Psychic determinism: Leibniz and Freud

You ask me to say a number, any number, and I say ‘127’. Have I answered freely?

“Of course”, says Hume: no‐one compelled me—the fact that my choice was necessitated is irrelevant.

“Yes”, says Leibniz: my choice was not necessitated—the fact that it was determined ( = ‘inclined') is not enough to make it unfree.

“No”, says Freud: my choice was determined—the fact that it was not necessitated is not enough to make it free.

The paper examines the interplay between these answers.     

Leibniz on Conatus, Causation, and Freedom

Abstract: In this paper, I address the topic of free will in Leibniz with particular attention to Leibniz's concept of volition, and its analogue in his physics – his concept of force. I argue against recent commentators that Leibniz was a causal determinist, and thus a compatibilist, and I suggest that logical consistency required him to adopt compatibilism given some of the concepts at work in his physics. I conclude by pointing out that the pressures to adopt causal determinism in Leibniz's system are perhaps more severe than those facing the contemporary libertarian, pressures that stem from empirical considerations about the behavior of bodies in the physical world, and the “well‐founding” of those bodies in simple substances.     

Locke,Leibniz, language and Hans Aarsleff

This paper was written at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, where I was supported by Izaac Walton Killam Fellowship (Canada Council) supplemented by funds from the Henry Luce Foundation (I.A.S.). I thank Martha Bolton and Jonathan Bennett for correcting some mistakes in an earlier draft, and Natalie Davis for the example of Glückl.     

Freud,His Illness,and Ourselves

The history of Freud's illness shows that he tried to avoid confrontation with it, and to treat it as unimportant. In his personal letters, the ill body remains outside-as another person, "Konrad," not he himself-and it is not taken into account. Particularly in Freud's correspondence with Ferenczi, we realize to what extent certain phenomena, especially depressive ones, he considered somatic, with a tendency to dismiss them, and this despite important occasional insights, such as about the role played by hate in psychosomatic illnesses. In the post-Freudian development, these topics have been more and more integrated in the dialogue, in the discourse between the analyst and the analysand.     

莱布尼兹与技术

莱布尼兹不仅是哲学家、数学家,而且还在科学技术上拥有许多重要发明.特别是他所发明的二进制,是所有计算机技术的基础.因此,把莱布尼兹看作信息时代之父并不是没有道理的.本文阐述了莱布尼兹在他的科学技术发明中所体现的系统论思想、科学工具化思想和他关于机器的比喻.作者进一步提出,在科技高度发展的今天,人作为具有自由本质的存在者,必须对自己的行动和技术后果负有责任.我们必须追问技术带来的弊端,并给予技术哲学以应有的地位.