Leibniz’s Metaphysics and Adoption of Substantial Forms
Between Continuity and Transformation
Editors: Nita, Adrian (Ed.)
Free Preview- Provides a unique focus on one particularly significant moment in Leibniz's work
- Highlights the relevance of Leibniz's work in the life sciences for his developing metaphysics
- Brings together in one volume cutting-edge research by scholars from around the world
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- About this book
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This anthology is about the signal change in Leibniz’s metaphysics with his explicit adoption of substantial forms in 1678-79. This change can either be seen as a moment of discontinuity with his metaphysics of maturity or as a moment of continuity, such as a passage to the metaphysics from his last years.
Between the end of his sejour at Paris (November 1676) and the first part of the Hanover period, Leibniz reformed his dynamics and began to use the theory of corporeal substance. This book explores a very important part of the philosophical work of the young Leibniz.
Expertise from around the globe is collated here, including Daniel Garber’s work based on the recent publication of Leibniz's correspondence from the late 1690s, examining how the theory of monads developed during these crucial years. Richard Arthur argues that the introduction of substantial forms, reinterpreted as enduring primitive forces of action in each corporeal substance, allows Leibniz to found the reality of the phenomena of motion in force and thus avoid reducing motion to a mere appearance.
Amongst other themes covered in this book, Pauline Phemister’s paper investigates Leibniz’s views on animals and plants, highlighting changes, modifications and elaborations over time of Leibniz’s views and supporting arguments and paying particular attention to his claim that the future is already contained in the seeds of living things. The editor, Adrian Nita, contributes a paper on the continuity or discontinuity of Leibniz’s work on the question of the unity and identity of substance from the perspective of the relation with soul (anima) and mind (mens).
- About the authors
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Adrian Nita is Professor of Philosophy at University of Craiova (Romania) and managing editor of the Revue roumaine de philosophie. He is the author of La métaphysique du temps chez Leibniz et Kant (L’Harmattan, Paris, 2008).
- Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Introduction. Leibniz’s Metaphysics and the Adoption of Substantial Forms
Pages 1-9
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The Individual in Leibniz’s Philosophy, 1663–1686
Pages 11-25
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Substance, Unity and Identity in Early Leibniz’s Work
Pages 27-41
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Hylomorphism (Even) Without Matter? Transtemporal Sameness and the Rehabilitation of Substantial Form in Leibniz’s Theory of Substance
Pages 43-58
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Essential Differences. Or, an Exercise in Symptomatic History of Philosophy
Pages 59-72
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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- Download Table of contents PDF (70.7 KB)
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Bibliographic Information
- Bibliographic Information
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- Book Title
- Leibniz’s Metaphysics and Adoption of Substantial Forms
- Book Subtitle
- Between Continuity and Transformation
- Editors
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- Adrian Nita
- Series Title
- The New Synthese Historical Library
- Series Volume
- 74
- Copyright
- 2015
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Copyright Holder
- Springer International Publishing Switzerland
- eBook ISBN
- 978-94-017-9956-0
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-94-017-9956-0
- Hardcover ISBN
- 978-94-017-9955-3
- Softcover ISBN
- 978-94-024-0222-3
- Series ISSN
- 1879-8578
- Edition Number
- 1
- Number of Pages
- XII, 176
- Topics
