F

L E I B N I Z ON T H E
CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF L A N G U A G E

In the Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain, book III "Des

mots" offers a rather closely knit presentation of Leibniz's ideas about
language and its connection with knowledge. Though genuinely
Leibnizian, this development is cast in a foreign mould, built out of an
empiricist and analytic assessment of the twofold relationship of words
with ideas and essences. Of the many issues in Locke's Essay which
prompted Leibniz's antagonistic replies, I shall select this one: our
natural processes of thought result in complex ideas, which, expressed
in substantive terms, fall short of representing the "real essences" of
things, but make it possible tO classify them according to "nominal
essences". In contraposition to the nominal/real essence distinction,
which he disqualifies, Leibniz reintroduces and recasts for his purposes
the distinction between nominal and real definitions of terms. Accord-
ingly, a major trend of his analysis of words consists in elucidating the
principle "the possible governs the real" in its application to language
and to its classificatory function. I will attempt (1) to trace the
origin of this doctrine back to some of Leibniz's previous reflections
on language; (2) to assess Nicholas Jolley's analysis of this theme in
his recent book on the Nouveaux essais; ~ (3) to show the possible im-
plications of the principle for Leibniz's concept of empirical know-
ledge.

An interesting starting point on Leibniz's views of the meaning of the

principle for the analysis of language is afforded first by the Preface to
Nizolius (1670) and second, by a series of texts stretching from the
end of the Paris period (1676) to the Meditationes de cognitione,
veritate et ideis (1684). These texts define the epistemological sketch
of the system.
In the Preface to Nizolius, 2 Leibniz insists that clarity of speech
depends on clarity of words, which itself depends on a process of
derivation in meaning. Derivation in meaning can be analysed, con-

Synthese 75 (1988) 163-18l.

@ 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
164 FRAN(~OIS DUCHESNEAU

sidering words in themselves or in the context of speech. Let us take

the first case. A word can be known by reference to its origin or its
usage. If by reference to origin, the process may be analysed down to
two sources: "use of the root" and "analogy of derivation made from
the root". 3 Ultimately then, familiarity with the meaning of words is
based on the practical experience of those who use the language in
common. But this experience comprises also processes which may be
analysed as governing use. "Analogy is a meaning reached by shifting,
or by derivation, which is likewise known to all who use the same
language. ''4 Analogy concerning words is of two kinds: it either
modifies the form of words; or it modifies their application, thus
framing up the context of speech; in this second instance, one deals
with what has been identified as the figures of speech. Leibniz's
example concerns the meaningshifts of "fatum': once it has been
derived from the root for or fari by more or less explicit rules of
analogy, the word serves to build up a complex meaning by a scheme
of figures: antonomasia, synecdoque, and metonymy. This is rather
classical; what is less so, is the assertion that "the good grammarian,
and the philosopher as well, must deduce the usage from its origin by a
continuous sorites of figures of speech, so to speak". 5 Leibniz has in
mind that one might express the actual process of meaning derivations
by a deductive series, and that such an expression would spell out the
normative law(s) of linguistic usage. One may speak of a normative
law even though usage often generates meanings contingently when
referred to the origin of words and the analogies governing it. When
faced with an absence of direct connection between meanings and
original analogies from roots, one shall substitute a "formal meaning"
as the starting point for the meaningshifts, provided it serves the
purpose of building up a deductive series and provided it ap-
proximates as far as possible to a system of analogies from roots, in the
least protracted fashion. This justifies recourse to concrete primitive
or quasi-primitive terms in most definitions, notwithstanding the need
for abstract symbolic expressions in order to lessen the burden of
memory through analysis. Another consequence is that apart from
adequate observational techniques for data gathering and a proper
system of rules for argumentation, a "verbal" part of logic is needed
to "clarify" the use of terms. This clarification of terms forms a
necessary step towards the encyclopedic treatment of knowledge.
One element in the Preface is specially worth noting: the special
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE 165

sense in which Leibniz finds nominalism agreeable. In short, nominal-

ists are right in rejecting the "reality of forms and universals" under
Occam's principle Entia non esse multiplicanda praeter necessitatern.
Leibniz seems to entertain a pragmatic conception of nominalism,
one which stresses an economy of hypotheses in accounting for the
corresponding of general concepts with the structure of reality. But
he rejects Hobbes's position, identified as "super-nominalist", because
Hobbes adds to the assertion that the universals are reducible to
names as signs, the more extreme one that the truth of things expres-
sed in propositions consists in a mere computation of names arbitrarily
defined. Leibniz counterargues that a change of notation in arithmetic
is consistent with the view that definition may be arbitrary, but that
operations achieved with any algorithmic system of terms express
universal logical relations. Passing from symbolic idioms to common
languages, the principle remains that the scheme of possible analogies
generates the invention of (contingent) linguistic forms, whatever be
the arbitrariness of the language signs involved and the uncertainty of
the so-called primitive roots.
Additional arguments are brought in by the 1677 Dialogus,
which presents a significant criticism of Hobbes's nominalism. Truth
and falsehood relate to propositions; but even though we may take
definitions to be arbitrary, a mere matter of signs, whether names or
characters, we cannot consider the inferences built from these
definitions to be arbitrary all along. For instance, one may hypothesize
the principles of an algorithm; as consequences, on the one hand, the
system of signs chosen has necessary implications since signs are
necessary for reasoning when one deals with complex terms issued
through combination; on the other hand, even if the signs are arbitrary
in themselves and in the way they express combinatory processes, their
connections and articulations, when distinct, necessarily refer to rela-
tions in rebus, so to speak. The characters need simply be well
invented: "Est aliqua relatio sive ordo in characteribus qui in rebus,
inprimis si characteres sint bene inventi". 6 Leibniz develops
significant illustrations. One is linguistic and tends to reassert the
dependence of compound terms on laws of combination: the name
"Lucifer" evidently is built from a conjunction of more primitive
terms (lux and fero) whose source may depend on stipulative
definitions; but the compound itself draws its objective meaning from
the mode of combination of the simpler terms out of which it is made.
166 FRAN(~OIS DUCHESNEAU

But this is probably even truer in the syntaxical combination of words.

The other illustrations are mathematical. Whether one draws arith-
metrical operations in a binary, decimal, or duodecimal system, the
progressions in applying the axioms to arbitrary terms show the same
fundamental objective relations (rerum habitudines). More
significantly even, if one takes the algebraic substitution of eqpivalents
in the squaring of a given quantity a, where a stands alternately for a
sum and a difference, the result of the relevant substitutions will
confirm a constant inferential law. This way, Leibniz suggests that the
formal truth and falsehood of propositions entails a positive or nega-
tive analogy with the structure of reality expressed through the sup-
posedly arbitrary system of terms. To quote Leibniz:

Yet I notice that, if characters can be used for ratiocination, there is m them a kind of
complex mutual relation [situs] or order which fits the things; if not in the single words
at least in their combination and inflection, although it is even better if found in the
single words themselves. Though it varies, this order somehow corresponds in all
languages... For although characters are arbitrary, their use and connection have
something which is not arbitrary, namely a definite analogy between characters and
things, and the relations which different characters expressing the same thing have to
each other. This analogy or relation is the basis of truth. For the result is that whether
we a~pply one set of characters or another, the products will be the same or equivalent or
correspond analogously.7

In short, it is possible to take some rational relations to be inherently

bound to a system of signs (for instance the proof by casting off nines
in decimal arithmetic), but fundamentally, any system of rational
relations comprises a similarity of connections with the real, and with
any comparable system. The problem arising therefrom relates to the
possibility of conceiving how characters can represent the internal
structure of individuals. In Leibniz's philosophy, up to the 1680s, a
major ambiguity had developed. On the one hand, assertions about
reality depend upon the rational connections in propositions which
express essences or clusters of possibles; on the other hand, the
concrete individualities acting to generate the manifold of phenomena
seem to evade our capacity to account for them. On that side of the
theory, Leibniz seems reluctant to reinstate the scholastic substantial
forms as generic essences of individuals, and he also wants to escape
any kind of determinism based on a systematic ruling of nature
according to propositional necessities. The Spinozistic equation be-
tween the possible and the real deprives contingency of any logical
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE 167

standing. Whenever this argument springs forth, Leibniz is embar-

rassed with the realism of rational connections which he launched
against Hobbes's nominalism, and which seems to entail a realism of
essences, 8 eliminating, as it seems, the contingent agency of in-
dividuals.
Between 1678-1680, Leibniz proceeds to solve these epistemologi-
cal paradoxes in a way which will model his later thinking on the
matter.
First of all, any system of signs, any partial characteristics is to be
understood as expressing the ideal of the art of combinations; its basis
is "scientia de forma seu de simili et dissimili",9 which supposes that
one has analysed concepts into systematic arrangements of primitive
notions, using combinatory symbols to express these arrangements. As
Leibniz tells Tschirnhaus: although one finds it difficult to get to truly
primitive notions, one can quite easily produce definitions which are
built on reciprocal properties distinguishing the definiendum from all
other possible definienda, and this makes it possible to derive all the
other properties of the thing defined. The better the definition, the
more it approximates to a deductive combination from primitive
notions. Ideally, the possibility of the definiendum should be laid open
in the definition, but this does not necessarily entail a concrete
instantiation of the corresponding object, not even of the properties
which reveal the cognitive possibility of the object. A universal
analytics, though expressing the rational connections for any
representation of the real, might fall short of expressing the true
genesis of cognitive objects. "No one should fear", Leibniz says, "that
the contemplation of characters will lead us away from the things
themselves; on the contrary, it leads us into the interior of things". 1°
But this is to be understood in a discursive fashion, under the con-
dition of a presumed adequacy of the definition to its object. And so,
essences of individual substances might ultimately seem out of reach,
if our combinatory power is unable to cope with the full schemes of
similarities and dissimilarities which correspond to concrete in-
dividualities. Notwithstanding this limitation, Leibniz seems ready to
admit some connection of our concepts to things. They would express
them partially, so to say, in a schematic manner, seizing upon a
general analogy of relations between the complex terms and the
complex reality signified. Leibniz has in mind that there might be a
plurity of modes of expression, according to the objects and the ideas
168 FRANCOIS DUCHESNEAU

of properties they give access to. "What is common to all these

expressions is that we can pass from a consideration of the relations in
the expression to a knowledge of the corresponding properties of the
thing expressed". Hence it is clearly not necessary for that which
expresses to be similar to the thing expressed, if only a certain analogy
is maintained between the relations.l! So, one can eventually do with
partially inadequate concepts or with concepts combining purely
symbolic expressions with some observational data. The essential
element in an idea, having both formal and material relevance, is the
connection shown between the various properties of the object, even
if this connection is evidenced indirectly by interposition of a symbolic
system, such as the terms of natural languages.
Second, in De Synthesi et Analysi universali seu Arte inveniendi et
judicandi (1679) 12 Leibniz sets forth significant distinctions between
rational and factual knowledge, between necessary and contingent
relations. There he links the art of combinations with some of the
major themes in his epistemology: confused/distinct notions;
nominal/real definitions, a priori/a posteriori proofs of possibility. I
shall not expatiate on these, but restrict myself to the way Leibniz
relates the two types of knowledge. One can deal with confused
concepts in discovering distinct ones which are concomitant with
those, whether by immediate or derivative resolution, because in
doing so one may arrive at a causal analysis of the confused concepts.
On the other hand, actual experience of the definiendum affords a
posteriori proof of its analytic possibility, even though the causal
analysis remains hypothetical. Insofar as real definition is concerned, il
seems to suffice that we get to a possible way of generating or
combining the object. The rational process so described offers the
analogy of a causal analysis of a more direct kind. Primary truths of
fact refer to what forms the object of immediate reflective experience.
I perceive myself who thinks, and jointly intrinsic differences in my
thoughts. On the basis of these primary truths of fact, I may derive
propositions expressing the agreement of the various phenomena. The
symbolic coherence of the system of empirical truths serves to ground
analytic and synthetic extensions of it:
The authority of the senses and of other witnesses once established, we may prepare a
record of phenomena from which a mixed knowledge can be formed by combining with
them truths abstracted from experience. But we need a particular art for arranging as
well as for ordering and combining our experiments, so that useful inductions can be
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE 169

made from them, causes discovered, and general truths and postulates [aphorismi et
praenotiones] set up? 3

Clearly, Leibniz considers that there is r o o m for c o m b i n a t i o n s within

the realm of experience p r o v i d e d we can get to " f o r m s or formulas of
things in general, that is, quality in general or similarity and dis-
similarity". TM This implies that a suppletive rational s c h e m e can be
i m p o s e d on the manifold of the data which get expressed that w a y as
c o n t i n g e n t results of hypothetical essences, themselves d e n o t a t e d b y
linguistic c h a r a c t e r s or names.
A n d so, third, Leibniz starts dealing in an original w a y with the
c o n c e p t s or essences of individual substances, as e v i d e n c e d in the
f r a g m e n t s on Freedom (circa 1679) and on First Truths (circa 1 6 8 0 -
1684), edited respectively by F o u c h e r de Careil and C o u t u r a t . Of the
first f r a g m e n t , I shall only stress that apparently no truth of fact or of
individual things can be straightforwardly translated into the l a n g u a g e
of finite c o m b i n a t i o n s b e c a u s e the causal analysis would imply an
infinite series of reasons with which G o d alone could be acquainted.
P r i m a r y truths which are k n o w n per se still rule o v e r all combinations,
but derivative truths can either be r e d u c e d to p r i m a r y truths in a given
n u m b e r of analytic steps (reductive or anagogical analysis) or be
e q u a t e d with the notion of an infinite progression. T h e latter e x e m -
plifies c o n t i n g e n c y :

In contingent truths.., though the predicate inheres in the subject, we can never
demonstrate this [this reduction to its prime factors], nor can the proposition ever be
reduced to an equation or an identity, but the analysis proceeds to infinity, only God
being able to see, not the end of the analysis indeed, since there is no end, but the nexus
of terms or the inclusion of the predicate in the subject, since he sees everything which
is in the series. Indeed, this truth itself arises in part from his intellect and in part from
his will and so expresses his infinite perfection and the harmony of the entire series of
things, each in its own particular way. ~5

Indeed, the interesting expression in this passage is nexus ter-

minorum. Leibniz has in mind that the c o n n e c t i o n of elements in the
c o n t i n g e n t propositions forms a system of its own which can be
expressed or described as s o m e kind of integral for a series of
infinitesimals. T h e m e t a p h o r he sets forth in the first f r a g m e n t is based
on a c o m p a r i s o n of truths with propositions, when these c a n n o t be
r e d u c e d to c o m m m e n s u r a b l e quantities. But, while o n e can master
m a t h e m a t i c a l d e m o n s t r a t i o n s about infinite series, it is not the case
170 FRAN(~OIS DUCHESNEAU

with the infinity comprised in contingent truths, which reflects the

direct intuition God has of its own nature and free decrees. The
"contingent possibilities" form essences built as progressive series ad
infinitum, which thus cannot be reduced to identities and the principle
of contradiction. In this specific case the appeal to an infinite nexus of
individual realities is needed to explain or account for the rationality
involved. A t the phenomenal level, the result is the full-fledged
interdependence of all material parts and the strictly provisional status
of geometrical "essences" when used to express the structures and
laws of nature.
The fragment on First Truths which prepares the ground for the
epistemology contained in the 1684 Meditationes de cognitione, veritate
et ideis develops the conception of the principle Praedicatum inest
subjecto that could serve for contingent as well as necessary truths.
The consequence is the exclusion of pure extrinsic denominations to
make room for the classical Leibnizian theory of the individual subs-
stance as an agent comprising within itself the power to generate an
infinite series of modifications. This conception is perfectly reflected in
the proposed notion of corporeal substance:
Space, time, extension, and motion are not things but well-founded modes of our
consideration. Extension, motion, and bodies themselves, insofar as they consist in our
extension and motion alone, are not substances but true phenomena, like rainbows
and parhelia .... 16

A n d if we look for a more positive conception of the corresponding

individual essence, it boils down to a power of acting and generating
an infinite series of phenomenal properties under well-founded modes
of consideration. 17 I t is in a protracted or revised sense that the
scholastic concept of substantial form may apply to characterize the
individual active sources of infinite progress in phenomenal properties.
Starting from the primitive truths of fact, Leibniz develops the analogy
of bodies with the perceiving self, which is a way of figuring out a
schematic representation of their essences. As mentioned in a frag-
ment on ' T h e True Method of Dealing with Philosophy and
Theology':

It can be said that [a body] is an extended substance, only if it be held that all substance
acts, and all agents are substances. It can be shown adequately from the essential
principles of metaphysics that what does not act does not exist, for there is no power of
acting without a beginning of action. You say there is no little power in a bent bow, yet
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE 171

it does not act. But I say, on the contrary, that it does act; even before it is suddenly
released, it strives. But all striving [conatus] is action. For the rest, much that is
excellent and certain can be said about the nature of conatus and the principles of
action, or as the Scholastics called it, of substantial forms. ~s

Interestingly enough, substantial forms or essences of individual con-

tingent entities are equated with concepts of the Leibnizian dynamics
which are based on an hypothetico-deductive scheme of inference,
blending the notion of infinite progression with some mathematical
means of describing a general analogy of causal interactions: the laws
of dynamics thus aim at expressing the inassignable logic of individual
entities, their unreachable complete notions. Around 1680, Leibniz
would have stressed (1) that linguistic categories afford a diffuse
analogy of the real definition of finite substances; (2) that the
coherence of the propositions built with these terms ascertains the
objective reference of such abstract and partial meanings; (3) that
mixed knowledge, combining experience (and its linguistic trans-
positions) with mathematical schematisms enables a deeper access to
the interior of things Via more rational analogies developing as hypo-
thetico-deductive inferences.

Now let us turn to Jolley's recent interpretation of the Leibnizian talk

of essences in Book III of the N o u v e a u x e s s a i s . 19 About Locke's
doctrine, Jolley suggests that it comprises two claims: (a) that there
are no natural kinds independent of our framing them through com-
plex ideas and general representative terms; (b) that in actual
classifications, we are left with clustering observable features and
building nominal essences. In view of (b), Jolley asserts that Locke
tends to assume (a) which entails a significant ontological commit-
ment. As he says:
Though (a) may entail (b), the converse is clearly not true: it is quite consistent to
maintain (b) while denying (a), in other words, while holding that nature does divide
things up into kinds. Locke's tendency to confuse these issues may obscure the point,
but the possibility of holding (b) while denying (a) is implicit in Leibniz's challenge to
Locke. 2°

I think one should be more careful in presenting Locke's position on

the issue. Jolley tends to obliterate the fact that Locke builds a
172 FRANCOIS DUCHESNEAU

two-fold distinction: the first Lockean distinction is between nominal

essences, set by the mind, clustering under a general term the various
empirical elements of a complex idea, and real essences in the
scholastic tradition, that is, generic forms or moulds framing the
substantive nature of things according to ontological kinds. The
second distinction is between nominal essences, which are set by the
mind as factual basis of classification, and real essences in the Boylean
tradition, which are conceived as an abstract model for the causal
derivation of phenomenal entities, themselves empirically classified
according to nominal essences. There is undoubtedly an ontological
commitment in Locke's position which Jolley tends to underestimate.
But, on the other hand, one must note that Lockean real essences are
analogically conceived on a transductive basis; they are inferred on the
ground of what has been called the corpuscular hypothesis, 2t and
within the limits of what I venture to call possible experience. The
consequence is evident that they cannot represent natural kinds de
jure, but only pretend to the same de facto status which the
empirically framed collections of features enjoy. And so it is quite
understandable that considering the borderline cases represented by
monsters and changelings, Locke questions the independent stability
of any representation of real essences causally connected with our
factual systems of classification. This does not mean that the picture of
specific corpuscular structures causally linked with our clustering of
phenomenal properties lacks objectivity. The analogy fares well within
the limits of an extended scheme of experience and serves to articulate
a systematic picture of natural entities which indeed falls short of
deductive certainty, but possesses some limited hypothetico-deductive
virtues and a far-reaching use in framing a knowledge of probability
about the world.
What about Leibniz then? According to Jolley, Leibniz challenges
the implication of (a) under (b) and even denies that (b) is in fact true.
On that second issue Leibniz's main argument is that our use of
general words involves a reference to the inner constitution of things,
and does not strictly or exclusively correspond with the phenomenal
co-instantiated properties and actual powers. For instance, in the case
of the substantive name 'gold', one may extend the reference to a real
essence from which the manifold of specific properties are supposed to
flow, including experienced properties as well as anticipations of
properties to be discovered or ascertained by further enquiries and the
knowledge of others:
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE 173

So do you see, sir, that the name 'gold', for instance, signifies not merely what the
speaker knows of gold, e.g., something yellow and very heavy, but also what he does not
know, which may be known about gold by someone else, namely: a body endowed with
an inner constitution from which its colour and weight flow, and which also generates
other properties which he acknowledges to be better known by the experts.22

Indeed our definitions of such entities as gold are provisional but

Leibniz seems to suggest that our knowledge could progressively
conform such notions to the ideal of adequate knowledge by showing
the reciprocal entailment of the various phenomenal properties which
represent a given species.
Jolley points out that for Leibniz substantive terms refer to the
internal constitution of things which is the basis for determining
essences; the p h e n o m e n a l properties are considered as partial mani-
festations of these. However, Jolley does not stress the fact that the
Leibnizian conception of material essences does not outstretch the
limitations of L o c k e ' s positive conception of real essences. Having no
direct access to such essences, one is apparently left with the mere
analogy of phenomenal properties under general modes of con-
sideration, such as extension, motion, f i g u r e . . , to build up a schema-
tism for the internal structure of things. For instance, assigning the
atomic n u m b e r 79 to gold is something which would not m a k e any
difference in the epistemological process for both Locke and Leibniz.
except m a y b e that Leibniz is more inclined to reconstruct deductive
chains of properties once they are geometrically transposed. Locke
seems methodologically more sceptical about the rational recon-
struction of a nexus between the empirical properties.
T h e real difference between Leibniz and L o c k e shows up with the
way man is assigned a specific essence. L o c k e keeps to his framing of
nominal essences for the sorting out of individuals to w h o m the term
' m a n ' applies. U n d e r such considerations, man is by no means
different from gold, except that we can combine ideas of reflection
with ideas of sensation in framing the complex idea for classificatory
purposes. For Leibniz, on the contrary, in the case of man, by
reference to self awareness one can get a direct access to a notion of
reason governing the manifold expressions of manhood. T h e problem
is then to connect this reflective notion with the status of essences in
the case of extended substances. Leibniz's metaphysics purports pre-
cisely to ground this connection by an application of the principle of
sufficient reason. T h e p h e n o m e n a l structure of the physical properties
requires a true unity of their manifold expressing itself through the
174 FRANCOIS DUCHESNEAU

spontaneity of force, under the analogy of the cogito. So, ultimately,

real essences are reduced to immaterial monadic structures, leaving
the natural kinds at the level of intermediary phenomenal and abstract
structures: partial essences, so to speak, which form at best necessary
conditions for the application of general terms, but would require
sufficient reasons of a highly complex order, involving infinite series
of properties.
In compliance with his view on essences as sortal tools, Locke
disqualifies the notion of a strictly individual essence: nothing is
essential to my individual existence. 23 On the contrary, Leibniz
develops the idea that the ground for any talk of essences concerning
contingent substances is the fact that the existential properties of an
individual are all expressed in its complete notion, at least in God's
understanding. Even though this super-essentialist doctrine is not fully
developed in the N o u v e a u x essais, there is enough there to suggest
that a complete notion of the individual, implying infinity, acts as real
subject for all propositions ascertaining the structural and specific
properties of a contingent substance. In (3.6.4) for instance, 24 he
stresses that it is essential for any substance to act, for finite substances
to be extended and in motion. But these generic structural properties
are partial, and abstract determinations of the relevant individual
essences that entail as well the manifold of particular states forming
their contingent structures. One can at least go one step further and
identify the generic features of any rational individuality on the basis
of one's own self-reflective experience of essential elements such as
organism, (ap)perception-appetite, reason: these make for the struc-
ture of individuals conceived through the most systematic analogy,
beyond the analogy of physical or geometrical properties. This is the
model of a revised res cogitans integrating and expressing the primi-
tive truth of fact varia a m e cogitari.

Now, beyond Jolley's analysis, one may ask how the connection of
terms with the interior of things makes a difference in Leibniz's theory
of empirical knowledge. I shall cast a few elements for an answer.
First of all, Leibniz identifies clearly all generic terms as abstractive
when compared with real individualities which envelop infinity. On
that account, no such term may fit an adequate spelling out of natural
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE 175

entities. But, on the other hand, whether abstract ideas are arbitrarily
framed by the mind or correlated with reference to observations of
phenomena, essences express mere possibilities, which at once can be
conceived as independent of our thinking: "Essence is fundamentally
nothing but the possibility of the thing under consideration". 25 When
such essences are conceived on the basis of fundamental similarities or
dissimilarities, it is obvious then that such essences reflect a realm of
logical possibilities, which, taken as such, have a kind of objective
status. This is utterly denied by Locke whose nominalism excludes the
existence of possibles as such. For Leibniz, definitions, whether real or
nominal, aim at expressing the autonomous logical reality of possibles.
A plurality of definitions may correspond to a specific essence.
Definitions can be taken as cognitive tools apart from the objective
logical relations they tend to represent. T h e case with real definitions
is plain, since they express the possibility of the definiendum by
assuming an abstract sufficient causation of it. The more interesting
case is with nominal definitions which fall short of showing that type of
causation, but can be combined with a posteriori proof of the matter:

Something which is thought possible is expressed by a definition; but if this definition

does not at the same time express this possibility then it is merely nominal, since in this
case we can wonder whether the definition expresses anything real - that is, possible -
until experience comes to our aid by acquainting us a posteriori with the reality (when
the thing actually occurs in the world). This will do, when reason cannot acquaint us a
priori with the reality of the thing defined by exhibiting its cause or the possibility of its
being generated. So it is not within our discretion to put our ideas together as we see
fit, unless the combination is justified either by reason, showing its possibility, or by
experience, showing its actuality and hence its possibility. 26

No doubt, we lack real definitions about the internal constitutions of

corporeal substances, but our nominal definitions based on the cor-
relation of the phenomenal properties, more or less rationalized, elicit
the conceiving of such an unknown constitution as will serve as a
sufficient reason for the correlation. Thus, this position authorizes
hypotheses based on analogies to account for the causal mechanism of
the relevant phenomena. In a significant manner, Leibniz insists on the
properties of nominal definitions within the cognitive process about
essences. H e takes such definitions to be conjectural and provisional,
more or less so according to the case at hand. But this does not create
any serious obstacle on the way to knowledge, insofar as we increase
the "nexus" of possibles so defined. We can approximate the state of
176 FRAN(~OIS DUCHESNEAU

real definitions either by instantiation of this nexus in experience or by

correlating it with real definitions of a logical or mathematical type.
To illustrate the first way, Leibniz takes his examples from what he
calls the pleonasm of nominal definitions. Sensible qualities can be
represented in a plurality of ways in the empirical scheme of their
production. Similarly, gold can be defined nominally in various
fashions. But it tends to happen that the comparison of these diverse
means of inadequate knowledge suggests a mode of consilience to
improve our provisional representation of essences. (For instance, if
one finds more than one way of producing a given colour by prismatic
refraction, in line with Huygens's analysis of double refraction in the
Icelandic spar.) 27 Correlatively, Leibniz stresses the necessity of
recasting provisional definitions with a view to taking contextual data
into account: "The more features we accumulate, the less provisional
is the definition".28 Though definitions are provisional, they constantly
refer to the internal constitution of things. Even so, external marks as
they have been collected already, may prove insufficient to argue for a
discrete essence manifested by such a relative clustering of properties.
Leibniz is very keen on the consequences deriving from the fact that
one could succeed in producing counterfeited gold with a perfect
similarity of properties; the foremost consequence would be an in-
centive to determine an additional criterium for discriminating real
from artificial gold. The schematism of discovery is meaningful insofar
as it refers to an internal constitution to be revealed by a nexus
including further characters.
On the other hand, the framing of nominal definitions to correlate
the rational processes in real definitions opens up significant
methodological prospects. Leibniz sketches a parallel between logical
and physical species. Evidently, logical species are discriminated by
the least rational difference; a good example in applying such dis-
criminations for the sake of synthetic progression is to be found in the
classification of curves from the number of elements required to
determine their respective mode of generation (e.g., circle: one spe-
cies; hyperbolas and ellipses: an infinity of species forming one
genus; ovals with three foci: an infinity of genera each forming an
infinity of species). One must also consider that in the realm of ideas of
complex modes, as well as in that of ideas of substances, a process can
take place to approximate definitions capable of ascertaining the
possibility of the definiendum. On that account, Leibniz takes his
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE 177

example from a series of nominal definitions of the parabola, aiming at

the disclosure of the "internal essence" of that figure. His conclusion
is to the effect that the same situation prevails for purely intelligible
modes when hard to analyse, as for nominal definitions of bodies when
one aims at a sufficient reason for their internal constitutions. 29 Physi-
cal species are framed arbitrarily insofar as they are mostly dependent
on extrinsic denominations, on the symbols set to express these
denominations; but, provided that they are framed as a regular nexus
of intelligible relations, they cannot outstretch possibilities actualized
by nature, and so they are due to express them in a more or less direct,
in a more or less complete way. The formal adequacy of such
definitions entails some ontological reference. Even if we suppose that
there is a significant disparity between phenomena and the inside of
things and that the same appearance corresponds to two different
internal constitutions, there must be some immediate formal cause to
be found equally in both constitutions. But even more, " p h e n o m e n a
themselves are realities". 3° And therefore, even if we supposed that a
c o m m o n appearance might be truly based on two distinct constitu-
tions, the phenomenal essence so to speak, as implying a common
"immediate formal cause" might serve as a basis for a rational expla-
nation. (For instance, the supposed disparity between the blue of a
rainbow and the blue of a turquoise, according to the physicist
Mariotte, might be disposed of on the ground of a common
phenomenal set of processes.) T h e conclusion here deserves full
spelling:

It can be said, then, that whatever we truthfully distinguish or c o m p a r e is also

distinguished or m a d e alike by nature, although nature has distinctions and comparisons
which are u n k n o w n to us and which m a y be better than ours. 3~

As a result, it seems that any systematic classification based on an

appropriate correlation of data will form a means of access to the
realm of individual essences expressing themselves in orderly and
lawful nexuses of phenomena. The examples chosen are once more
quite instructive. Leibniz discusses the possible systems of
classification in botanics: some are based on external features such as
the form of flowers, some others on the organs and reproductive
processes. Leibniz takes this second type of system to be more
promising as an approximation to the divisions of nature itself. On the
other hand, Leibniz is prone to admit that a very appropriate
178 FRAN(~OIS DUCHESNEAU

classification should in most cases avoid splitting the ultimate notions

ad infinitum. Even if it is impossible to attain the internal constitution
so as to ascertain the causal disparity involved, there are contextual
elements which make us determine at which stage of discrimination we
should settle for a species infima. 32 In the same way, one may very
appropriately in certain cases choose to delimit species and determine
nomenclature in a semi-arbitrary fashion; as when setting units of
length and weight so as to obtain a convenient ordering of data for
further research. 33 Even though Leibniz entertains the view that true
contingent essences imply an infinitely progressive analysis, he seems
in the Nouveaux essais to link internal constitution with fixed attri-
butes for each species. Taking into account that the first point is
metaphysical, while the phenomenal categories are supposed to
express lawful physical connections, there is no straightforward con-
tradiction in stressing that abstract, partial denotations may be in-
trinsic while at the same time filling the purpose of discursive know-
ledge of the real, what Leibniz in the First Truths fragment called
mixed knowledge. At its best, this knowledge should aim at equating
its definitions with dynamical dispositions capable of accounting for
the causation of phenomenal properties, such as reason in the case of
the human individualities. Under this interpretation alone can the
notion of substantial form be connected with a classificatory process
based on a system of characters expressing phenomenal essences in a
relative way:

And if we had the acuity of some of the higher spirits, and knew things well enough,
perhaps we would find for each species a fixed set of attributes which were common to
all the individuals of that species and which a single living organism always retained no
matter what changes or metamorphoses it might go through. (Reason is a fixed attribute
of that kind, associated with the best-known physical species, namely that of humans;
reason belongs inalienably to each individual member of the species, although one
cannot always be aware of it). But lacking such knowledge, we avail ourselves of the
attributes which appear to us the most convenient for distinguishing and comparing
things and, in short, for recognizing species or sorts; and those attributes always have
their foundation in reality. 34

From the early 1670s, Leibniz had stressed the importance of trying
to equate the meaningshifts in words with discursive processes
expressing rational relations of an objective nature. This affords the
main argument to discard Hobbes's nominalism; but Leibniz was left
confronted with the difficult problem of spelling out an adequate
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE 179

conception of the essences of contingent individuals. In the late 1670s,

he developed his theory that such essences are to be conceived as the
sufficient reasons of clusters of properties that can be schematised
under laws encompassing elements in infinite regress. At the same
time, the Leibnizian epistemology makes it possible to conceive the
general forms or essences of individual entities as provisional "nexuses
of terms" expressing the properties that derive from the dynamic
internal constitution. Mixed knowledge builds from linguistic trans-
positions of experience data and from geometrical analogies yielding
sorts of mathematical inferences: thereby we may gain a progressively
deeper access to general essences and from these to the individualized
ones. Relying on this genealogical reconstruction, the following sec-
tions of the paper were more concerned with Leibniz's views as
expressed in the early 1700s through the confrontation with Lock-
ianism in the Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain. I ventured to
discuss some of Jolley's interpretations. It seemed reievant to point out
that Locke's distinction between real and nominal essences is twofold,
excluding the scholastic substantive forms but authorizing hypotheti-
cal constructs under a rule of analogy with phenomenal connections.
As a basis for factual classifications, Leibniz does not stress a concep-
tion of real essence highly different from this positive Lockean notion.
The main differences he admits boil down first to a methodology of
connecting classificatory terms with what I would call rationalized
analogies permitting hypothetico-deductive inferences.35 Second, he
devised an equivalent of the scholastic substantial form to fit the
essential nature of individuals, at least for human beings, on the basis
of his notion of primary truths of fact. E n bref, Leibniz's view of real
essences is far more relativistic and interesting than suggested by
Jolley, but this fact could become even more apparent were more
elements of the Leibnizian corpus submitted to a combined genealo-
gical and systematic approach. 36

NOTES

1 Nicolas Jolley: 1984, Leibniz and Locke. A Study of the New Essays on Human
Understanding, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
2 Marii Nizolii de Veris Principiis et Vera Ratione Philosophandi contra Pseudo-philo-
sophos libri 1V: 1670, inscripti illustrissimo Baroni a Boineburg ab Editore G.G.L.L.
qui Dissertationem Praeliminarem de instituto opere atque optima philosophi
dictione.., textui adjecit. Apud Hermannum a Sande, Francofurti.
180 FRANCOIS DUCHESNEAU

3 C. J. Gerhardt (ed.), Die philosophischen Schriften yon G. W. Leibniz, (hereafter P)

IV, p. 139; Leroy E. Loemker (ed.), G. W. Leibniz. Philosophical Letters and Papers.
2nd edn, p. 122, (hereafter L).
4 p IV, p. 139; L, p. 122.
5 p IV, p. 140; L, p. 122.
6 p VII, p. 192.
7 Cf. P VII, p. 192; and L, p. 184.
s Cf. Letter to Philipp, end of January, 1680, P IV, pp. 283-87; excerpt in L, p. 273.
9 Cf. Letter to Tschirnhaus, end of May, 1678, C. J. Gerhard (ed.), Mathematische
Schriften, (hereafter M), IV, p. 460; L, p. 192.
"~ M IV, p. 461; L, p. 193.
11 Ouid sitldea (1678), P VII, pp. 263-64; L, p. 207.
12 Cf. P VII, pp. 292-98; L, pp. 229-34.
13 p VII, p. 296; L, p. 232.
14 p VII, p. 297; L, p. 233.
15 F. de C. (Nouvelles lettres et opuscules inidits), pp. 178-85; L, p. 265.
16 Cout. (Opuscules etfragments inddits), p. 523; L, p. 270.
17 Cf. L, p. 271 n. 11: "Existence could therefore be derived analytically only through
an infinite analysis. Insofar as they conform to logical laws, our scientific formulas apply
exactly only to incomplete or abstract concepts, but they are incomplete simplifications
of existence and therefore do not determine it completely".
18 p VII, p. 326; L, p. 271 n. 9.
19 Jolley, Chap. VIII. Essences, pp. 145-16.
20 Jolley, p. 149.
21 Cf. John W. Yolton: 1970, Locke on the Compass of Human Understanding,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Francois Duchesneau: 1973, L'empirisme de
Locke, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague.
22 Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain, 3.11.24, or Siimtliche Schriften und
Briefe, (hereafter A), VI, vi, p. 354. All references are as well to the translation by P.
Remnant and J, Bennett: 1981, G. W. Leibniz. New Essays on Human Understanding,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
23 Cf. A n Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 3.6.4.
24 Cf. A VI, vi, p. 305.
25 N.E., 3.3.15, A VI, vi, p. 293.
26 N.E., 3.3.15, A VI, vi, pp. 293-94.
27 N.E., 3.3.16, A VI, vi, p. 300.
28 N.E., 3.6.34, A Vi, vi, p. 324.
z9Cf. N.E., 3.10.20, A VI, vi, p. 347: "Well, you can clearly see from the example of
geometrical modes, sir, that there is nothing much wrong with referring to specific inner
essences [qu" on n' a pas trop de tort de se rapporter aux essences internes et sp~ciCiques];
though sensible things - whether substances or modes - of which we have only
provisional nominal definitions, and for which we do not expect easily to find real ones,
differ considerably from the intellectual modes which are difficult to dissect, since we
can eventually arrive at the inner constitutions of geometrical figures".
30 N.E., 3.6.13; A VI, vi, p. 3(19.
31 N.E., 3.6.13; A VI, vi, p. 309.
 THE CLASSIFICATORY FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE 181

32 N.E., 3.6.38; A VI, vi, p. 325: "However, in the physical sense, we do not give
weight to every variation; and we speak either unreservedly [nettement], when it is a
question merely of appearances, or conjecturally, when it is a question of the inner truth
of things, with the presumption that they have some essential and unchangeable nature,
as man has reason. So the presumption is that things that differ only through accidental
changes, such as water and ice or quicksilver in its liquid form andits sublimate, are of a
single species. In organic bodies we ordinarily take generation or pedigree as a
provisional indication of sameness of species, just as among bodies of a more homo-
geneous kind we go by bow they can be produced. It is true that we cannot judge
accurately, for lack of knowledge of the inner nature of things; but, as I have said more
than once, we judge provisionally and often conjecturally".
33 Cf. N.E., 3.6.27; A VI, vi, p. 321.
34 N.E., 3.6.13; A VI, vi, p. 310; cf. also N.E., 4.3.24; A VI, vi, p. 318.
35 Cf. On the Leibnizian notion of hypothesis, Francois Duchesneau: 1980, 'Hypoth6ses
et finalit6 dans la science leibnizienne', Studia leibnitiana XII, 161-78; and 1982,
'Leibniz et les hypoth6ses de physique', Philosophiques IX, 223-38.
36 For the preparation of this paper, the author has benefited from a research grant of
the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The paper has been
presented at the international symposium on Language and Thought in the 17th and
18th Century Philosophy, held at Trinity College, University of Toronto, in October
1985.

D6partement de Philosophie
Universit6 de Montr6al
Montr6al, Qu6bec H3C 3J7
Canada