Self and Substance in LeibnizThere is a close connection in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s mind between the notions of self and substance. R. W. Meyer, in his classic 1948 text, Leibnitz and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution, writes that “the monad ... is nothing but a 1 représentation (in both senses of the French word) of Leibniz’s personality in metaphysical symbols; and there was, under contemporary circumstances, no need 2 to ‘introduce’ this concept apart from ‘propounding’ it. ” It is not clear what Meyer means here except that from the consideration of his own self, in some way Leibniz comes to his concept of simple substance, or monad. Herbert Carr, in an even earlier work, notes that Leibniz held that “the only real unities in nature are formal, not material. ... [and] [f]or a long time Leibniz was content to call the formal unities or substantial forms he was speaking about, souls. This had the advantage that it referred at once to the fact of experience which supplies the very 3 type of a substantial form, the self or ego. ” Finally, Nicholas Rescher, in his usual forthright manner, states that “[i]n all of Leibniz’s expositions of his philosophy, 4 the human person is the paradigm of a substance. |
Contents
Am I Essentially a Person? | 7 |
What Makes Me a Person? | 21 |
What Makes Me The Same Person? | 37 |
Could Thinking Machines Be Moral Agents? | 58 |
Why Bodies? | 78 |
What Makes My Survival Meaningful? | 97 |
Conclusion | 116 |
On Hume | 118 |
Appendix B On Kants Paralogisms | 122 |
Bibliography | 131 |
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Common terms and phrases
abbreviated view according to Leibniz actions agents require bodies Antoine Arnauld Apperception argue argument from morality Arnauld attributed causal chapter claim complete concept continuity Conway Derek Parfit Descartes distinct essentially a person exist genuine moral agents GP ii GP iv GP vi Hence idea immaterial substances immortality Jolley Jonathan Bennett Kenneth Clatterbaugh kind King of China Kulstad Leibniz and Locke Leibniz holds Leibniz on Personal Leibniz says Leibniz seems Leibniz tells Leibniz writes Leibniz's account Leibniz's Metaphysics Leibniz's Theory Leibniz's view Leibnizian live and participate Margaret Wilson matters in survival meaningful survival memory or knowledge mind miraculous Monadology monads moral agents require morally responsible agent Nicholas Rescher Nouveaux essais paralogism Parfit perceptions personal identity personhood philosophical predicates premise proposition psychological rational soul reason to desire reflection Roderick Chisholm Savile Scheffler self-consciousness sense simple substance souvenir Spinoza spirits spontaneous substantial theory of personal things thinking machines thought unity Vailati Wilson