Abstract
Stefano Di Bella (University of Milan, Italy), in the paper Hylomorphism without Matter? Transtemporal Sameness and the Rehabilitation of Substantial Forms in Leibniz’s Theory of Substance, deals with the question of why Leibniz, in the Discourse on Metaphysics, advances the unexpected intention of rehabilitating one of the most decried tools of Scholastic philosophy: the concept of substantial form. Usually – and correctly so – Leibniz’s move has been related to his discoveries in the field of dynamics and their metaphysical interpretation, and hence also with the controversial issue of the corporeal substance in the philosophy of his ‘middle years’. The core elements in this recovery of substantial form, however, seem at least in part independent of the theories of matter and corporeal substance which Leibniz will endorse in the course of time. The author wants to identify the problem of diachronical sameness as the decisive issue for which the idea of substantial form is invoked to answer by Leibniz. So, the author tries, on one hand, to determine the repercussion on the issue of corporeal substance and, on the other, to indicate the essential features of this model which persist even in a purely monadological view.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
“Forma substantialis seu Anima est principium unitatis et durationis, materia vero multitudinis et mutationis…” (A VI, 4, 1399).
- 3.
See De Corpore, II, 11, De eodem et diverso, in Hobbes, Opera latina I, 117–123.
- 4.
See A VI, 1, 90–91.
- 5.
The passage in the Theoria motus abstracti is well known, where Leibniz labels body as ‘mens momentanea’, in contrast to the true mind, which is able to keep the traces of its past. See A VI, 2, 266.
- 6.
See A VI, 1, 511.
- 7.
See Descartes to Mesland, February, 9, 1645, AT IV 165–170.
- 8.
A VI, 4, 2009.
- 9.
“Et s’il n’y a point d’autre principe d’identité dans les corps que ce que nous venons de dire, jamais un corps ne subsistera plus d’un moment” (L 39–310).
- 10.
GP II, 43; see also letter to Arnauld, July 1686, GP II, 53.
- 11.
“Autrement [sc. if there is no a priori reason for identity] on pourroit dire que ce n’est pas le même individu, quoyqu’il paraisse de l’estre. Et en effet quelques philosophes qui n’ont pas assez connu la nature de la substance et des estres individuelles ou Estres per se, ont crû que rien ne demeuroit veritablement le même. Et c’est pour cela entre autres que je juge que les corps ne seroient pas des substances, s’il n’y en avoit en eux que de l’etendue” (GP II, 53–54; Mason 60).
- 12.
“Mais aussi la notion generale de la substance individuelle … prouve la même chose. L’étendue est un attribut qui ne sçauroit constituer un estre accompli, on n’en sçauroit tirer aucune action, ny changement, elle exprime seulement un estat present, mais nullement le futur et le passé, comme le doit faire la notion d’une substance. Quand deux triangles se trouvent joints, on n’en sçauroit conclure comment cette jonction s’est faite. Car cela peut estre arrivé de plusieurs façons, mais tout ce qui peut avoir plusieurs causes, n’est jamais un estre accompli” (GP II, 72; Mason 88–89).
- 13.
Meditatio de Principio Individui, April 1676, A VI, 3, 490–491 (Parkinson, 51).
- 14.
“L’unité substantielle demande un estre accompli et indivisible, et naturellement indestructible, puisque sa notion enveloppe tout ce qui luy doit arriver, ce qu’on ne sçauroit trouver ny dans la figure ny dans le mouvement… Ce sont là les seules estres accomplis veritables comme les anciens avoient reconnu, et sur tout Platon, qui a fort clairement monstré que la seule matiere ne suffit pas pour former une substance” (GP II, 76).
- 15.
“Sed quod potissimum est, Exercitus accurate spectatus ne uno quidem momento idem est, nullum enim reale in ipso est, quod non resultet ex partium unde aggregatur realitate; cumque omnis ejus natura in numero, figura, habitudine et similibus constat, ea mutata non est idem, sed Anima Humana suam propriam habet realitatem, adeo ut desinere mutatis utcunque partibus corporis non possit” (Notationes Generales, A VI, 4, 555–556).
- 16.
“Difficultas est circa mutationes, nam aggregatum non est idem quam ante, vel unica parte ademta; et tamen idem est homo, licet partes humani corporis continue mutentur. Quod si igitur eadem exacte manet persona seu substantia individualis quae ante, sequitur materiam corpoream non esse partem hominis, et licet in genere aliqua materia requiratur ad hominem nulla tamen certa. Eodem modo ut aqua est pars fluminis, licet nulla certa gutta aquae ad flumen requiratur, ita materia est pars corporis humani. Corpus igitur humanum est quasi flumen, et tamen requiritur ad hominem.” (Fragmenta Quinque de Contento et Continuo, A VI, 4, 1,001–1,002).
- 17.
“Res eadem manere potest, licet mutetur si ex ipsa ejus natura sequitur idem debere successive diversos status habere.” (A VI, 4, 556, transl. mine).
- 18.
See De natura sive analogo animae (A VI, 4, 1,504–1,505).
- 19.
“An revera una substantia alterius substantiae pars esse non potest? Itaque nihil substantiae hominis decedit, sed mutatur quatenus intelligitur compositus ex materia et forma hoc est agendi patiendique potentia, haec autem mutatio cum corporum quorundam seu aliarum substantiarum recessu conjuncta est” (Fragmenta Quinque, A VI.4, 1,002).
- 20.
The De Mutationibus has been published in the Vorausedition to volume VI 4 of the Academy edition: VE n. 55, 172–175. See on this text S. Di Bella (2000).
- 21.
In a sense, it is the aporia Aristotle himself raised in Metaphysics, Z 3.
- 22.
VE 173 (transl. mine).
- 23.
Ibidem.
- 24.
VE 174.
- 25.
The sense in which we find, in another Leibnizian draft of linguistic-ontological analysis, the expression ‘metaphysical matter’ to designate the ultimate subject of inherence. See the Characteristica verbalis: “… a materia metaphysica, id est a subjecto abstractis” (A VI, 4, 334).
- 26.
VE 174. The possibility that those essential terms are taken as if they were accidental terms is bound to the hypothesis of metempsychosis or transmigration. which Leibniz is considering here.
- 27.
VE 175.
- 28.
Ibidem.
References
Di Bella, Stefano. 2000. Leibniz on the Subject of Change. In Harmonia, Emanation, Sympnoia Panta. Festschrift für Heinrich Schepers, ed. K. Dutz. Münster: Nodus.
Fichant, Michel. 1998. Science et métaphysique dans Descartes et Leibniz. Paris: PUF.
Garber, Daniel. 2009. Leibniz: Body Substance, Monad. Oxford: OUP.
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Di Bella, S. (2015). Hylomorphism (Even) Without Matter? Transtemporal Sameness and the Rehabilitation of Substantial Form in Leibniz’s Theory of Substance. In: Nita, A. (eds) Leibniz’s Metaphysics and Adoption of Substantial Forms. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 74. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9956-0_4
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