Abstract
Andreas Blank (Paderborn University, Germany), in Presumption and Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Action, 1678–1680, shows that in notes from the period between 1678 and 1680, Leibniz discusses the role of ontological requisites for the metaphysics of the agency of individual substances. In these notes, Leibniz takes up some considerations from his writings from the period between 1669 and 1671. In both periods, Leibniz connects the analysis of the ontological notion of requisite with the epistemological notion of presumption. According to Leibniz’s suggestion in both periods, we should presume that other persons will take the course of action that has the smallest number of requisites. In this context, Leibniz uses one of the traditional conceptions of presumption derived from the juridical tradition: the conception of presumption as an evidence-based conjecture concerning the agency of persons. Such presumptions were taken to be true unless and until contrary evidence becomes available. The author argues that Leibniz’s views concerning such action-related presumption and those concerning the ontological requisites of actions are closely linked. Very much as action-related presumptions can be revised in the light of additional evidence, requisites can be prevented from leading to the actions that they would bring about taken in isolation through the occurrence of further requisites – be they internal or external. Therefore, Leibniz’s metaphysics of the agency of individual substances in the period between 1678 and 1680 should be understood much more in the context of an experience-based ontology that allows for interaction between internal and external requisites of action than in the context of Leibniz’s later, speculative ontology that excludes causal interactions between substances.
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Notes
- 1.
See below, note 52.
- 2.
See, e.g., Alciato (1617, vol. 4, cols. 579–584).
- 3.
On the notion of indicium in medieval and Renaissance law, see Franklin (2001, 27–43); on the theory of interpreting signa in Renaissance law, see Maclean (1992). Evidence-based presumptions played a significant role in the early modern controversies over excepted crimes (see Blank 2012) and territorial rights (see Blank 2011, 2013).
- 4.
Mascardi (1607, vol. 1, 32): “Praesumptio est coniectura, seu divinatio in rebus dubiis, collecta ex argumentis, vel indiciis per rerum circumstantias frequenter eventibus.”
- 5.
Menochio (1608, 7): “Est indicium coniectura ex probabilibus & non necessariis orta, a quibus potest abesse veritas, sed non verisimilitudo veri, quae quandoque mentem iudicantis ita perstringunt, ut cogant conscientiam iudicis iudicare secundum ipsa.”
- 6.
A VI, 4, 1426. Leibniz takes this thought up in a slightly later manuscript: “Something is determined towards some state or action when something else follows from it considered in itself or when no obstacle occurs, and relates to what is absolutely determined towards causing something (which includes all requisites) as demonstration relates to presumption: determination in this sense is a presumption based on what is naturally prior” (A VI, 4, 404).
- 7.
A VI 4, 1428–1429.
- 8.
A VI, 4, 1411.
- 9.
A VI, 4, 1430.
- 10.
A VI, 4, 1426.
- 11.
A VI, 4, 1412–1413.
- 12.
A VI, 4, 308. Here Leibniz takes up John Wilkins’s explication of the notion of “what contributes something” [conferens] as “a requisite according to a certain mode of production.” See A VI, 4, 39; see Wilkins 1668: 35.
- 13.
- 14.
A VI, 2, 483.
- 15.
See A VI, 2, 489.
- 16.
See A VI, 2, 499.
- 17.
A VI, 2, 567.
- 18.
On Leibniz’s evaluation of the talents of the different candidates in this work, see Griard (2008).
- 19.
A IV, 1, 11.
- 20.
A IV, 1, 15–16.
- 21.
A IV, 1, 5.
- 22.
A IV, 1, 14.
- 23.
A IV, 1, 43.
- 24.
A IV, 1, 21.
- 25.
A IV, 1, 471.
- 26.
A IV, 1, 31.
- 27.
A IV, 1, 32.
- 28.
A VI, 1, 472.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
A VI, 2, 565.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
I owe this way of formulating the problems to a conversation with Mark Kulstad.
- 34.
A VI, 1, 472.
- 35.
A VI, 4, 303.
- 36.
VI, 4, 1412.
- 37.
A VI, 4, 74.
- 38.
A VI, 4, 380–381.
- 39.
A VI, 4, 2764, marginal note.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
A VI, 4, 2762.
- 42.
A VI, 4, 2758.
- 43.
A VI, 1, 455.
- 44.
Ibid. On Leibniz’s attitude towards Aristotelian ethics, see Piro (1994).
- 45.
A VI, 1, 471.
- 46.
A VI, 1, 343–345.
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
- 49.
A VI, 1, 455.
- 50.
A VI, 1, 471; Translation from Adams (1994, 204), with one sentence added.
- 51.
See A VI, 1, 398; A VI, 1, 405; A VI, 2, 487, note 3; A VI, 2, 495 and 495, note 46; A VI, 3, 127.
- 52.
- 53.
A VI, 1, 471.
- 54.
A VI, 1, 476; see also A VI, 1, 480.
- 55.
- 56.
A VI, 1, 465.
- 57.
A VI, 1, 466.
- 58.
See A VI, 2, 565 (variants to A VI, 1, 465).
- 59.
A VI, 1, 470.
- 60.
A VI, 2, 567.
- 61.
Ibid.
- 62.
A VI, 4, 2761.
- 63.
Ibid. For a similar statement, see A VI, 4, 613.
- 64.
A VI, 4, 2761.
- 65.
- 66.
A VI, 4, 2758.
- 67.
A VI, 1, 471.
- 68.
Ibid.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
A VI, 4, 2762 (see above, note 41).
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Blank, A. (2015). Presumption and Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Action. 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_7
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