Abstract
There is a sense in which Leibniz’s naturalism, long before ours, had come to terms with the problem of normativity. The core of his mature reflections was in fact inhabited by a strong conflict of ontological as well as of epistemological models. On the one hand there was in fact the lexicon of the Aristotelian ontology, made up of individual substances endowed with ‘forms’ or ‘natures’, whereas on the other there was the new lexicon of mechanical events described by the laws of physics. At the center of the stage, Leibniz put a powerful nominalist strategy, according to which only individuals really exist, namely living substances endowed with perceptual states and appetitions. The question thus arises: in a world of events saturated by mechanical explanations, who is the proper subject of agency? How can the ontological dimension of life be justified in a natural world dominated by a mechanical epistemology? This is the heart of Leibniz’s placement problem.
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Notes
- 1.
For an accurate reconstruction of the development of the topic of ‘life’ in Leibniz’s philosophy, as well as for an analysis of the most debated and influential interpretations of it, see Smith 2011.
- 2.
On the issue of the ‘final form’ of the system, see Hartz 2007. On the general topic of Leibniz’s natural philosophy, see Nachtomy 2019; Arthur 2018; Duchesneau-Smith 2016; Roland 2012; Smith 2011; Smith and Nachtomy 2011; Pasini 2011; Nunziante 2011a, b; Duchesneau 2010; Garber 2009; Phemister 2005; Hartz-Wilson 2005; Fichant 2003; Ishiguro 1998;
- 3.
A notable exception is represented by the recent works of Duchesneau-Smith 2016 and Nachtomy 2019. The translation and edition of the Leibniz-Stahl Controversy by Duchesneau and Smith (accompanied by an extremely accurate and informative introduction) has in fact made it possible to shed new light on the Leibnitian final position with regard to the theme of life. In particular, Duchesneau and Smith have shown very effectively the changes in perspective which occurred in his late years (Duchesneau-Smith 2016, lv–lxi). Likewise, Ohad Nachtomy offers a very convincing, and almost definitive, interpretation of the topic. In particular, he sheds light on the delicate theme of the relationship between ‘life’ and ‘naturalism’ in Leibniz’s thought. His overall thesis concerning the ‘re-enchantment of nature’ carried out by Leibniz has been taken into particular consideration in the course of this work.
- 4.
See Duchesneau-Smith 2016; Nunziante 2011; Carvallo 2004.
- 5.
On a similar interpretative line cf. Hartmann 2000, 123. On the relevance of this section see also Duchesneau-Smith 2016, lxxx.
- 6.
On the cultural influences present in Leibniz since the 1990s, see Smith and Phemister 2007, 95–110; Coudert 1995; Wilson 1990, 138–146; Orio De Miguel 1990, 147–156; Palaia 1990, 157–172; Merchant 1979, 255–269. On the key figures in the Leibniz-Stahl exchange cf. Duchesneau-Smith 2016, xxxviii–xlii.
- 7.
It is no mystery that the controversy with Cudworth was one of the main motives of Leibniz’s philosophy between the end of the century and the first years of the new. As Catherine Wilson recalled, in 1689 Leibniz first read Cudworth’s True intellectual system (published in London in 1678) and undertook a second reading of it in 1704, when he began his correspondence with Lady Damaris Masham (Cudworth’s daughter). From this point of view, the controversy with Stahl fits perfectly into the framework of a broader discussion that Leibniz was conducting in those same years. See Wilson 1990, 137–146.
- 8.
On Stahl’s views on body and mechanism see Duchesneau-Smith 2016, xxvi–xxxviii.
- 9.
The term ‘organism’ does not refer so much to the presence of an individual biological entity, but rather to the way in which it is organized: it is a way of being rather than the definition of a substance. On this subject, as well as on the question of the dating of the term in Leibniz’s writings, see. Pasini 2011, 1216–1235; Cheung 2006, 319–339.
- 10.
- 11.
See Cheung 2006, 324. Glenn Hartz nicely refers to Dr. Frankenstein’s ‘monster body’ to emphasize this point, claiming that while its body ‘is still a mere collection of organs harvested from charnel-houses, it is a vivid example of natural machine. Each cell is itself a separate, lesser machine. [...] Until the ‘dull yellow eye of the creature opens’ the body remains a fancy aggregate, all ready to go but not yet knighted’. Hartz 2007, 160.
- 12.
It is not by chance that Leibniz refers to the dominant monad as an ‘actuatrix’ monad (Animadversiones, 331).
- 13.
Duchesneau-Smith translates rudus as ‘rubbish’, but I rather prefer ‘rubble’ since it seems to me that the term denotes more the idea of some rough fragments (like a broken stone) than waste material or worthless stuff.
- 14.
The motion of the animal body has to do with the good functioning of its organs and therefore refers to the corporeal neurophysiology; the action instead refers to the world of appetites and perceptions. The distinction was first made by Leibniz in the dialogue Pacidius to Philalete (1676): see AVI 3, 571 and Arthur 2018, 196–205.
- 15.
There has been much discussion about whether Stahl was a ‘vitalist’ or an ‘animist’. According to Hans Driesch, Stahl was strictly speaking an animist, because the soul in his system acts as the generating principle of both the body and its vital functions, i.e. it performs a structurally metaphysical function. By ‘vitalism’, on the other hand, one has to understand a ‘descriptive teleology’, that is, an epistemic model that places the question of the autonomy of vital phenomena at the center of the stage: Driesch 1914, 4–6 and 35–36. Other scholars, however, support opposite or intermediate theses. For an overview of the discussion, cf. De Ceglia 2000, 20–22.
- 16.
As Enrico Pasini observes: his interpretation of the spirits ‘serves in fact to introduce into the physiology of sensation the relationship between metaphysics and dynamics’. Pasini 1996, 122.
- 17.
Throughout the text of the controversy Leibniz refers to ‘animal spirits’. In a single passage he speaks of ‘vital or animal spirits’ indifferently (Animadversiones, 51).
- 18.
See also GP VII, 330.
- 19.
- 20.
See also GP III, 457.
- 21.
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Nunziante, A.M. (2022). Both Natural and Supernatural: Leibniz’s Integrated Model of Life. In: Wolfe, C.T., Pecere, P., Clericuzio, A. (eds) Mechanism, Life and Mind in Modern Natural Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 240. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07036-5_9
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