Leibniz on the Metaphysics of Color

Drawing on remarks scattered through his writings, I argue that Leibniz has a highly distinctive and interesting theory of color. The central feature of the theory is the way in which it combines a nuanced subjectivism about color with a reductive approach of a sort usually associated with objectivist theories of color. After reconstructing Leibniz's theory and calling attention to some of its most notable attractions, I turn to the apparent incompatibility of its subjective and reductive components. I argue that this apparent tension vanishes in light of his rejection of a widely accepted doctrine concerning the nature of bodies and their geometrical qualities.     

Two Principles of Functioning of the Affects

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

Fostering Feminist Principles in Our Community

SUMMARY

In a recent focus group discussion at the Feminist Therapy Institute conference participants outlined a vision for a future community based on feminist principles. It is built on five critical ideals, including more equitable distribution of resources, genuine respect for human diversity and varying world views, caring and compassionate members, increased connections and collaborations, and political/personal empowerment. While the challenges inherent to such vision must be acknowledged, greater attention will be placed on ways in which we can begin to foster environments and micro communities that are conducive to feminist practice and ideology.     

Leibniz and the English-Speaking World

The problem of self-deception lies at the heart of Nietzsche's account of the slave revolt in morality in the first essay of On the Genealogy of Morals. The viability of Nietzsche's genealogy of morality is thus crucially dependent on a successful explanation of the self-deception the slaves of the first essay are caught in. But the phenomenon of self-deception is notoriously puzzling. In this paper, after critically examining existing interpretations of the slaves’ self-deception, I provide, by drawing on Alfred Mele's work on self-deception, a deflationary account of the slaves’ self-deception; an account which explains the slaves’ self-deceived predicament but without either the attribution of contradictory mental states or an intention to produce or to facilitate the production of the belief the self-deceived subjects end up holding. In light of my account of self-deception, I interpret Nietzsche's intriguing claim that the slaves’ revaluation of ressentiment amounts to their ‘most mendacious artistic stroke’.     

Leibniz on Natural Teleology and the Laws of Optics

This essay examines one of the cornerstones of Leibniz's defense of teleology within the order of nature. The first section explores Leibniz's contributions to the study of geometrical optics, and argues that his "Most Determined Path Principle" or "MDPP" allows him to bring to the fore philosophical issues concerning the legitimacy of teleological explanations by addressing two technical objections raised by Cartesians to non-mechanistic derivations of the laws of optics. The second section argues that, by drawing on laws such as the MDPP, Leibniz is able to introduce a thin notion of teleology that gives him the resources to respond to the most pressing charges of his day against teleological explanations within natural philosophy. Finally, the third section argues that contemporary philosophers have been overly hasty in their dismissal of Leibniz's account of natural teleology, and indeed that their own generally thin conceptions of teleology have left them with few well-motivated resources for resisting his elegant position.     

Leibniz on Concurrence and Efficient Causation

Leibniz defends concurrentism, the view that both God and created substances are causally responsible for changes in the states of created substances. Interpretive problems, however, arise in determining just what causal role each plays. Some recent work has been revisionist, greatly downplaying the causal role played by created substances—arguing instead that according to Leibniz only God has productive causal power. Though bearing some causal responsibility for changes in their perceptual states, created substances are not efficient causes of such changes. This paper argues against such revisionism; not only was Leibniz a consistent advocate of concurrentism (at least in his “mature” years), but also his account of concurrentism involves both God and created substances as efficient causes of the changes in the states of created substances.     

Definability of Leibniz Equality

Given a structure for a first-order language L, two objects of its domain can be indiscernible relative to the properties expressible in L, without using the equality symbol, and without actually being the same. It is this relation that interests us in this paper. It is called Leibniz equality. In the paper we study systematically the problem of its definibility mainly for classes of structures that are the models of some equality-free universal Horn class in an infinitary language L_κκ, where κ is an infinite regular cardinal. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Leibniz and Luther on the Non-Cognitive Component of Faith

Leibniz was a Lutheran. Yet, upon consideration of certain aspects of his philosophical theology, one might suspect that he was a Lutheran more in name than in intellectual practice. Clearly Leibniz was influenced by the Catholic tradition; this is beyond doubt. However, the extent to which Leibniz was influenced by his own Lutheran tradition—indeed, by Martin Luther himself—has yet to be satisfactorily explored. In this essay, the views of Luther and Leibniz on the non-cognitive component of faith are considered in some detail. According to Luther, the only non-cognitive aspect of faith worth favoring is trust (fiducia), since it is trust in God’s promise of mercy that warrants justification for the sinner. Leibniz, for his part, sides with the Thomistic tradition in emphasizing love (caritas) as the non-cognitive element of faith par excellence. I argue that Leibniz falls into a trap forewarned by Luther himself, even if Leibniz had systematic metaphysical reasons for his disagreement.     

Locke and Leibniz on Religious Faith

In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke maintains that ‘Reason must be our last Judge and Guide in every Thing,’ including matters of religious faith, and this commitment to the primacy of reason is not abandoned in his later religious writings. This essay argues that with regard to the relation between reason and religious faith, Locke is primarily concerned not with evidence, but with consistency, meaning, and how human beings ought to respond to their inclinations, including their inclinations to believe. Leibniz, on the other hand, stakes out an alternative conception of the relationship between faith and reason that assigns to faith the role of a primary truth. For Leibniz, some religious propositions can be believed immediately and without an additional examination and evaluation by reason. The essay maintains that the differences between the two regarding faith and reason are tied to a broader disagreement about how much of the human understanding is due, in Locke's words, to ‘Labour, Attention and Industry’.     

Studies in the Principles of Judgments and Attitudes: I. Two Basic Principles of Judgment

The psychological test performance of 10 seven-year-old boys from an isolated, rural Guatemalan village was compared with ratings of their intelligence made by 42 adult village members. The adults' judgments were found to correlate strongly with the children's performance on the Embedded Figures, Verbal Analogies, and Memory-for-Designs Tests.