Divine Faculties and the Puzzle of Incompossibility

Joráti, Julia

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-42695-2_8

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…it is metaphysically possible, on this interpretation, for God to actualize Gottfried's complete concept twice, resulting in two substances with all the same intrinsic properties. Granted, this may appear to go against what Leibniz sometimes says about complete concepts-in some texts, Leibniz insists or presupposes that there can be only one substance 35. i argue for this interpretation in Jorati (2016). 36.…”

Section: The Contingency Of the Piimentioning

confidence: 91%

The Contingency of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles

Joráti¹

2017

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Ohio State University Leibniz's famous Principle of the identity of indiscernibles (Pii) states that no two things are exactly alike. The Pii is commonly thought to be metaphysically necessary for Leibniz: the coexistence of two indiscernibles is metaphysically impossible. This paper argues, against the standard interpretation, that Leibniz's Pii is metaphysically contingent. in other words, while the coexistence of indiscernibles would not imply a contradiction, the Pii is true in the actual world because the Principle of Sufficient reason rules out violations of the Pii. God could have created indiscernibles but he did not because he is wise and does nothing without a sufficient reason. Because it is plausible that all Leibnizian possible worlds are unified by a wise plan, this means that the Pii is true in all possible worlds. God could create indiscernibles, but the resulting creation would not be a world. To argue for this conclusion, the paper carefully examines Leibniz's mature account of metaphysical contingency. it shows that for Leibniz, only states of affairs that imply logical contradictions are metaphysically impossible. next, it argues that the coexistence of indiscernibles would not imply a logical contradiction; it would merely imply what Leibniz calls a "moral absurdity," that is, a violation of the Principle of Sufficient reason. This means that the Pii is true contingently and-since God can do whatever is metaphysically possible-that God can create two things that are exactly alike. 1. See for instance Gonzalo rodriguez-Pereyra's recent monograph on the Pii (rodriguez

show abstract

Section: The Contingency Of the Piimentioning

confidence: 91%

The Contingency of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles

Joráti¹

2017

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Oftentimes, commentators read passages like Theodicy §234 along such lines and argue that (Leibnizian) metaphysical possibility tracks divine power while (Leibnizian) moral possibility tracks divine goodness. 43 Even on such an interpretation, though, violations of the PSR turn out to be metaphysically possible for Leibniz (to be sure, this may not be what we nowadays mean by metaphysical possibility, but it is an important 37 Such a reading has recently been defended by Newlands (2010), Lin (2012), Griffin (2013), andJorati (2016). In this section, I have developed and defended two arguments for the thesis that Leibniz sees the PSR as contingent.…”

Section: The Contingency Of Leibniz's Psrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…50 44 What exactly is this notion of metaphysical possibility and how is it different from the contemporary notion? It is often thought that we can say that for Leibniz something is metaphysically possible just in case its essence is not somehow internally contradictory; see Lin (2012) and Jorati (2016). It may happen, though, that there are possibilia which are incompatible which God (a necessary being), in which case they would not be genuine metaphysical possibilities in the contemporary sense.…”

Section: Leibniz's Psr In Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Localizing Violations of the Principle of Sufficient Reason—Leibniz on the Modal Status of the PSR

Bender

2022

Journal of Modern Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)-the principle that everything has a reason-plays a central role in Leibniz's philosophical system. It is rather difficult, however, to determine what Leibniz's attitude towards the modal status of the PSR is. The prevailing view is that Leibniz takes the PSR to be true necessarily. This paper develops a novel interpretation and argues that Leibniz's PSR is a contingent principle. It also discusses whether a merely contingent PSR can do the metaphysical heavy lifting that Leibniz aims for. The paper shows that, despite appearance to the contrary, this is possible. In a nutshell, the argument is that the only possible PSR violation Leibniz allows for is God's creation of a suboptimal world; there is no Leibnizian possible world, though, which intrinsically violates the PSR. Despite its contingency, then, Leibniz's PSR is modally robust enough to serve as a foundational principle of his metaphysics.

show abstract

“…(It is interesting, though, that Pickert views Russell as someone who thinks that the Principle is necessary.) DellaRocca (2015) also observes that given its role in Leibniz's metaphysics 'Leibniz cannot afford to see the PSR as necessary', and Jorati (2016) just presupposes the contingency of the Principle of Sufficient Reason and presents it as a principle which is '… more restrictive than the principle of contradiction'(194). My argument here is consistent with these interpretations as well.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Leibniz’s Dual Concept of Probability

Eisner

2022

Journal of Modern Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Leibniz uses the concept of probability in both epistemic and non-epistemic contexts, as do many of his contemporaries. Some commentators have claimed that this dual-use is inexact or confused. In this paper, I describe Leibniz's understanding of the concept of probability and discuss its dual usage in his work. Then, building on Leibniz's creation theory, in conjunction with Russell's interpretation of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, I endeavor to justify this dual usage and to show that this justification is also valuable for the contemporary discussion of the concept of probability.

show abstract

Divine Faculties and the Puzzle of Incompossibility

Cited by 5 publications

References 7 publications

The Contingency of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles

The Contingency of Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles

Localizing Violations of the Principle of Sufficient Reason—Leibniz on the Modal Status of the PSR

Leibniz’s Dual Concept of Probability

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About