The Rationalists: Spinoza and Leibniz

PHIL10086

2020-21

Course Organiser Pauline Phemister

Dugald Stewart Building, room 6.04

Tel: 0131 651 3747

Email: p.phemister@ed.ac.uk

Course Secretary Anne-Marie Cowe

PPLS Undergraduate Teaching Office

Dugald Stewart Building, room G.06

Tel: 0131 650 3961

Email: Philinfo@ed.ac.uk

Times and Locations

Semester 1

Information about class timing and format will be on the LEARN page for the course.

Assessment

Mid-term essay (30%) to be submitted by 12 noon on Thursday 22nd

October. Word limit: 1,500 words

Final essay (70%) to be submitted by 12 noon on Thursday 10th

December. Word limit: 3,000 words

Participation (5%) judged by seminar attendance and Learn Discussion

Board participation

Course Aims and Objectives

The course will introduce students to the philosophical systems of the Dutch

philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza and the German thinker, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

Responding critically to, but still working within the framework of, Cartesian dualism,

Spinoza and Leibniz respectively transformed the Cartesian philosophy in two radically

different directions, resulting in (i) Spinoza’s absolute monism and, in critical response

also to Spinoza, (ii) the dynamic, pluralist philosophical system of Leibniz. In this

course, we will compare and assess the philosophical arguments that led each

philosopher to hold similar but also radically divergent views on the nature of reality,

mind and body, God, and the ethical life.

Lecture/Seminar Content: Provisional Outline

Week 1: Introduction and Substance (Spinoza)

Essential Reading:

Spinoza, Ethics 1, Definitions 1-8, Axioms 1-7, Ethics 2, Postulates 1-4

(located immediately before Ethics 2, Proposition 14)

Spinoza, Ethics 1, Proposition 5 and Demonstration

Melamed, Yitzak (2017). 'The Building Blocks of Spinoza's Metaphysics:

Substance, Attributes, and Modes'. In Michael Della Rocca, ed., The Oxford

Handbook of Spinoza (OUP), pp. 84-114

Recommended further reading:

John Cottingham, The Rationalists, chapter 3;

Week 2: Proofs of God’s existence (Spinoza)

Essential reading:

Spinoza, Ethics 1, proposition 11 and demonstrations

Phemister, Pauline (2006). The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz

(Routledge), chapter 4, pp. 80-91

Lin, Martin ‘Spinoza’s Arguments for the Existence of God’, Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research, 75:2 (2007), 269-297

Website

Mapping Spinoza’s Ethics website: http://ethica.bc.edu/#/

Week 3: Spinoza’s Monism and Determinism (Spinoza)

Essential reading:

Spinoza, Ethics 1, proposition 14 demonstration and all the propositions and

their demonstrations that are included in the proof.

Spinoza, Ethics I, Proposition 5 and demonstration (the no-shared attribute

thesis)

Don Garrett, ‘Ethics IP5: Shared Attributes and the Basis of Spinoza’s

Monism’, in J. A. Cover and Mark Kulstad, eds. Central Themes in Early

Modern Philosophy, pp.69-108

Phemister, The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, chapter 4, pp.

91-99

Spinoza, Ethics I, propositions 26-33, including demonstrations of the

component propositions.

Website

Mapping Spinoza’s Ethics website: http://ethica.bc.edu/#/

Recommended further reading:

Koistinen, Olli (2003). ‘Spinoza’s Proof of Necessitarianism’, Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research, 67(2), 283-310

http://ethica.bc.edu/#/http://ethica.bc.edu/#/

Lecture 4: Mind and Body (Spinoza)

Essential reading:

Spinoza, Ethics 2, up to and including Ethics 2, proposition 47

Della Rocca, Michael (2008). Spinoza (Routledge), chapter 3

Steinberg, Diane (2009). ‘Knowledge in Spinoza’s Ethics’. In Olli Koistinen,

ed. The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ (CUP), chapter 7

Recommended further reading:

Wilson, Margaret (2006). ‘Spinoza’s Theory of Knowledge’. In Don Garrett,

ed., The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza (CUP), chapter 3

Website

Mapping Spinoza’s Ethics website: http://ethica.bc.edu/#/

Lecture 5: Freedom: the intellectual love of God (Spinoza)

Essential reading:

Spinoza, Ethics 3, proposition 35 and Scholium, Ethics 4, proposition 46, plus

all other propositions, corollaries and scholia, excluding their demonstrations,

in Ethics 3 and 4.

Spinoza, Ethics 5, paying particular attention to Ethics 5, proposition 32 and

all propositions that discuss eternity or the eternal part of the mind.

Steven Nadler (2018). ‘The Intellectual Love of God’. In The Oxford

Handbook of Spinoza. Ed. by M. Della Rocca, (OUP), pp. 295-313

Nadler, Steven (2006). Spinoza’s Ethics: An Introduction (CUP), chapter 9

Website

Mapping Spinoza’s Ethics website: http://ethica.bc.edu/#/

Recommended further reading

Susan James, ‘Power and Difference: Spinoza’s Conception of Freedom’,

Journal of Political Philosophy, 4:3 (1996), 207-228

:

Lecture 6: Substances (Leibniz)

Essential reading:

Leibniz, Monadology, §§ 1-30; 63-70

Leibniz, Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas

Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, §§ 8-15;

Leibniz, Correspondence with de Volder, Leibniz to de Volder 20 June 1703

Leibniz, 'On the Correction of Metaphysics and the Concept of Substance', Acta

Eruditorum, March 1694. In Loemker, L, Philosophical Papers and Letters,

432-434.

http://ethica.bc.edu/#/http://ethica.bc.edu/#/

Phemister, Pauline (2001). ‘Corporeal Substances and the Discourse on

Metaphysics’, Studia Leibnitiana, 33(1), 68-85

Wilson, Catherine (1989). Leibniz’s Metaphysics: a comparative and

historical study, chapter 3

Essential Video

Alonzi, Adam, The Life of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jib3WN5Wpps

Recommended further reading:

Anthony Savile, Routledge Guidebook to Leibniz and the ‘Monadology’,

chapters 3 and 4

Lecture 7: Perfection and God (Leibniz)

Essential reading:

Leibniz, Monadology, §§ 31-59 [ 31-39 PSR] [40-52 God] [53-59 BPW]

Leibniz, ‘Whether the world increases in perfection (1694-1696?)’. In Lloyd

Strickland, ed., The Shorter Leibniz Texts: A Collection of New Translations

(Continuum, 2006), 196-197.

Look, Brandon C. (2011) ‘Grounding the Principle of Sufficient Reason: Leibnizian Rationalism and the Humean Challenge’. In Fraenkel, C., Perinetti, D., & Smith, J.E.H., eds. The Rationalists: Between Tradition and Innovation (Springer) Blumenfeld , David (1994). ‘Perfection and Happiness in the Best Possible World’. In Nicholas Jolley, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz (Cambridge, CUP), 382-410

Recommended further reading:

Voltaire, Candide

Rodriguez-Peyrera, Gonzalo (2018). ‘The Principles of Contradiction, Sufficient

Reason, and Identity of Indiscernibles’. In Antognazza, Rosa, ed., The Oxford

Handbook of Leibniz

Phemister, Pauline and Lloyd Strickland (2015). ‘Leibniz’s Monadological

Positive Aesthetics’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 23(6), 1214-

1234

Strickland, Lloyd (2006). ‘Leibniz on Whether the World Increases in

Perfection’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 14(1), 51-68.

Look, Brandon C. (2018). ‘Arguments for the Existence of God’. In Antognazza,

Rosa, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Leibniz

Lecture 8: Bodies (Leibniz)

Essential reading:

Leibniz, Monadology, §§ 60-77;

Leibniz, On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians

Leibniz, From the letters to Johann Bernoulli

Leibniz, Notes on Some Comments by Michel Angelo Fardella

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jib3WN5Wpps

Phemister, Pauline (2005). Leibniz and the Natural World (Springer), chapter 4.

Phemister, Pauline (2015). ‘The Souls of Seeds’. In Adrian Nita (ed.), Leibniz’s

Metaphysics and Adoption of Substantial Forms, Dordrecht: Springer, 125 –

141.

Essential Podcast

Were my atoms once your atoms? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszv5r

Recommended further reading:

Nachtomy, Ohad (2011). ‘Leibniz on Artificial and Natural Machines; Or,

What it Means to Remain a Machine to the Least of Its Parts’, in J. E. H.

Smith and O. Nachtomy, eds. Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances

in Leibniz chapter 4

Phemister, Pauline (2011). ‘Monads and Machines’, in J. E. H. Smith and

Ohad Nachtomy, eds. Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances in

Leibniz, chapter 3

Lecture 9: Pre-established harmony (Leibniz)

Essential Reading:

Leibniz, A Specimen of Dynamics, part 2

Leibniz, A Brief Demonstration of a Notable Error of Descartes and others

concerning a natural law. In Loemker, L (1959), G.W. Leibniz: Philosophical

Papers and Letters (Reidel), 296-298

Leibniz, Monadology, §§ 78-90

Leibniz, Correspondence with Arnauld, Leibniz to Arnauld, 9 October 1687

Leibniz, Postscript of a letter to Basnage de Beauval (1696)

Phemister, Pauline (2011). ‘Are Mind-Body Relations Natural and Intelligible?

Some Early Modern Perspectives’, in Keith Allen and Tom Stoneham, eds.,

Causation and Modern Philosophy (2011, London: Routledge)

Phemister, Pauline (2003). ‘Exploring Leibniz’s Kingdoms: A Philosophical

Analysis of Nature and Grace’, Ecothology, 7(2), 126-145

Recommended further reading:

Leibniz, New System of the Nature and Communication of Substances, and of the

union of the Soul and Body

Phemister, Pauline (2005). Leibniz and the Natural World: activity, passivity

and corporeal substances in Leibniz’s philosophy, chapter 9;

Lecture 10 Rational Freedom and Contingency

Essential reading:

Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, section 13

Leibniz, Monadology, sections 60-62

Leibniz, On Freedom and Possibility;

Leibniz, Remarks on Arnauld’s Letter about My Proposition That the Individual

Notion of Each Person Includes Once and for all Everything That Will Ever

Happen to Him

Leibniz, On Freedom

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszv5r

Leibniz, Letter to Coste, On Human Freedom (19 December 1707)

Leibniz, Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas

Spinoza, Ethics 1, propositions 16-33, Ethics 2, proposition 7

Phemister, Pauline (1991). ‘Leibniz, Freedom of Will and Rationality’, Studia

Leibnitiana, 23, 25-38

Lois Frankel, Lois (1984). ‘On Being Able to do Otherwise: Leibniz on

Freedom and Contingency’ Studia Leibnitiana, 16 (1984), 45-59

Phemister, Pauline (2007). ‘God’s Freedom to Create’, Revue Roumaine de

Philosophie, 51, 3-19

Recommended further reading:

Phemister, Pauline (2005). ‘The minute and insensible in Leibniz’s moral theory in the Nouveaux Essais ‘. Pre-publication English version of Phemister, P. (2006). ‘Le très petit et l’imperceptible dans la théorie morale de Leibniz d’après les Nouveaux Essais’ morals’. In Francois Duchesneau & Jérémie Griard, eds., Leibniz selon les Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement (Montreal : Bellarmin & Paris: J. Vrin), pp. 229-248

Adams, Robert (1993). Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist (OUP), chapter 1

Lecture 11: Overview and concluding debate

Essential Reading

Leibniz, Comments on Spinoza’s Philosophy (1707?)

Look, Brandon C., ‘Perfection Power and the Passions in Spinoza and Leibniz’.

Self-published online: https://www.uky.edu/~look/essays/PPP.pdf

Hicks, G. Dawes (1917-18). ‘The “Modes” of Spinoza and the “Monads” of

Leibniz’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 18, 329-362

Laerke, Mogens (2017). ‘Leibniz’s Encounter with Spinoza’s Monism, October

1675 to February 1678’. In Della Rocca, Michael, ed., The Oxford Handbook of

Spinoza

Further recommended reading:

Newlands, Sam (2010). ‘The Harmony of Spinoza and Leibniz’, Philosophy and

Phenomenological Research 81(1), 64-104

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General Readings and other materials

Required media output

Podcast

Were my atoms once your atoms? https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszv5r

Website

https://www.uky.edu/~look/essays/PPP.pdfhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cszv5r

Mapping Spinoza’s Ethics website: http://ethica.bc.edu/#/

Video

Alonzi, Adam, The Life of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jib3WN5Wpps

Required (Core Texts: Essential)

Spinoza, The Ethics. In Spinoza, The Collected Works of Spinoza, tr. and ed. by E. M.

Curley, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). Available online via

University Library Databases, ‘Past Masters’ (‘Continental Rationalists’).

Leibniz, The Principles of Philosophy, or Monadology; Discourse on Metaphysics

and Correspondence with Arnauld; New System of the nature and communication

of Substances; Principles of Nature and of Grace, and various other short pieces. In G. W. Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, tr. and ed. by D. Garber and R. Ariew

(Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989). Available online via University Library Databases,

‘Past Masters’ (‘Continental Rationalists’).

Recommended (Secondary Literature)

Books

–– on Spinoza

Della Rocca, Michael, ed. (2017). The Oxford Handbook of Spinoza (Oxford: Oxford

University Press)

Della Rocca, Michael (2008). Spinoza (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge)

Garrett, Don (1996). Cambridge Companion to Spinoza (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press)

Hampshire, Stuart (2005). Spinoza and Spinozism (Oxford: Clarendon Press)

Huenemann, Charlie, ed. (2008). Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press)

Kashap, S. Paul, ed. (1972). Studies in Spinoza: Critical and Interpretive Essays

(Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press)

Koistinen, Olli, ed. (2010). Cambridge Companion to Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press)

Koistinen, Olli and John Biro, eds. (2002). Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes (Oxford:

Oxford University Press)

Lloyd, Genevieve (1996). Spinoza and the ‘Ethics’ (London: Routledge).

Lord, Beth (2010). Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’: an Edinburgh Philosophical Guide

(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press)

Nadler, Steven (2006). Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press)

(and Leibniz) Nadler, Steven (2010): The Best of all Possible Worlds: A Story of

Philosophers, God, and Evil in the Age of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University

Press)

Popkin, Richard H. (2004). Spinoza (Oxford: OneWorld Publications)

–– on Leibniz

Antognazza, Maria Rosa, ed. (2018). The Oxford Handbook of Leibniz (Oxford: Oxford

University Press)

http://ethica.bc.edu/#/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jib3WN5Wpps

Arthur, Richard (2014). Leibniz (Oxford: Polity)

Broad, Charles Dunbar (1979 [1975]). Leibniz: an introduction. Ed. by Casimir Levy.

Corrected reprint. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Jolley, Nicholas (1994). Cambridge Companion to Leibniz (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press)

Jorgensen, Larry M. and Samuel Newlands, eds. (2014). New Essays on Leibniz’s

‘Theodicy’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Look, Brandon (2011). Continuum Companion to Leibniz (London: Continuum)

Rutherford, Don (1995). Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press)

Rutherford, Don and J. A. Cover, eds. (2005). Leibniz: Nature and Freedom (Oxford:

Oxford University Press)

Savile, Anthony (2000). Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Leibniz and the

‘Monadology’ (London: Routledge)

Smith, J. E. H. and Nachtomy, O. (2011). Machines of Nature and Corporeal

Substances in Leibniz (Dordrecht: Springer)

Wilson, Catherine (1989). Leibniz’s Metaphysics: a critical and comparative study

(Manchester: Manchester University Press)

Further reading (more advanced)

Books

–– on Spinoza

Kisner, Matthew (2011). Spinoza on Human Freedom: Reason, Autonomy and the

Good Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Lin, Martin (2019). Being and Reason: An Essay on Spinoza’s Metaphysics (Oxford:

Oxford University Press)

Marshall, Eugene (2013). The Spiritual Automaton: Spinoza’s Science of the Mind

(Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Melamed, Yitzak (2013). Spinoza’s Metaphysics: substance and thought (Oxford:

Oxford University Press)

Viljanen, Valtteri (2011). Spinoza’s Geometry of Power (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press)

–– on Leibniz

Adams, Robert Merrihew (1994). Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist (Oxford:

Oxford University Press)

Garber, Daniel (2009). Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad (Oxford: Oxford University

Press)

Nachtomy, Ohad (2007). Possibility, Agency, and Individuality in Leibniz’s

Metaphysics (Dordrecht: Springer)

Nachtomy, Ohad (2019). Living Mirrors, Infinity, Unity, and Life in Leibniz’s

Philosophy (Oxford: OUP)

Phemister, Pauline (2005). Leibniz and the Natural World: activity, passivity and

corporeal substances in Leibniz’s philosophy (Dordrecht: Springer).