Colloque

Leibniz as Critic of Descartes on the Principle of Individuation

Roger Ariew

Membre a labase

Roger Ariew

Résumé de la communication

According to Leibniz in the New Essays, the principle of individuation is a scholastic muddle whose origin stems from the failure to realize that two things cannot be perfectly similar, or differ in number alone. But things were not always so with Leibniz. One can see him using the principle of individuation as a fundamental criticism of Descartes in the 1686 Discourse on Metaphysics. I investigate the steps he takes to arrive at this point. Leibniz defended Suárez’s view of individuation in his bachelor’s thesis at Leipsig, Disputatio Metaphysica de Principio Individui, but changed to a Scotist view in his 1668 tract on the Eucharist. In the latter, he proposes that the principle of individuation is the substantial form, meaning something less than the whole entity, the nominalist position he held in his early thesis. The Scotist position seems to be the one he maintains through his Paris period to the Discourse on Metaphysics. Though Leibniz probably did not know it, Descartes, in a letter to the Jesuit Mesland about the sacrament of the Eucharist (unpublished in the 17th century), sketched an account of individuation for bodies and the human body that was similar to Leibniz’s. For Descartes, the human body remains the same through changes of matter on account of its union with a soul.

Résumé du colloque

Il peut être intéressant de noter la participation au colloque de l'un des plus grands spécialistes internationaux de la pensée de Descartes, M. Daniel Garber (Princeton University).