reconstruction of a “fossil unicorn”—together with a cross section of the cave in which some fossil objects were discovered. Though the works of Leibniz have been widely translated, Protogaea has languished in its original Latin for centuries. Now Claudine Cohen and Andre Wakefield offer the first English translation of this central text in natural philosophy and natural history. Written between 1691 and 1693, and first published after Leibniz’s death in 1749, Protogaea reemerges in this bilingual edition with an introduction that carefully situates the work within its historical context. (shrink)

La doctrine du Droit est du nombre de celles qui ne dependent pas des experiences mais des definitions, ni des demonstrations a partir des sens mais a partir de la raison et qui, pour ainsi dire, sont de droit et non de fait. Puisque la Justice consiste en effet en quelque convenance et proportion, il est possible de comprendre qu'il y ait quelque chose de juste, meme s'il n'y a personne qui exerce la justice ni sur lequel elle soit exercee, (...) exactement comme des relations numeriques sont vraies, meme s'il n'y a personne qui compte ni rien qui soit compte, et nous pouvons predire au sujet d'une maison, d'une machine, ou d'une republique, sa beaute, son efficacite, son bonheur, dans l'hypothese ou elles doivent exister, meme si elles n'existent jamais. (shrink)