The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysies and Language. Review Author{s|: Robert Merrihew Adams Mind, New Series, Vol. 97, No. 386 (Apr., 1988), 299-302, Stable URL: http://links,jstor.org/sicsici=0026-4423% 28 198804% 292%3 A97%3A 386% 3C299%3ATPOLMA%3E2,0.CO%3B2-3 Mind ‘is currently published by Oxford University Press. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hhup:/www.jstororg/about/terms.huml. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hup:/www jstor.org/journalsoup. hm Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ Sat Dee 3.07:56:46 2005Book Reviews 299 ‘There has been a great deal of discussion recently about the role of twentieth- century criticism in the exegesis of philosophers of a different time, DHPMS, taking one of its tasks to be the reversing of Hume's philosophy, is a paradigm, case of a genre examples of which are increasingly rare, As such it will be viewed bby many as a highly problematic work, perhaps just as Flew would wish. Rutgers University ANNE JAAP JACOBSON ‘The Philosophy of Lebnis: Metaphysics and Language. By Benson Mates. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1086. Pp. ix-+271, £27.50. Students of Leibniz have waited eagerly for Benson Mates's book on Lei and with reason. This reviewer was put off intially by an anti-metaphysi stance epitomized by the statement that “To those who suspect that metaphysics in general arses from use-mention confusion, it will come as no surprise that it is very difficult to set forth metaphysical doctrines while using quotation marks consistently and correctly” (p. 51). Then why write a book about anyone's ‘metaphysics? one wonders, And indeed, Matess coverage of Leibnia's metaphysics is somewhat one-sided. The book is mainly about Leibniz’s philosophy of logic and philosophy of language and those topics in his metaphysics most closely connected with logic and language (such as necessity and contingency, identity, relations, and nominalism). Leibni’s theory of substances and his philosophy of smind and body receive only a single chapter, too compressed to make a substantial contribution tothe lively contemporary discussion ofthese topics. Even Leibniz's philosophical theology, which is intimately bound up with his logic, receives no focal attention, as Mates notes (p. 11). ‘None the les, I warmed to the book as I read it. Due to the vastness and disorder of Leibniz’s writings, as yet only partially edited and even ess completely translated into English, students of his work are rather like explorers ina trackless forest. Such explorers value each other very largely for the care with which they mark their tails, and Mates richly earns the gratitude of his colleagues in this respect His meticulous and loving scholarship is manifested in very full footnotes and references, which point the way to many interesting discoveries. His exposition is marked by exemplary logical rigour, and some ofthe best work in the book is achieves a real advance in understanding—for instance in his treatment of Leibniz’s attempts to reduce the relational proposition, ‘Paris loves Helen’, to ‘Paris is a lover, and co ipso Helen is a loved one’ (p. 216). In a brief review substantial discussion must be selective. I will focus on ‘Mates’s emphasis on the ‘distinction between “essential” and “existential” propositions’, which he claims as one of the ‘major differences’ between him and other commentators (p. 9). A proposition is existential or essential, roughly speaking, according as its truth does or does not depend (logically) on what things actually exist. Existential propositions are about what actually exists; essential propositions are about what could exist. ‘Mates presents this distinction in terms of a device, used in some of Leibniz’s logical calculi, whereby ‘Any proposition “A is B”” is rendered as ‘AB is an300 Robert Merrihew Adams entity’ (p. 9). What docs ‘entity’ (ens) mean here? In an earlier paper* Mates held that it meant an actualy existing thing, whereas other interpreters have argued that any possible thing counts as an entity for Leibniz, whether it exists or not In the present book Mates holds that Leibniz. uses the term ‘entity’ in both senses. He is able to establish the correctness of this interpretation by appeal to at least one text in which Leibniz explicitly recognizes both senses (G VII 214?— though the existential sense of ‘entity is stil much more prominent in Mates’s interpretation than it sems to me tobe in the texts of Leibniz. Using this duality of senses, Mates explains that if entity” in ‘AB is an entity” means only a possible thing, the proposition is ‘essential’, bur i entity is taken in the existential sense, the proposition is ‘existential’ (p. 9; ef. pp. 55-7 and C 392). ‘One ofthe contexts in which Mates relics heavily on the distinction between existential and essential propositions is his exposition of Leibnia’s theory of truth. Ie is well known that Leibniz held that ‘always, in every true affirmative proposition, necessary oF contingent, universal oF singular, the concept of the predicate is included in some way in that of the subject, and that he presented a8 a statement about the nature of truth: if i is wrong, he said, “T do not know what truth is? (G II 56). This conceptual containment theory of truth gives rise to obvious problems. It seems to imply that all truths are analytic, and therefore necessary. Moreover, there seem to be true propositions of the specified types whose predicates are not contained in their subject concept. In saying that is true that all dogs weigh less than a ton, for instance, we do not mean that weighing less than a ton is part of the concept of @ dog “Mates proposes to resolve the problems by holding that, for Leibniz, the conceptual containment theory should be seen as providing a condition that is both necessary and sufficient for the truth of essential propositions, but at most ‘necessary only or sufficient only” for the truth of existential propositions. Thus, Mates suggests, ‘Pegasus isa winged horse’ as an existential proposition, will be false (because Pegasus does not exist), even though its predicate is contained in its subject concept and the corresponding essential proposition is therefore true (p. 86). And ‘All men are liable to sin’, as an existential proposition, can be true ‘even though liability to sin is not contained in the concept of man (pp. 93) Mates agrees, however, that Leibniz seems to present the conceptual contain- ‘ment thesis s stating a necessary condition forthe truth ofall universal affirmative propositions, existential as well as essential. How can that be? Mates’ favoured hhypothessis that ‘Leibniz was... confusing containment in the general concept itself with containment in the individual concept of every existent individual falling under the general concept’ (p. 94). ‘On this basis Mates is able to offer an answer to the question, what led Leibniz 1 “Leibniz on Possible World (1968), a8 reprinted in HG. Frankfurt, ed, Libis: A Colleton of Critical Essays, Garden City, New York, 1973, PP. 345-7. Works of eibnisae cited by the fal Die LebisHanschrfon der kvilichenfentichenBibltek 2x Hannater, Hannover and Leipzig, 1s; C= L. Couurat, ed, Opus et fragmens ins de Libs, Pars, 0033 G = G. W. Leonia, Die hlsophiken Scheme. C. 1. Ghar, 7 vols, Belin, 1857-90), As to published [Engish tanlations, many of the referenoes to C and GIT can be found inthe margne of GIHLR Parkinsons collecon of Leni’ Logical Papers, Oxford, 1966, and references to G IL in HET. Masons translation of The Lebie-Arauld Conrespondene, Manchester, 1967Book Reviews 301 to maintain the conceptual containment theory of truth I isnot surprising that, anyone should think the theory holds good for essential propositions, The puzzling Gestion is why anyone would apply it to existential propositions. Mats's Suggestion is that for Leibniz, existential traths most all be grounded in, and derivable from, truths about actual individual, and everthing traly predicated ‘of an actual individual must be contained in the concept of that individual, w1 is thus a ‘complete’ concept (pp. 94, 07). Otherwise the concept of the individual would nor distinguish i rom every other possible individual (p.r04). This point is connected with Mates's view that the reason why Leibniz denied trans-world identity of individuals is that he could not sce an adequate basis for regarding some of an individuals predicates as more definitive of its identity than others (pp. 1431)—an explanation that seems to me to be based less on what Leibniz stid than on reasoning about what he would have done well to say ‘Mates rationale for the conceptual containment theory is in some ways tractive, but there is good reason not to ascribe it to Leibniz. Te grounds the theory (as applied to existential truths) in the thesis of the completeness of individual concepts; but in the Arnauld correspondence Leibniz sys the decisive reason forthe latter thesis isto be found in the conceptual containment theory of truth (G II 56), Moreover, Leitniz’s papers strongly suggest a different sccount of how the conceptual containment theory can be applied to existential, propositions an account that is certainly not free of problems, but that does not Involve the confusion that Mates suggests. Tt has a strong claim to be considered a8 Leibnia’s own account. Leibniz proposes the example ““Every man sins", where the proposition is, taken as existential’. Its equivalent, he say, to ‘A man existing and not sinning isa non-Entity (non Ens)or impossible. He implies, however that the impossibility here is only hypothetical, relative tothe assumption ofthis series of things; and that is what the addition of “existent” always indicates, fori makes an existential proposition, which involves the state of things” (C 271), T take Leibniz to be suggesting that the concept exiting man docs contain the predicate sinning, and hence that ‘a man existing and not sinning’ involves an inconsistency, although ‘a man not sinning” is quite consistent, This can be only it existing? adds something to ‘man’; and Leibniz indicates that what ‘exsting™ adds isa reference to a ‘series of things’ or possible world, This reference surely tothe best possible word (whichis also ‘this on). In another text Leibniz states that “we conceive something more when we think that a thing exists than when we think tha it is posible’, and goes on to explain this by the doctrine that ‘that which is more perfect than all things mutually incompatible exist, and conversely what exists is more perfect than the rest (B 119). “Existing man’ is not, therefore, direcly defined in terms of sin. Rather, ‘existing man’ signifies men as they occur in the actual world, and sinning is contained in the concept of existing man by virtue of the a priori reasoning which shows that the actual work isthe world tht is chosen by God, and hence the bist of al possible world, and thatthe best ofall possible worlds is one in which all the men sin (or more precisely as Leibniz would doubtless agree, a world in ‘which all men except Jets sin) Tht the best possible word is one that has this, Character with respect to sin depends on a certain infinite analysis, which only302 Robert Merrihew Adams God understands’. Hence the existential proposition that every man sins is (absolutely, as opposed to hypothetically) contingent rather than necessary (C272). This ascription of contingency depends on the doctrine, developed by Leibniz, in the 1680s, that necessary truths are grounded in conceptual containment that ‘ean be demonstrated by a finite analysis, but contingent truths are grounded in 4 conceptual containment that could be understood only through an infinite analysis. Mates deals harshly with this doctrin, stating that ‘the “infinite analysis” account of contingent propositions . . . cannot intlligibly define the class of propositions that are contingent, being true of some possible worlds and false ‘of others’ (pp. 116f.)2 There are assuredly severe problems in Leibniz’s theory of infinite analysis, but Mates's critique, as revealed in the statement quoted, rests, heavily on the assumption that a proposition is contingent, for Leibniz, if and only if it is true of some possible worlds and false of others (ef. pp. 108, 112). ‘And there are (as Mates acknowledges) very few texts of Leibniz that explicitly support this assumption; whereas there are many that support the infinite analysis theory of contingency. Tis ofa piece with this that even granting that ‘there would seem to be no upper limit to the length of the analysis of Cacsur’s concept ... that might be required to reach the component “crossed the Rubicon” attribute’, Mates concludes that Leibniz’s ‘only way out... i to agree that the essential proposition “Caesar crossed the Rubicon” couldn't have been false, and that only the corresponding existential proposition implies Caesar’s existence and hence is contingent’ (pp. 113). This is another point at which Mates's treatment of the distinction between existential and essential propositions plays a part in a questionable interpretation. For when Leibniz discusses the contingency of ‘Caesar crossed the Rubicon’ in section 13 of the Discourse on Metaphysics, he locates the contingency, not in Caesar’s existence, but in the connection of the predicate with the subject (G IV 437f). And in another treatment of the contingency of ‘Existential propositions’, discussing the similar example, ‘Peter denies (Jesus]’, Leibniz. explains its contingency, not by appealing to the contingency of Peter’s existence, but on the ground that ‘the concept of Peter is complete, and s0 involves infinite things; therefore one can never artive at a ‘complete demonstration’ (C 376f.). These are texts in which Leibniz is working hard on the problem of contingency and explains it in a way that seems to imply that ‘Caesar crossed the Rubicon’ and ‘Peter denies’ would still be contingent if hey were construed as essential propositions, since the contingency is not rooted in the existence of the subject but in the connection of the subject with the predicate. If our question is what Leibniz believed, such texts cannot be outweighed (in my opinion) by those in which he seems rather casually to treat ‘existential’ as equivalent to ‘contingent’ (e., C 392). University of California, Los Angeles ROBERT MERRIHEW ADAMS 2 This statement seems quite deft, but I should note that it comes at the end of «paragraph that I do not ind ie easy to understand ws x whole