Review

Reviewed Work(s): Leibniz' Theory of Relations. by Massimo Mugnai

Review by: G. H. R. Parkinson
Source: Mind , Jan., 1994, New Series, Vol. 103, No. 409 (Jan., 1994), pp. 102-105
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2253969

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102 Book Reviews

What we have, then, is not so much a theory of content as an account of how

such a theory should go, and an exploration of the implications it would have.
Some of the implications are interesting, especially the author's view that a sat-
isfying theory of content has to appeal to notions of value, and his related attack
on the fact-value distinction. But unless the theory can produce an analysis of at
least some legitimately intentional concepts, the value of these far-reaching
claims is largely mooted. Moreover, even on this broader metaphysical front
there are a lot of provocative but dubious theses. To take just one example, it is
not obvious that the Kantian conceptualist theme ever comes to much. One would
expect such a view to have it that the conceptual apparatus of the knower imposes
some sort of structural features on the world, at least as experienced. But this
seems not to be so. On the contrary, the author denies any idealist implications
for conceptualism (p. 17), and denies that concepts determine the world empiri-
cally at all (p. 19). On the whole, the claim that the nature of the world is not fixed
independently of the nature of our concepts of it seems to come to little more than
the unexciting and not especially Kantian position that had the world been differ-
ently structured, we would conceive it differently.
This book is not without some creative ideas and insightful discussions, but it
is in general disappointing. There is too much clambering about on the metaphys-
ical high iron of the envisioned edifice, and not enough of the reliable brick and
mortar work it would take to build it. There is also some heavy going, since a lot
of the discussion occurs at a high level of abstraction. I would not recommend it.

Department of Philosophy HUGH J. MCCANN

Texas A&M University
College Station
Texas 77843-4237
USA

Leibniz' Theory of Relations, by Massimo Mugnai. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner

Verlag, 1992 (Studia Leibnitiana Supplementa 28). Pp. 291. DM 96.

Since Bertrand Russell published his book on Leibniz in 1900, the problem of
Leibniz's theory of relations has exercised Leibniz scholars. Russell drew atten-
tion to Leibniz's thesis that all propositions are of the subject-predicate form.
This thesis, Russell argued, was central to Leibniz's metaphysics; it was also
clearly wrong. Relational propositions form an obvious exception to Leibniz's
thesis; and although Leibniz tried to reduce these to subject-predicate proposi-
tions, he was unable to do so. Russell based his argument on a relatively small
number of Leibnizian texts, and since he wrote, many more texts which bear on
Leibniz's views about relations have been published. Some scholars argue that,
when all the available evidence has been considered, it can be seen that Russell
was right in saying that Leibniz believed in the reducibility of relational proposi-
tions; that, for example, "Paris is the lover of Helen" can be reduced to proposi-
tions about the non-relational properties of Paris and Helen. But others-notably

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 Book Reviews 103

Hintikka, Ishiguro and Kulstad-argue that when Leibniz said (as he undeniably
did) that all propositions assert a predicate of a subject, he was using the word
"predicate" in a wide sense, to include relational properties. So the predicates of
fParis, for example, would include the relational predicate "lover of Helen".
In his book on Leibniz's theory of relations, Massimo Mugnai argues (p. 13)
that this disagreement has arisen for two main reasons. First, scholars have not
paid attention to the philosophical tradition within which Leibniz's theory of rela-
tions is to be placed: that is, the logical and ontological tradition of scholastic phi-
losophy. Second, there has still not been a systematic investigation of all the
material that is available. These deficiencies Mugnai proposes to make good.
In recent literature, Leibniz is often called a "nominalist". In his first chapter,
Mugnai discusses this issue in the context of passages from Ockham, Duns Sco-
tus, Aquinas and Walter Burleigh. Mugnai's position is that if by "nominalism"
one means "anti-realism", in the sense of a denial that abstractions have an exist-
ence of their own, then Leibniz is rightly called a nominalist. But in another sense
of the term, a nominalist is someone who asserts that universals are no more than
words, and Mugnai rightly insists that in this sense of the term Leibniz was not a
nominalist, but that he may more accurately be called a conceptualist. This can
be seen clearly in Leibniz's views about relations. Relations, Leibniz insists along
with Ockham, "result" from conditions which are independent of the will of the
individuals who think them-independent even of the will of God (p. 26; see also
pp. 29, 111, 114, 115, 117). They are the work of the mind, "entities of reason",
and not accidents or properties of things. This is because (as stated in a passage
(?47) of Leibniz's fifth letter to Clarke, of which Russell made much) the same
accident cannot exist in two subjects at the same time.
This last thesis, which is to be found in the scholastics, is discussed in Mug-
nai's second chapter. The scholastics took the view that a relation, though not
inhering in more than one subject, must have a foundation. Leibniz, for his part,
argued that to any two-termed relation there correspond two relational accidents,
each of which inheres in its own subject. The question now arises (p. 47) whether
such accidents really inhere in the subjects, or whether "inhere" is merely a short-
hand expression, designed to avoid the need for a more complex analysis. Mug-
nai approaches this problem in his third chapter, in which he discusses the
question of what, according to Leibniz, happens to two related subjects if the rela-
tion between them changes. Leibniz's answer is that in such a case there is a
change in the two subjects, and indeed in all related subjects. This is Leibniz's
well-known thesis that there are no purely extrinsic denominations. Every rela-
tion, Leibniz argues, is founded on intrinsic properties of the terms related; fur-
ther, because of the connection that exists between all things, a change in the
relation brings about a change in the intrinsic properties of all subjects.
This introduces a further problem: in what sense one can speak of a correlation
existing among individuals? Mugnai does not answer this question immediately,
but gives first a detailed discussion of Leibniz's views about relational argu-
ments, as contained in his logico-grammatical studies (Ch. 4) and in some of his

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104 Book Reviews

writings on geometry (Ch. 5). Mugnai returns to the topic of the analysis of rela-
tional propositions in has sixth chapter, in which he discusses what is perhaps the
central problem of the whole book: the exact nature of Leibniz's views about rela-
tional predicates. In discussing 'asymmetrical relations (which Russell declared to
resist analysis on Leibnizian lines) Leibniz makes use of relational terms, such as
"superior". So, for example, he analyses "a is wiser than b" into the two propo-
sitions "as to wisdom, a is superior" and "as to wisdom, b is inferior", linked by
the particle "quatenus" ("in so far as")-that is, "a is superior in so far as b is
inferior" (pp. 102-3). It is Mugnai's thesis that Leibniz sees these relational pred-
icates as analyzable further. They are "modes of being", which are "generated by
the simultaneous existence of the subjects to which they refer, with their funda-
mental properties" (p. 103).
In his final chapter Mugnai discusses the way in which Leibniz can maintain
that relations and relational predicates are at once "merely mental things" and
"real objective things". Leibniz, he argues, remains faithful to a conceptualist
ontology of relations (p. 111); at the same time, relations have a reality which is
independent of us, in that they receive reality from the divine intellect. But
though real in this sense, relations as relational accidents are conceptual entities
only, which result from the simultaneous existence of "substances-with-modifi-
cations" (p. 120). Take, for example (Couturat, Opuscules de Leibniz, p. 287), the
relational proposition "Paris is the lover of Helen", which Leibniz analyses as,
"Paris is a lover, and by that very fact Helen is a loved one". Mugnai argues (p.
121) that as "lover" and "loved one" are terms that express relations, the reality
which corresponds to them is a mental reality, in that the relation is the work of
the mind. At the same time, the relation is not an arbitrary mental creation, but is
founded on the (non-relational) properties of Paris and Helen.
This is an excellent book. The interpretation of Leibniz that it offers is not fun-
damentally new; as the author notes (p. 14), his main thesis is close to (though
not precisely the same as) that defended by Benson Mates in his book The Phi-
losophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1986). What distinguishes Mugnai's book is the extreme thoroughness of
its treatment of Leibniz. Mugnai would not say that Leibniz is a faithful follower
of the scholastics; on the contrary, he points out (p. 108) that Leibniz's attitude to
the scholastic tradition is very free and easy. However, by placing Leibniz's
views against a scholastic background, Mugnai has made these views stand out
more clearly. But not only does Mugnai adduce the relevant scholastic theories;
his account of Leibniz's own views about relations is based on an impressive
mastery of the texts. Nor do his services to the reader end here. He has provided
the texts of a number of works which have either not been published previously,
or which have been published only in the Vorausedition of the Academy Edition
of Leibniz's philosophical works, which is not generally accessible. The works in
question are: (1) Circa geometrica generalia (2) De Partibus Orationis (3) a
demonstration of a relational argument provided by Joachim Jungius' editor,
Johann Vagetius and (4) Leibniz's reflections on, and marginal notes on, a book

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 Book Reviews 105

by the pseudonymous author "Aloys Temmik" (in fact, Kuemmet) entitled

Philosophia vera theologiae et medicinae ministra and published in 1706. In the
case of this last work, Mugnai provides not only a transcription of Leibniz's com-
ments, but a facsimile (pp. 169-29 1) of the text that Leibniz owned, together with
his comments and underlinings.
Typographical errors are commendably few. I noticed only one which distorts
the sense: on p. 51 line 8 "nothing happens" should surely be "nothing new hap-
pens". The author has provided his own translations of the texts cited, and these
are usually sound. However, I noticed two errors. On p. 68 line 2 "exponere" is
translated as "expose". But Leibniz is speaking here of the "expositio" of terms,
and a word such as "explain" or "analyse" is called for. Second, the translation of
Jungius, Logica Hamburgensis p. 42 that is offered on p. 46 is both incorrect and
grammatically awkward. The author's translation runs: "So let us say there is a
friendship between Orestes and Pylades when instead a thing is the friendship
which Orestes has for Pylades, another thing that of Pylades toward Orestes".
This should be: "as when we say that there is afriendship between Orestes and
Pylades, when in fact the friendship which Orestes has for Pylades is one thing,
and that which Pylades has for Orestes is another". But these are insignificant
flaws in a book which deserves the close attention of all who have an interest in
Leibniz's theory of relations.

Department of Philosophy G. H. R. PARKINSON

Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences
University of Reading
Whiteknights
Reading RG6 2AA
UK

Practices of Reason: Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. viii + 229. ?27.50.

In this interesting and unusual book that departs considerably from current ortho-
doxy, C. D. C. Reeve explores the epistemological, metaphysical, and psycholog-
ical foundations of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. As the book jacket indicates,
Reeve argues "that scientific knowledge (episteme) is possible in ethics, that dia-
lectic and understanding (nous) play essentially the same role in ethics as in an
Aristotelian science, and that the distinctive role of practical reason (phronesis)
is to use the knowledge of universals provided by science, dialectic, and under-
standing so as to best promote happiness (eudaimonia)". There are two kinds of
happiness: primary happiness, Reeve claims, is the activation of theoretical wis-
dom in study (theoria), whereas secondary happiness is the activation of practical
wisdom when it is undertaken for the sake of study. According to Reeve's account
of Aristotle, only a few have the ethical and intellectual yirtues necessary to
achieve phronesis and hence politics, since, for Aristotle, phronesis is the same
state as politics. In Aristotle's ideal political community, these few are phil-

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