الصفحة 1
الصفحة 1
The Science of the Individual : Leibnizs Ontology of Individual Substance
In his well-known Discourse on Metaphysics, Leibniz puts individual substance at the basis of metaphysical building. In so doing, he connects himself to a venerable tradition. His theory of individual concept, however, breaks with another idea of the same tradition, that no account of the individual as such can be given.Contrary to what has been commonly accepted, Leibniz’s intuitions are not the mere result of the transcription of subject-predicate logic, nor of the uncritical persistence of some old metaphysical assumptions.
Self-organization and Emergence in Life Sciences
Self-organization constitutes one of the most important theoretical debates in contemporary life sciences. The present book explores the relevance of the concept of self-organization and its impact on such scientific fields as: immunology, neurosciences, ecology and theories of evolution.Historical aspects of the issue are also broached. Intuitions relative to self-organization can be found in the works of such key western philosophical figures as Aristotle, Leibniz and Kant. Interacting with more recent authors and cybernetics, self-organization represents a notion in keeping with the modern world's discovery of radical complexity.
Self and Substance in Leibniz
There 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.
History of Science, History of Text
This book explores the hypothesis that the types of inscription or text used by a given community of practitioners are designed in the very same process as the one producing concepts and results. The book sets out to show how, in exactly the same way as for the other outcomes of scientific activity, all kinds of factors, cognitive as well as cultural, technological, social or institutional, conjoin in shaping the various types of writings and texts used by the practitioners of the sciences. To make this point, the book opts for a genuinely multicultural approach to the texts produced in the context of practices of knowledge
Hermann Cohens Critical Idealism
Publications on Cohen in the English language are small in number and this volume aims to fill the gap. It offers an analysis of Cohen’s System of Philosophy - the three-volume classic on logic, ethics, and aesthetics - and his writings on Judaism and religion. The book highlights Cohen’s contributions in these fields, including his discussions with Maimonides, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel. It demonstrates the congeniality of Cohen’s critical idealism as expounded in the System and his writings on Judaism, and offers an overview of contemporary Cohen research.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz : The Art of Controversies
All these perspectives (and more) are united in what this book identifies as his Art of Controversies, which might also be called an Art of Dialectical Cooperation. For it is based on the idea that knowledge production, acquisition, and evolution is not a one-man affair, but the result of the cooperation of many, coming from different perspectives; whence it follows that not only tolerance vis-à-vis the other, but also valuing the other’s contribution and integrating it – whether it stems from another age, continent, culture, discipline, religion, or individual – is indispensable. This dialectical Leibniz that emerges from the selected texts here translated, commented, and interpreted in the light of their context, isn’t for sure the familiar one. Yet, perhaps surprisingly.
Geometry and monadology : Leibniz’s Analysis Situs and philosophy of space
Reconstructs, from both historical and theoretical points of view, Leibniz’s geometrical studies, focusing in particular on the research Leibniz carried out in the last years of his life. It is indeed the first ever comprehensive historical reconstruction of Leibniz’s geometry that meets the interests of both mathematicians and philosophers. The main purpose of the work is to offer a better understanding of the Leibnizean philosophy of space and mature metaphysics, through a pressing confrontation with the problems of geometric foundations. Regarding the scope of these problems, the book also deals in depth with Leibniz’s theory of sensibility, thus favouring the comparison and contrast between Leibniz’s philosophy and Kant’s transcendentalist solution. The Appendix references to a number of previously unpublished manuscripts on geometry from the Leibniz Archiv in Hannover, which disclose new theories, points of view and technicalities of Leibniz’s thought.
Extensionalism : The Revolution in Logic
This vivid and thought-provoking book by the Israeli logician Nimrod Bar-Am impels one to rethink the place of logic in Western thought. It shows that the history of logic from Aristotle to Tarski is the history of the gradual undoing of the classic conflation of logic and empirical science. It sets tomorrow’s agenda for philosophers and historians of logic and scientific method by taking as its starting point the mere fact that, curiously, ancient logic is not as formal as current literature presents it. Rather, as Bar-Am explains, modern formal logic became possible only after a series of bold criticisms of the magnificent Aristotelian system. These criticisms begin with David Hume’s declaration that logic does not sanction induction, follow on with Kant’s view of logic as an extremely limited system, and culminating with Booles’ introduction of logic as an extensional system, and Russell’s solution to his own paradox.
Leibnizs Metaphysics of Time and Space
Leibniz’s metaphysics of space and time stands at the centre of his philosophy and is one of the high-water marks in the history of the philosophy of science. In this work, Futch provides the first systematic and comprehensive examination of Leibniz’s thought on this subject. In addition to elucidating the nature of Leibniz’s relationalism, the book fills a lacuna in existing scholarship by examining his views on the topological structure of space and time, including the unity and unboundedness of space and time. It is shown that, like many of his more recent counterparts, Leibniz adopts a causal theory of time where temporal facts are grounded on causal facts, and that his approach to time represents a precursor to non-tensed theories of time.
Leibniz and the natural world : Activity, passivity and corporeal substances in Leibniz's Philosophy
In the present book, Pauline Phemister argues against traditional Anglo-American interpretations of Leibniz as an idealist who conceives ultimate reality as a plurality of mind-like immaterial beings and for whom physical bodies are ultimately unreal and our perceptions of them illusory. Re-reading the texts without the prior assumption of idealism allows the more material aspects of Leibniz's metaphysics to emerge. Leibniz is found to advance a synthesis of idealism and materialism. His ontology posits indivisible, living, animal-like corporeal substances as the real metaphysical constituents of the universe; his epistemology combines sense-experience and reason; and his ethics fuses confused perceptions and insensible appetites with distinct perceptions and rational choice. In the light of his sustained commitment to the reality of bodies, Phemister re-examines his dynamics, the doctrine of pre-established harmony and his views on freedom.
Arguing on the Toulmin model : New essays in argument analysis and evaluation
In The Uses of Argument Stephen Toulmin proposed a new model for the layout of arguments, with six components: claim, data, warrant, qualifier, rebuttal, backing. Toulmin’s model has been appropriated, adapted and extended by researchers in the fields of speech communications, philosophy and artificial intelligence. The volume aims to bring together the best contemporary reflection in these fields on the Toulmin model and its current appropriation.
