Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T13:23:16.319Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Modal Status of Leibniz's Principle of Sufficient Reason

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2020

OWEN PIKKERT
OWEN PIKKERT*
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTOowen.pikkert@mail.utoronto.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason (PSR) is the claim that everything has a sufficient reason. But is Leibniz committed to the necessity or to the contingency of his great principle? I argue that Leibniz is committed to its contingency, given that he allows for the absolute possibility of entities that he claims violate the PSR. These are all cases of qualitatively indiscernible entities, such as indiscernible atoms, vacua, and bodies. However, Leibniz's commitment to the contingency of the PSR seems to stand in tension with his inference of the PSR from his theory of truth. I argue that this apparent tension can be resolved satisfactorily. When it comes to his modal views on the PSR, Leibniz's position is entirely consistent.

Keywords

Leibnizprinciple of sufficient reasonidentity of indiscernibles
Type
Article
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , Spring 2021 , pp. 40 - 58
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful for helpful comments from Donald Ainslie, Deborah Black, Marc Bobro, Michael Della Rocca, Karolina Hübner, Martin Lin, Robert Mason, Jeff McDonough, Stephen Puryear, William Seager, two anonymous referees, and, most especially, Marleen Rozemond. I am also grateful for helpful feedback from audiences at the Leibniz Society of North America meeting at the University of Houston, the Princeton-Penn-Columbia Graduate Conference in Early Modern Philosophy at Princeton University, the Berlin-Groningen-Harvard-Toronto Workshop at the University of Groningen, and the American Philosophical Association (Eastern) meeting in Savannah. Financial support was generously provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, as well as by the Balzan Styles of Reasoning project at the University of Toronto.

References

Adams, Robert M. (1979) ‘Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity’. The Journal of Philosophy, 76, 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, Robert M. (1994) Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle. (1984) The Complete Works of Aristotle. Vol. 1. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Blumenfeld, David. (1995) ‘Leibniz's ontological and cosmological arguments’. In Jolley, Nicholas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 353–81.Google Scholar
Broad, C. D. (1975) Leibniz: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Gregory. (2016) ‘Leibniz on the Possibility of a Spatial Vacuum, the Connectedness Condition on Possible Worlds, and Miracles’. In Brown, Gregory and Chiek, Yual (eds.), Leibniz on Compossibility and Possible Worlds (Dordrecht: Springer), 201–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carriero, John. (1993) ‘Leibniz on Infinite Resolution and Intra-mundane Contingency. Part One: Infinite Resolution’. Studia Leibnitiana, 25, 1–26.Google Scholar
Carriero, John. (1995) ‘Leibniz on Infinite Resolution and Intra-mundane Contingency. Part Two: Necessity, Contingency, and the Divine Faculties’. Studia Leibnitiana, 27, 1–30.Google Scholar
Chernoff, Fred. (1981) ‘Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles’. The Philosophical Quarterly, 31, 126–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Couturat, Louis. (1901) La Logique de Leibniz. Paris: Félix Alcan.Google Scholar
Della Rocca, Michael. (2015) ‘Review of Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Leibniz's Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles’. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.Google Scholar
Frankel, Lois. (1986) ‘From a Metaphysical Point of View: Leibniz and the Principle of Sufficient Reason’. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 24, 321–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jauernig, Anja. (2008) ‘The Modal Strength of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles’. Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, 191–225.Google Scholar
Jolley, Nicholas. (2005) Leibniz. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jorati, Julia. (2016) ‘Divine Faculties and the Puzzle of Incompossibility’. In Brown, Gregory and Chiek, Yual (eds.), Leibniz on Compossibility and Possible Worlds (Dordrecht: Springer), 175–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jorati, Julia. (2017) ‘The Contingency of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles’. Ergo, 4, 899–929.Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1855–) Die mathematischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Edited by Gerhardt, C. I.. Halle: H. W. Schmidt. [GM]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1875–) Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Edited by Gerhardt, C. I.. Berlin: Weidmann. [G]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1903) Opuscules et fragments inédits de Leibniz. Edited by Couturat, Louis. Paris: Félix Alcan. [C]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1923–) Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. [A]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1973) Philosophical Writings. Edited by Parkinson, G. H. R. and translated by Morris, Mary and Parkinson, G. H. R.. London: J. M. Dent. [MP]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1985) Theodicy. Translated by Huggard, E. M.. La Salle: Open Court. [T]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1989) Philosophical Essays. Edited and translated by Ariew, Roger and Garber, Daniel. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett. [AG]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1996) New Essays on Human Understanding. Translated and edited by Remnant, Peter and Bennett, Jonathan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [NE]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (1998) Philosophical Texts. Translated by Woolhouse, R. S. and Francks, Richard. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [WF]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (2000) The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence. Edited by Ariew, Roger. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett. [LC]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (2005) Confessio philosophi: Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil, 1671–1678. Translated and edited by Sleigh, Robert C. Jr. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [CP]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (2007) The Leibniz-Des Bosses Correspondence. Translated and edited by Look, Brandon C. and Rutherford, Donald. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. [LDB]Google Scholar
Leibniz, G. W. (2016) Leibniz on God and Religion: A Reader. Translated and edited by Strickland, Lloyd. London: Bloomsbury. [LGR]Google Scholar
Lin, Martin. (2016) ‘Leibniz on the Modal Status of Absolute Space and Time’. Noûs, 50, 447–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, Paul. (2010) ‘The Empirical Grounds for Leibniz's “Real Metaphysics”’. The Leibniz Review, 20, 13–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Look, Brandon. (2011a) ‘Grounding the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Leibnizian Rationalism and the Humean Challenge’. In Fraenkel, Carlos, Perinetti, Dario, and Smith, Justin E. H. (eds.), The Rationalists: Between Tradition and Innovation (New York: Springer), 201–19.Google Scholar
Look, Brandon. (2011b) ‘Leibniz's Metaphysics: The Path to the Monadology’. In Look, Brandon (ed.), The Continuum Companion to Leibniz (London: Continuum), 89–109.Google Scholar
McRae, Robert. (1976) Leibniz: Perception, Apperception, and Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkinson, G. H. R. (1965) Logic and Reality in Leibniz's Metaphysics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo. (2014) Leibniz's Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo. (2018) ‘The Principles of Contradiction, Sufficient Reason, and Identity of Indiscernibles’. In Antognazza, Maria Rosa (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Leibniz (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 45–63.Google Scholar
Rozemond, Marleen. (2014) ‘Mills Can't Think: Leibniz's Approach to the Mind-Body Problem’. Res Philosophica, 91, 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. (1900) A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rutherford, Donald. (1992) ‘Leibniz's Principle of Intelligibility’. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 9, 35–49.Google Scholar
Savile, Anthony. (2000) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Leibniz and the Monadology. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sleigh, Robert. (1983) ‘Leibniz on the Two Great Principles of All Our Reasonings’. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 8, 193–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vailati, Ezio. (1997) Leibniz and Clarke: A Study of Their Correspondence. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vinci, Thomas C. (1974) ‘What is the Ground for the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles in Leibniz's Correspondence with Clarke?’. Journal of the History of Philosophy, 12, 95–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar