Leibnizs Naturalized Philosophy of Mind First Edition Edition Jorgensen Full Chapter

Leibniz’s naturalized philosophy of
mind First Edition. Edition Jorgensen

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/leibnizs-naturalized-philosophy-of-mind-first-edition-e
dition-jorgensen/
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 11/2/2019, SPi
Leibniz’s Naturalized Philosophy of Mind

Leibniz’s Naturalized
Philosophy of Mind
Larry M. Jorgensen
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Larry M. Jorgensen 2019
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
First Edition published in 2019
Impression: 1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018965179
ISBN 978–0–19–871458–3
Printed and bound by
CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
For Lillian and Evan

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
List of Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
Part I. Leibniz’s Naturalizing Project

1. Nature and Natures 11
2. Naturalizing Constraints: Equipollence and Continuity 32
3. The Intelligibility of Nature 56
Part II. The Metaphysical Basis of Minds

4. Substance and Force 89
5. Living Mirrors: Expression and Perception 101
6. Perceptual Distinctness and Mental Activity 120
Part III. Mind in the Natural Order

7. Perception, Consciousness, and Continuity 145
8. Looking Back: Memory and Consciousness 172
9. Looking Forward: Appetite and Desire 201
Part IV. The Prerogative of Minds

10. Rational Beings and Animal Souls 225
11. Moral Identity and the Appearance of the Self 244
12. Self-Reflection, Perception, and Conceptual Thought 259
Conclusion—Nature and Grace: Striking a Leibnizian Harmony 283
Bibliography 291
Index 301
Acknowledgments
Karl Barth’s commentary on the book of Romans opens with an acknowledgement

that the book was written against the background of the echoing of guns and
entrenched warfare.¹ This historical moment gave Barth’s work a spirit of urgency,
a sense that theologians needed to read carefully once again and with fresh eyes one
of the foundational works of their discipline. As he said in the preface to the first
edition, “The understanding of history is an uninterrupted conversation between the
wisdom of yesterday and the wisdom of tomorrow.”² I would have liked to produce a
similar sort of book. The sounds of war have been ricocheting in the background of
this book as well—starting when my second year of graduate studies was interrupted
by the 9/11 attacks and ending now with two consecutive summers in the United
States where a sanctuary was violated by mass murder (the Emmanuel AME Church
in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 17, 2015, and the Pulse nightclub in Orlando,
Florida, almost exactly one year later on June 12, 2016), and in mediating years
between 2001 and today, there has been continuous conflict around the world and,
more recently, a major refugee crisis.
This book is an academic book on Leibniz’s philosophy of mind, not directly
connected with the tragic scene I have just mentioned. And yet, I do think that we
often need to look back before we are prepared to move forward. Leibniz was writing
in the midst of a religiously and politically fractured Europe. And his philosophy of
mind is a piece of a much larger vision of the life of a mind oriented towards justice.
While Leibniz’s optimism has met with caricature and derision, he sought to give it a
deep metaphysical grounding, some of which will come out in the course of this book.
Leibniz’s double vision—of a regular and intelligible natural order, which would allow
for scientific and technological progress, and of a value-rich natural order, which
would allow for actions motivated by justice and love here and now—grounded a hope
for reconciliation and peace in Europe. And while I have no fantasies that an academic
book in the history of philosophy will do the same for our fractured world, it is
animated by a similar vision for serious work motivated by the genuine interest,
thoughtfulness, and respect that is a pre-requisite for any real change.
In this, I have been deeply shaped by my relationships with colleagues and
advisors. Michael Della Rocca, Robert Merrihew Adams, and Alison Simmons made
opportunities for long conversations that deepened my thinking on Leibniz in innu-
merable ways. Samuel Newlands, Mark Kulstad, Martha Bolton, Julia Jorati, Jeffrey
MacDonough, Andrew Chignell, Donald Rutherford, Daniel Garber, Christian Barth,
Gregory Brown, Paul Lodge, Maria Rosa Antognazza, Marleen Rozemond, and Markku
Roinila have all enriched my work. Peter Momtchiloff at Oxford University Press
deserves particular thanks for his help in getting this project to completion.
¹ Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns (London: Oxford University Press,
1933), v. The first edition was printed in 1918.
² Ibid., 1.
x 
I emphasize to my students the need for a strong community of philosophers, and this is
my community.
But my community extends much wider than this. I presented portions of this work
at the X Leibniz Congress in Hannover, Germany; the Second Arctic Circle Seminar in
Early Modern Philosophy in Finland; the “Force Forschung: Modern Philosophical
Conceptions of Force” at Cornell University; the Second and Sixth Biennial Margaret
Dauler Wilson Conferences at UCSD and Dartmouth; the Scottish Seminar in
Early Modern Philosophy in Aberdeen, Scotland; “Early Modern Conceptions of
Consciousness” at Humboldt University, Berlin; the Midwest Seminar in Early Mod-
ern Philosophy at Marquette University; the First Annual Leibniz Society Conference
at Rice University; the Houston Early Modern Group; and the Central Canada Seminar
for the Study of Early Modern Philosophy at the University of Guelph. I am grateful for
the many conversations I had with participants at each of these conferences.
I would like to acknowledge the Department of Philosophy and the administration
of Skidmore College and an NEH Summer Grant for support of this project. The
writing groups at Skidmore College were an invaluable source of encouragement.
Colleagues and students at Skidmore College and Valparaiso University and friends
in Saratoga Springs have been endlessly supportive of my work, and I find it a real
boon to work and live amongst these amazing and wonderful people.
At a more fundamental level, this book took shape around a rich and complicated
life with my family. For Lillian, this book has taken shape around cooperative full-
time childcare, a brief life in London, and concerts ranging from chamber ensembles
to Imagine Dragons. From the beginning of this project—naming a neighborhood cat
“Light Miss” (after Leibniz)—until today, Lily has become a fellow traveler out of The
Cave, full of insight and a passion for justice. For Evan, this book took shape around
trampolines and ADK fire towers. He is the only kid I know who is enticed into
drinking his milk by Zeno’s paradox. Through his unending curiosity and question-
ing, Evan has shown the polymath drive that Leibniz himself had: science, philoso-
phy, math, history, theology, and literature all have a space in Evan’s head (and often
in unexpected ways!). And, finally, Caitlin’s encouragement and grace infuse this
book with meaning. She has been my full partner in exploring with wonder the life of
the mind, and we are together building something that we merely glimpsed twenty
years ago. She is our local superhero (seriously!), and she persists.
* * *
Portions of this book have been published previously, although most of the work has
been revised and reworked for this volume. A part of chapter 2 overlaps with “By
Leaps and Bounds: Leibniz on Transcreation, Motion, and the Generation of Minds,”
The Leibniz Review 23 (2013): 73–98. Chapters 3 and 7 make use of material from
“The Principle of Continuity and Leibniz’s Theory of Consciousness,” Journal of the
History of Philosophy 47 (2009): 223–48. Chapters 5 and 6 make use of material from
“Leibniz on Perceptual Distinctness, Activity, and Sensation,” Journal of the History
of Philosophy 53 (2015): 49–77. Chapters 8 and 9 revisit material from “Leibniz on
Memory and Consciousness,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 19 (2011):
887–916 and “Mind the Gap: Reflection and Consciousness in Leibniz,” Studia
Leibnitiana 43 (2011): 179–95. The conclusion draws in part from “Consciousness
in Western Philosophy” in The Routledge Handbook of Consciousness, ed. Rocco
Gennaro (New York: Routledge, 2018), 24–37.
List of Abbreviations
Abbreviations for Editions of Leibniz’s Works:

A Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (Darmstadt and Berlin: Berlin Academy,
1923–).
AG Philosophical Essays, trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indian-
apolis, IN: Hackett, 1989).
Arthur The Labyrinth of the Continuum: Writings on the Continuum Problem,
1672–1686, trans. Richard T.W. Arthur (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2001).
C Opuscules et Fragments Inédits de Leibniz, ed. Louis Couturat
(Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966).
Child The Early Mathematical Manuscripts of Leibniz; translated from the
Latin texts published by Carl Immanuel Gerhardt with critical and
historical notes, trans. J.M. Child (Chicago; London: The Open Court
Publishing Company, 1920).
CP Confessio Philosophi: Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil,
1671–1678, ed. and trans. Robert C. Sleigh, Jr. (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2005).
DM Discourse on Metaphysics, A 6.4.1529–88/L 303–30.
DSR De Summa Rerum: Metaphysical Papers, 1675–1676, trans.
G.H.R. Parkinson (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).
Dutens Opera Omnia, ed. L. Dutens, 6 vols. (Geneva: Fratres de Tournes, 1768).
G Die Philosophischen Schriften, ed. C.I. Gerhardt, 7 vols. (Leipzig:
Lorentz, 1879).
GM Leibnizens Mathematische Schriften, ed. C.I. Gerhardt, 7 vols. (Berlin:
A. Asher, 1849–63).
Grua Textes Inédits, ed. by Gaston Grua (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1948).
L Philosophical Papers and Letters, trans. Leroy E. Loemker, 2nd ed.
(Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1970).
LA The Leibniz–Arnauld Correspondence, trans. H.T. Mason (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1967).
LC The Leibniz–Clarke Correspondence, ed. H.G. Alexander (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1956), cited by author, letter number,
and section number. The correspondence can also be found in
G 7.352–420.
Langley New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, trans. A.G. Langley,
2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1896).
Lodge The Leibniz–De Volder Correspondence, trans. Paul Lodge (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013).
xii   
LR The Leibniz–Des Bosses Correspondence, trans. Brandon C. Look and

Donald Rutherford (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).
M Monadology, G 6.607–23/L 643–53.
MP Leibniz: Philosophical Writings, trans. Mary Morris and
G.H.R. Parkinson (London: Dent, 1973).
NE New Essays on Human Understanding, trans. Peter Remnant and
Jonathan Francis Bennett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996).
NS Leibniz’s ‘New System’ and Associated Contemporary Texts, trans.
Roger S. Woolhouse and Richard Francks (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997).
PG “Extrait d’une Lettre de M.L. sur un Principe Général, Utile à l’Ex-
plication des Loix de la Nature, par loa Consideration de la Sagesse
Divine; pour Servir de Réplique à la Réponse du R.P.M.,”Nouvelles de
la Republique des Lettres (1687); also included in G 3.51–5/L 351–4.
PNG Principles of Nature and Grace, G 6.598–606/L 636–42.
Riley Political Writings, trans. and ed. by Patrick Riley (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988).
RML Malebranche et Leibniz: Relations Personelles, ed. André Robinet
(Paris: J. Vrin, 1955).
Shorter The Shorter Leibniz Texts, trans. Lloyd Strickland (London:
Continuum, 2006).
T Theodicy, trans. E.M. Huggard (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1985).
Wiener Leibniz: Selections, trans. Philip P. Wiener (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1951).
WF Philosophical Texts, ed. and trans. by R.S. Woolhouse and Richard
Francks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
Abbreviations for the Works of Other Seventeenth-Century Figures:

AT René Descartes, Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam and P. Tannery,
11 vols. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1973).
CSM René Descartes, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, trans. John
Cottingham, et al., 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1984).
Search Nicolas Malebranche, The Search after Truth, trans. Thomas
M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997).
Introduction
The moderns have cut the Gordian knot with Alexander’s sword, and have
introduced miracles into a natural thing, like gods in the theatre at the denoue-
ment of an opera.¹
My aim was to explain naturally what they explain by perpetual miracles.²
The celebrated American author Willa Cather (1873–1947) writes in a letter to a

close friend:
It has been very dry down here, and every one has been talking about rain. Mamma told Elsie
that God made the rain. Yesterday Mr. McNitt had his two lawn sprinklers going for the first
time this year. Elsie came running in screaming, “O Willie! come quick and see, there are two
little Gods out in McNitt’s yard just raining away like everything.”³
Elsie made a mistake that Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) thinks is easy to
make. In DM §8, Leibniz says that “it is rather difficult to distinguish the actions of
God from those of creatures; for some believe that God does everything, while
others imagine that he merely conserves the force he has given to creatures.”⁴ And
yet, there is something quite right about Elsie’s claim, since, as Leibniz goes on to
say, the nature of minds is “so noble that it brings them as near to divinity as it is
possible for simple creatures”⁵ and, elsewhere, that “each mind [is] like a little divinity
in its own realm.”⁶
The key to understanding Leibniz’s position, and the mistake of Elsie, is to see that
the expression of the divine is fully grounded in the natural properties of the mind.
Leibniz’s theology generates naturalizing constraints that lead him to a fully natural
theory of mind, where individuals are genuine agents in their own right. Leibniz
sought to show that the actions of creatures can be distinguished from those of God,
carving out a middle ground between Spinoza, for whom all creatures are merely
finite modes of God, and Malebranche, for whom God operates as the sole genuine
cause. Leibniz argues instead that there are individual, causally efficacious substances,
¹ G 3.346/NS 223. ² G 6.595/NS 250.

³ Letter from Willa Cather to Mariel Gere, June 1, 1893 (Willa Cather, The Selected Letters of Willa
Cather (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), 18).
⁴ DM §8. ⁵ DM §36.
⁶ M §83. For more references to passages in which Leibniz describes minds as little gods, see Gregory
Brown, “Leibniz’s Moral Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, ed. Nicholas Jolley
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 427.
 ’    
even as these minds provide an image of the divine. As stated in the epigraph, what
the others sought to explain by means of an appeal to the divine, Leibniz sought to
explain in a natural way.
The main argument of this book is easy to state: Leibniz offers a fully natural theory
of mind. In today’s philosophical climate, in which much effort has been put into
discovering a naturalized theory of mind, Leibniz’s efforts to reach a similar goal
300 years earlier will provide a critical stance from which we can assess our own
theories. But while the goals might be similar, the content of Leibniz’s theory
significantly diverges from the majority of today’s theories. Many philosophers
today are working towards an account of mind in fully physical terms. In contrast,
the most fundamental elements of Leibniz’s mature theory of mind are indivisible,
unextended substances, which he terms monads to identify them as the true unities of
nature. Despite this stark difference in the basic elements of the system, or perhaps
because of it, Leibniz provides us with a valuable alternative and a possible way
forward amidst otherwise intractable debates. Indeed, it is helpful in at least this
sense: it allows us to distinguish a broad naturalizing project from the more narrowly
conceived physicalist project.
Of course, I recognize that the term “naturalism” is deeply disputed. Leibniz
himself used the term “naturalism” in a negative sense, although, at the same time,
he described his theory as “more natural” than the competitors. Given that, I think
there is something important captured in viewing Leibniz’s theory as a naturalized
theory of mind. Although the term “naturalism” is a slippery one even today, it is
widely regarded as a desirable goal. But it remains unclear just what the goal is.
One way to state the goal of contemporary theorists is this: a naturalized theory
will be one that has no irresolvable “mysteries”—mysteries like those presented by
phenomenal consciousness (i.e., the qualitative aspect of our experience), which
David Chalmers has famously called a “hard problem” because it is fundamentally
mysterious and it is unclear how to resolve the mystery.⁷ Thomas Nagel thinks the
mysteries will remain until we have retooled our conceptual framework.⁸ But natur-
alists of many stripes offer theories that purport to explain consciousness, removing
the mysteries. As Fred Dretske has put it, a naturalized theory may not “remove
all the mysteries [but] it removes enough of them . . . to justify putting one’s money
on the nose of this philosophical horse.”⁹
So, one way to recognize a naturalized theory is that it provides plausible or
satisfactory explanations of all mental states and events in a way that is intelligible
to human beings. Naturalism is about discharging explanatory demands. In this,
Leibniz was extraordinarily prescient, defending an account of the mind that pro-
vides fully natural explanations for mental states and events and providing an
explanatory framework that removes any residual mysteries, or at least “enough of
them,” to echo Dretske.
⁷ David J. Chalmers, “Consciousness and its Place in Nature,” in Philosophy of Mind: Classical and
Contemporary Readings, ed. David J. Chalmers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
⁸ Thomas Nagel, “Conceiving the Impossible and the Mind–Body Problem,” Philosophy 73 (1998).
⁹ Fred Dretske, Naturalizing the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997), xiii.
 
There is also a way in which the historical context of Leibniz’s theory reflects our
own situation. In the seventeenth century, the Scientific Revolution was well under-
way, and numerous previously arcane aspects of nature were being explained in
increasingly mechanical terms. But at the same time there were persistent questions
about how far these mechanical explanations could extend. Some, like Descartes,
limited mechanical explanations to bodies—minds were excluded from that sort of
explanation. Others, like Hobbes, were fully prepared to incorporate minds into the
material machine, causing some anxiety among philosophers and theologians that
important moral and theological categories would be eliminated. Leibniz’s response to
this situation was to carve out a middle ground: minds are fully a part of the natural
system, but they are not merely material machines. His naturalism is one that, he
plausibly thought, is consistent with central moral and theological positions. While this
might be seen as an important historical consequence, it also provides a framework for
evaluating for ourselves how naturalized theories might cohere with moral and reli-
gious philosophical views. This is an issue that has captured popular attention even
today—Leibniz stood at the nexus of many of the important debates then and now.
Additionally, liberal societies have long been committed to the natural sciences
and to religious pluralism. It is a source of much grief that these two positions are
now regarded, by people on both sides, as incompatible. The incompatibility is
having bad effects on our ability to live together in community, to talk civilly, and
to make progress in both science and theology. And so a Leibnizian harmony
between nature and the domain of faith is not merely theoretical.
This book is an effort to see how the Leibnizian harmony holds up from the
perspective of his philosophy of mind. Granted, many of the details of Leibniz’s
philosophy of mind would need to be updated in order to make it a plausible
candidate theory of mind in today’s discussions, a task I don’t intend to do in this
volume, but the overall metaphysic is one that might cast some light on our own
thinking. Indeed, as I have worked through Leibniz’s system, I have seen some ways
in which I might depart from what he has presented (not all of which are noted in this
volume), but this benefit of vision comes only through the hard work of seeing things
through his eyes for a bit.
Of course, by identifying a broader motivation for this project in the introduction,
I open myself to various charges: of taking Leibniz’s metaphysics out of its historical
context, of anachronism, or of pressing Leibniz into my own mold. But, for me, this
intersection of currents—those that motivate Leibniz’s thinking and those that
motivate our own thinking—animates the project all the more. And I suspect that
Leibniz would have welcomed the project. Remember that Leibniz is known for
continuously revisiting key conclusions, trying out new avenues of thought and
revising his thinking in light of the evidence. And it is clear that Leibniz never did
finish his project. And so, even a statement of Leibniz’s views will be of a dynamic
position, one that was still responding to the worries of his time and the challenges of
his own thinking. This dynamics of thought makes Leibniz difficult to interpret, but it
also gives us a picture of a highly intelligent person wrestling with difficult issues, and
it invites us to do the same.
Narrowing in from this broader set of issues, the more specific argument of this
book is that Leibniz’s philosophy of mind meets the standards of what he would
 ’    
regard as a fully natural theory. Leibniz’s commitment to naturalism is clear. In the

New Essays, Leibniz says that:
Whenever we find some quality in a subject, we ought to believe that if we understood the
nature of both the subject and the quality we would conceive how the quality could arise from it.
So within the order of nature (miracles apart) it is not at God’s arbitrary discretion to attach this
or that quality haphazardly to substances. He will never give them any which are not natural to
them, that is, which cannot arise from their nature as explicable modifications.¹⁰
This is a broad claim about methodology in natural philosophy. As we will see, and as
is evident here, Leibniz’s theological commitments yield a thoroughgoing naturaliz-
ing methodology: the properties of an object are explicable in term of the object’s
nature. If we cannot conceive how this could be in any given case, then we have not
yet arrived at the natural explanation. Of course, Leibniz qualifies this claim, allowing
for the possibility of miracles, but as I will argue while Leibniz clearly leaves open this
possibility, on my view the possibility is only very rarely realized. And so Leibniz
concludes this passage:
This distinction between what is natural and explicable and what is miraculous and inexplic-
able removes all the difficulties. To reject it would be to uphold something worse than occult
qualities, and thereby to renounce philosophy and reason, giving refuge to ignorance and
laziness by means of an irrational system.¹¹
These are strong words, which reveal the depth to which Leibniz’s naturalizing
commitments reach. And I will argue that he pursued his philosophy of mind with
this methodology in hand.
If we keep this commitment to a naturalizing project in mind, then we will find in
Leibniz a rich and interesting philosophy of mind. But there are other aspects of
Leibniz’s theory of mind that we will need to emphasize as well. Leibniz was not alone
in arguing for what we today might call a naturalized theory of mind. Plausibly,
Hobbes, Spinoza, and Hume could be seen as engaged in this sort of a project as well.
So, it is not merely that Leibniz’s theory of mind is a natural theory that distinguishes
his theory from the others. There are two other important aspects of Leibniz’s theory
of mind that will be emphasized in this volume. First, Leibniz’s theory of mind
preserves a plurality of genuinely individual substances that are themselves causally
active. That is, the activity of individual substances provides the basic component of
Leibniz’s theory. Second, Leibniz’s theory of mind is a fully representational theory
of mind. Each state of a mental substance provides information on the world around
it, from its own point of view.
The most basic elements of Leibniz’s mature philosophy are simple substances,
which, by their very nature, are representational and active. Thus, we have an early
expression of a dynamic and representationalist philosophy of mind. But, as I have
said, even though his is a naturalized philosophy of mind, he is not a materialist. The
basic elements of nature have these same properties—they are mind-like substances
that, at their essence, are representational and active. And so Leibniz’s philosophy of
¹⁰ A 6.6.66/NE 66. ¹¹ Ibid.

 
mind actually lays claim to explaining more than merely higher-order mental
phenomena. It aims to explain much that goes by in minds entirely unnoticed, and
which explains how it could be that the basic elements of nature are non-extended.
No one (to my knowledge) has brought forward these three commitments—the
commitment to a natural theory and the commitments to substances as essentially
active and as representational—in an adequate way. These will be the three pillars
upon which the theory rests.
The Argument of the Book

Of course, we must be cautious about applying our own trendy positions to historical
figures, and the naturalizing claims that I defend in this book might threaten to do
just that. As I have mentioned, Leibniz’s own use of the term naturalism is largely
negative. When Leibniz uses the term “naturalist” (as opposed to “nature” or
“natural”), it is pejorative, typically identifying what we today might call materialists
or fatalists.¹² He does not explicitly use the term “naturalist” or “naturalized” in
reference to his own theory.
Leibniz’s failure to apply the term to his own theory should not be considered
evidence that the term does not apply. Although he does not explicitly call his theory
a naturalized theory, he does call it a natural theory. The use of terms like “natur-
alized” or “naturalism” today is different than it was in the seventeenth century. In
the seventeenth century, the term “natural” was a more appropriate one to use as a
descriptor of one’s theory, without an “-ism” suffix. So, one could talk about a
“natural science,” a “natural theology,” and a “natural theory of mind.”
What does the suffix do, after all? Typically, when discussing a “naturalized”
epistemology today, for example, the suffix suggests that something has been rooted
out and discarded. The epistemology has been sufficiently brought down to the level
of science and none of the speculative residue is left. Given this, it might be
appropriate to describe Leibniz’s project as a “naturalizing” project. Descartes’s and
Malebranche’s theories of mind still have too much residue—they have not been
brought down to earth, as it were. Leibniz’s theory, by his own account, is more
“natural.”¹³ So, I think we can consider Leibniz’s theory a naturalized account when
considered in reference to Cartesian theories.
Even today, the term “naturalized” is opaque, often making sense only once you
know what sort of theory is being picked out as not natural enough. This easily leads
to a game of philosophical leap-frog, in which each theory tries to better the last. I am
hoping that we can turn this game around a bit and look back at some prior moves,
considering one position visited along the way. This historical distance can give us a
kind of critical distance on our own views. But, for obvious reasons, we cannot
assume that everything that Leibniz said about the mind translates without remain-
der into the terms of today’s debates. In order to get the right sort of critical distance,
we need to appreciate just how far the distance is. And that will require that we
¹² See AG 281. ¹³ To Arnauld, October 9, 1687 (G 2.113/LA 145).

 ’    
consider carefully how the use of terms, the historical context, and the systematic
connections within the theory itself might be distinctive in the seventeenth century.
With that in mind, this book will start by considering what, for Leibniz, it means
for a theory to be a natural theory. How does he use the term “nature” and what does
the division between natural and non-natural amount to? What are Leibniz’s criteria
for a natural theory, and why is it that the Cartesian theories do not pass the test?
Once we grasp Leibniz’s own account of a natural theory, Part I of this book, only
then can we consider how (or whether) his own theory of mind is itself fully natural.
This book is in four parts. The first two parts provide the systematic and historical
context for the philosophy of mind that is developed in the second half of the book.
Readers who are primarily interested in Leibniz’s philosophy of mind may discover
that the second half of the book could stand largely on its own. However, the full
defense for the systematic constraints I apply in defense of the interpretation
developed in the second half of the book is presented in the first half of the book,
and so the full picture emerges only with this background in place.
The structure of the book will follow this story line. In Part I, I will outline
Leibniz’s naturalism. Chapter 1 investigates Leibniz’s concept of “nature,” which
focuses on the demand for explanation. Chapters 2 and 3 outline two principles
that Leibniz believes will aid in our discovery of natural explanations: (1) the
principle of continuity, and (2) the principle of the best. Both of these principles,
according to Leibniz, derive from the nature of God’s activity. Since, according to
Leibniz, God does nothing without a reason, this gives us confidence that there is a
reason or explanation available for any given phenomenon. But beyond a mere
promise of explanation, the principle of continuity and the principle of the best
prove to be useful heuristics in discovering natural explanations. Part I shows that
Leibniz has a clear conception of the requirements of a fully natural theory and that
such a theory does not immediately undermine the sharp species distinctions that he
argues for in his theory of mind.
Part II presents the basic structures of Leibniz’s theory of mind—the things that
minds and simpler substances have in common. In this section, I present a new
interpretation of Leibniz’s theories of perception and mental representation, which
provide the most basic building blocks for his theory of mind. While very good work
has been done on Leibniz’s theory of representation, I argue in Part II that interpret-
ers have not given sufficient attention to two other central concepts for Leibniz’s
theory of perception: (a) activity and (b) mediation. Chapters 5 and 6 develop
Leibniz’s theory of substance, with attention to activity and representation respect-
ively. Chapter 7 supplements Leibniz’s accounts of representation and activity with
an account of the mediation of perceptions via the body. An account of perceptual
distinctness requires all three. The benefit of this new interpretation will be to dispel
some of the oddities (or possible inconsistencies) in Leibniz’s use of the concept of
perceptual distinctness. At the end of Part II, the main underlying structures of the
Leibnizian mind will be in place.
In Part III, I present an account of Leibniz’s theory of what one might call an
animal mind, the aspects of perception, sensation, consciousness, appetite, and desire
that humans share in common with other animals. Here I investigate his theories of
consciousness, memory, and appetite, focusing on how Leibniz explains each of these
 
in fully natural terms. In chapter 7, I argue for a same-order theory of consciousness

grounded in perceptual distinctness against other prominent interpretations of
Leibniz’s theory of consciousness. In chapter 8, I unpack Leibniz’s rich and complex
account of memory, which has important implications for a theory of consciousness
as well as Leibniz’s account of reflection and moral identity. And in chapter 9,
I discuss Leibniz’s theory of appetite and the underlying mental motivations and
resistances that lead to action.
In Part IV, I discuss those aspects of mind that Leibniz thinks are unique to
rational minds. This is the most problematic section from the perspective of a fully
natural theory, since, according to Leibniz, reflection and self-consciousness brings
minds into community with God and gives them a moral identity. There is some
evidence that Leibniz dispenses with the naturalizing constraints at that point, out of
deference to the moral and theological implications. But I argue that even here
Leibniz is prepared to defend a naturalized theory. Departing from many scholars,
I will provide a way of understanding the evidence in light of his natural theory. In
chapter 10, I will dig into some fairly controversial passages (from the perspective of
my argument), where Leibniz seems to concede that the generation of rational minds
would require divine intervention. I provide a way of understanding these passages
in light of Leibniz’s naturalizing commitments that allows him to preserve a natural
distinction between non-rational and rational minds, even as he pragmatically allows
for divine intervention as a way of speaking to his more theologically sensitive
audience. In chapter 11, I discuss what Leibniz describes as the “appearance of the
self,” which gives human beings moral agency. I discuss what the intentional content
of that appearance might be, arguing that there is a complex structure involving a
two-fold representation of the self as both passive and active. Chapter 12 takes up
this suggestion and argues that the two-fold representation of the self grounds
conceptual thought.
Many discussions in philosophy of mind focus on questions of how higher-order
phenomena, such as consciousness, relate to more fundamental aspects of the mind
and brain. Leibniz was one of the first to theorize about the nature of consciousness
in its relation to non-conscious perceptions, and it was consideration of the theor-
etical constraints of a natural theory that led him to this discovery. And he capital-
ized on it in ways that have not yet been fully appreciated. Once his thought is set
against the broader theoretical background, the unusual nature of the system
becomes more intelligible and one can more readily see how it provides a plausible
alternative to contemporary theories.
I want to conclude this introduction with a couple of notes about the scope of my
argument. First, although I have started an argument above that Leibniz’s theory of
mind would be an interesting dialogue partner in today’s discussions, I will not make
the full argument for that conclusion in this volume. What I intend to do here is to
provide a faithful representation of what is going on in Leibniz’s texts, and the further
work of updating it in such a way that it is clear how his view measures up against
today’s positions can come only once we have a clear sense of what he was up to in his
own historical context. I will make a few suggestions in the conclusion about the
direction I think this might take, but it will not be a central concern of the body of
the volume.
 ’    
Second, while there is very good work being done on how Leibniz’s views changed
or developed over time, this volume does not take up that question in a central way.
There are moments where the development of his views is important, especially with
respect to the naturalizing constraints in Part I, and I will address those there. But for
the broader metaphysical views that serve as the backdrop for Leibniz’s philosophy
of mind, I will present here what I take to be views that Leibniz consistently held
(perhaps with minor variations) over the latter half of his career (roughly, from 1686
on), with an emphasis on the metaphysics he was working out from around 1695
(with the publication of the “New System”) through 1716.¹⁴ In those contexts, I will
bring in earlier texts or discuss the development of Leibniz’s views only to the extent
that I think it clarifies or illuminates his more mature views. My own sense is that
while it may be controversial when and to what extent Leibniz was an idealist about
bodies, Leibniz’s theory of mind was more stable from the middle period onwards.
¹⁴ Readers who wish to learn more about the controversies about Leibniz’s fundamental metaphysics
should consult Robert Merrihew Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1994) and Daniel Garber, Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
PART I
Leibniz’s Naturalizing Project
1
Nature and Natures
This vulgar opinion, according to which we ought in philosophy to avoid, as much

as possible, what surpasses the natures of creatures; it is a very reasonable opinion.
Otherwise nothing will be easier than to account for anything by bringing in the
deity, Deum ex machina, without minding the natures of things.¹
Some things exist by nature and some things exist from other causes. For example,
animals, plants, earth, air, fire, and water exist naturally, while beds, houses, and coats
exist only because they were caused to exist by something else. Aristotle launches
book two of his Physics with this intuitive distinction between nature and artifice. The
question, then, is what we mean by “nature” (φύσις) when we make such distinctions.
Aristotle argues:
[E]ach of [the things that exist by nature] has within itself a principle of motion and of
stationariness . . . Nature is a principle or cause of being moved and of being at rest in that to
which it belongs primarily, in virtue of itself and not accidentally.²
He goes on to say that “things have a nature which have a principle of this kind. Each
of them is a substance: for it is a subject, and nature is always in a subject.”³
Aristotle’s conception of nature focuses on the internal principles of change, which
are intrinsic to an object, as opposed to the principles of change that are either
accidental or extrinsic to the object.⁴ Aristotle goes on to argue that “form is nature
rather than the matter,”⁵ since the nature of a thing derives more from actuality than
potentiality.
While Aristotelian natural philosophy had hit upon hard times in the late 1600s,
Leibniz sought to restore at least this aspect of Aristotelianism. In his familiar attacks
¹ LC Leibniz 5, §107.
² Aristotle, “Physics,” in The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1984), 192b10–20.
³ Ibid. 192b30.
⁴ There is interpretive disagreement over whether Aristotle’s conception of nature is of a self-moved
thing or of a thing that is moved by something else, since the Greek verb in use could be read as either in the
passive or the middle voice. It seems to me that Aristotle’s appeal to form in his discussion of nature will
favor reading this in the middle voice, although I realize that this is not decisive. I will not attempt to
address this controversy, since it is more important to my argument to see how Leibniz incorporates this
notion of nature into his own system. For Leibniz, individual natures will have principles of motion and
rest intrinsic to them. For discussion of this interpretive controversy in Aristotle, see Helen S. Lang, The
Order of Nature in Aristotle’s Physics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 39–54.
⁵ Aristotle, “Physics,” 193b5.
 ’    
on Cartesian natural philosophy, Leibniz was not attempting a mere refinement,

correcting the math, so to speak. He had a broader goal in mind: he claimed that
Cartesian natural philosophy was not sufficiently natural.
Leibniz saw himself as providing a more consistently natural account of physics
and of mind than the Cartesians. For example, in a letter to Arnauld, Leibniz says:
The ordinary Cartesians confess that they cannot account for [the union of mind and body];
the authors of the hypothesis of occasional causes think that it is a “difficulty worthy of a
liberator, for which the intervention of a Deus ex machina is necessary;” for myself, I explain it
in a natural manner.⁶
And again, in a response to René-Joseph Tournemine, Leibniz says:

My intent [with the pre-established harmony] was to explain naturally what [the Cartesians]
explain by perpetual miracles.⁷
Similarly, in his criticisms of Descartes’ theory of motion, Leibniz says that:

Nature, whose most wise Author uses the most perfect geometry, observes the same rule [i.e.
the principle of continuity]; otherwise it could not follow an orderly progress . . . [B]ut the
Cartesian rules of motion present . . . a figure which is absurd [monstrosam] and incoherent.⁸
As a fully natural philosophy, Cartesian philosophy was a failure.

In contrast, Leibniz’s early admiration of Hobbes and his flirtation with Spinozism
is due to the ways that he thought their views promised a fully systematic explan-
ation, and he considered these philosophies seriously as he attempted to discern the
relation of God to world and matter to form. Leibniz ultimately rejected Spinoza’s
and Hobbes’s theories due in large part to their theological implications, but he at
one point or another considered them seriously, provided they were suitably
adjusted. Indeed, in 1670–71, Leibniz made a serious attempt at formulating an
Elements of Mind, which attempted to do for the mind what Hobbes had done for
the body, constructing a theory of mind from geometrical principles and Hobbes’s
concept of conatus.⁹ And this present volume can be read as a way of tracing the
Elements of Mind into Leibniz’s mature philosophy. Similarly, Leibniz appears to
⁶ To Arnauld, October 9, 1687 (A 2.2.242/LA 145), last emphasis mine. A similar point was made in
Leibniz’s letter to Clarke, LC Leibniz 5, §107, which again emphasizes the need to appeal to the natures of
things in our philosophy.
⁷ G 6.595/AG 197, emphasis mine. ⁸ G 4.375–6/L 398.
⁹ It is noteworthy that Leibniz thought his promised Elements of Mind would also provide a defense of
certain theological positions in a natural way, such as the immortality of the soul. In a letter to Arnauld
(A 2.1.279/L 149), he claims that the Elements would shed light on controversies over the trinity, the
incarnation, predestination, and the Eucharist. Leibniz wrote a proposal, which included a reference to the
Elements of Mind, to Duke Johann Friedrich of Hannover on May 21, 1671 (A 2.1.182), and his preliminary
work on the Elements can be found at A 6.2.276–291.
For discussion of the influence of Hobbes on Leibniz, see Garber, Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad,
14–22 and Howard R. Bernstein, “Conatus, Hobbes, and the Young Leibniz,” Studies in the History and
Philosophy of Science 11 (1980).
   
have considered a version of monism in 1676, departing from Spinoza in ways that
would preserve God’s moral nature.¹⁰
And so Leibniz, from very early in his career, found himself between the two poles:
Hobbes and Spinoza, on the one hand, whose theories compromise important moral
and religious truths, and Descartes and the Cartesians, on the other hand, whose
natural philosophy is full of holes. It is well known that, in response to these
concerns, Leibniz eventually came to see that a fully natural account of the laws of
motion or of the union of mind and body would require the revival of substantial
forms. And so, while Leibniz departed from Aristotle in many ways, Aristotle’s
emphasis on individual natures, which have their principles of change internal and
intrinsic to them, can be seen as motivating Leibniz’s broader naturalizing project.¹¹
Two aspects of Aristotle’s account are worth emphasizing as we approach Leibniz’s
theory of mind. First, Aristotle’s emphasis is on the natures of individual things
(plural). This will play out in Leibniz’s system as he attempts to avoid charges of
Spinozism—there are individual natures that are substantial and present in the
plurality of things. Interestingly, Aristotle himself did not set out to prove this
claim. Aristotle says:
That nature exists, it would be absurd to try to prove; for it is obvious that there are many
things of this kind, and to prove what is obvious by what is not is the mark of a man who is
unable to distinguish what is self-evident from what is not.¹²
Leibniz will try to provide a fuller argument than this, but at certain points this is
precisely the kind of argument he provides, identifying the clearest example from
within ourselves—our experience of our own minds gives us evidence of an individ-
ual nature.¹³
The second aspect of Aristotle’s discussion of nature worth highlighting is that the
natures themselves provide an account of change. This will also become central to
Leibniz’s theory, and it will be an important part of the discussion in this volume as
he attempts to avoid the two boundaries: this claim will allow Leibniz to avoid
the subsumption of individuals into the whole, and it will allow him to avoid the
problems of a view (like Cartesianism, especially in its Occasionalist forms) that
places the source of activity outside of the subject. These two boundaries define the
¹⁰ For the argument that Leibniz was briefly tempted by monism, see Adams, Leibniz: Determinist,
Theist, Idealist, 123–30 and Mark Kulstad, “Leibniz, Spinoza, Tschirnhaus: Metaphysics à Trois,
1675–1676,” in Spinoza: Metaphysical Themes, ed. Olli I. Koistinen and John I. Biro (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002). For a thorough discussion of Leibniz’s relation to Spinoza, see Mogens Laerke,
Leibniz Lecteur de Spinoza: La Genèse Opposition Complexe (Paris: Champion, 2008).
¹¹ Commentators have noted this connection with Aristotle (for example, see J.A. Cover and John
O’Leary-Hawthorne, Substance and Individuation in Leibniz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999), 219), but to my knowledge none have fully developed the naturalizing claim that I will be developing
throughout this book.
¹² Aristotle, “Physics,” 193a1.
¹³ For example, in a letter to Lady Masham in May 1704, Leibniz argues that “the principle of uniformity”
allows him to infer that what we recognize in substances “within our range” extends to “substances beyond
our sight and observation.” Therefore, Leibniz argues, “taking it as now agreed that there is in us a simple
being endowed with action and perception . . . this leads me to think that there are such active beings
everywhere in matter, and that they differ only in the manner of their perception” (G 3.339/NS 204).
 ’    
territory within which Leibniz develops his theory of substance, and these two aspects
of Aristotle’s account of nature, if he can give them a proper development within the
new science of the seventeenth century, will give him a way to tread this line.
In broad outlines, the project of this book is to see how Leibniz develops a natural
theory of the mind. Others have emphasized Leibniz’s natural philosophy, but few
have brought this discussion to bear on Leibniz’s theory of mind. In this first part of
the book, I will unpack more clearly what it is to be a natural theory, according to
Leibniz. In this chapter I will try to formulate Leibniz’s naturalizing claims more
precisely. In the following two chapters, I will emphasize the systematic principles
that help shape his theory—the principle of continuity, the principle of sufficient
reason, and the principle of the best.
There are three things that I will emphasize in this chapter: (a) Leibniz’s focus on
individual natures, (b) Leibniz’s appeal to “rules of the good and beautiful,” and
(c) the representational nature of individual substances, building the “rules of the
good and beautiful” into the individual, active natures. This allows for a robust
natural theory that is informed by the good, and, hence, final causes will form a
part of the overall natural theory. There is a problem, however, in identifying the
scope of Leibniz’s natural theory. It is not clear how Leibniz can avoid either
(1) extending his natural theory to include God’s actions (hence, natural philosophy
extends to theology) or, on the other hand, (2) identifying the boundaries of his
natural philosophy in an ad hoc way. I will argue that Leibniz does avoid these two
landmines. Regardless, we can focus the question more specifically by considering
whether he avoids these problems within his philosophy of mind (even if he didn’t in
the broader scope of his philosophy). That is, even if Leibniz cannot find a principled
way of limiting his natural theory in a global sense, he might nevertheless be able to
avoid such problems in his theory of mind. The working hypothesis of this book is
that Leibniz can and does develop such a theory of mind.
The path to this conclusion may seem a bit digressive at first, since Leibniz
establishes what I will call his naturalizing constraints through considerations of
the relation of the universe to God. In what follows, I will suggest that it is because of
a certain conception of God that Leibniz thinks that the naturalizing constraints hold.
So a bit of patience is cautioned—Part I will be giving something of a theological
argument for naturalism, which will seem unusual in today’s context but is necessary
if we are to see the strength of these constraints for Leibniz.
1. Sophie’s Naturalism: “everything

that happens is natural”
1.1. Naturalism of a sort
In the early 1690s, Duchess Sophie wrote to Leibniz, asking his opinion about a
woman who claimed to prophesy via a special and direct dictation from Christ.¹⁴
¹⁴ I am indebted to Robert Adams for bringing this correspondence to our attention. See Adams,
Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, 91–2. The correspondence can be found at A 1.7.29–46 or A 2.2.452ff.
The translation here is Adams’s.
   
In his response to Sophie, Leibniz claimed to be “thoroughly persuaded that there is

nothing but [what is] natural in all that.”¹⁵ But he went on to claim that “the great
Prophets, that is to say, those who can teach us the details of the future, must have
supernatural graces,”¹⁶ due to the infinite complexity of causes that must be under-
stood in order to predict future events.
Sophie follows-up with what Robert Adams describes as a “blunt and sweepingly
naturalistic remark”:¹⁷
I believe that everything that happens is natural, even when we do not know the cause of it.¹⁸
Leibniz responds:
That is very solid, provided it is explained correctly. It is very true, then, that everything that is
done is always natural to the one that does it, or to the one that aids in doing it. Thus what a
human being does with the aid of God, if it is not entirely natural to the human being, will at
least be natural to God, inasmuch as he aids in it; and it cannot surpass the divine nature, nor
consequently all nature in general. But popularly when Nature is spoken of, that of finite substances
is understood, and in this sense it is not impossible for there to be something supernatural, which
surpasses the force of every created being. It is when an event cannot be explained by the laws of
movement of bodies, or by other similar rules that are noticed in finite substances. And I have
shown in an earlier letter that one encounters that every time one finds a succession of true
prophecies that go into detail. It is true that they are rare, like all other supernatural things.¹⁹
Leibniz’s analysis of “natural” here is enlightening, since it focuses on the activity of a
substance—what it is able to do. The ability of a substance to act derives from its
nature, which is consistent with Leibniz’s description of nature in DM §16 and in
“A Specimen of Dynamics.”²⁰ (These texts will be discussed more fully in chapter 4.)
An action is natural if it is a consequence of the natures of the substances involved.
That is, if the action falls within the scope of the things the substance is able to do on
its own (without assistance), then it is a fully natural outcome for that substance. But
if the action falls outside of the scope of what a particular substance is able to do,
but that substance could do it with assistance, then it is a natural outcome of the
combined substances participating in the action. Therefore, all events are natural,
since even those events that might be regarded as miraculous, as being beyond the
power of any combination of finite substances, still include the assistance of God,
which is to say the divine nature.
So, one way to understand Sophie’s claim is this:
(1) Every event follows either from the natures of finite beings (individually or
collectively), from the nature of God, or from the natures of finite beings
assisted by the nature of God.
The editors of the Academy edition note that the prophetess in question is Rosamunde Juliane von der
Asseburg. For more on Leibniz’s attitude towards modern-day prophets, see Daniel J. Cook, “Leibniz on
Enthusiasm,” in Leibniz, Mysticism and Religion, ed. A.P. Coudert, R.H. Popkin, and G.M. Weiner (Dordrecht:
Kluwer, 1998).
¹⁵ A 2.2.452/Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, 91. ¹⁶ A 2.2.454/ibid. ¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ A 1.7.44/ibid., 91. ¹⁹ A 1.7.46f; A 2.2.460f/ibid., 91–2, emphasis mine.
²⁰ GM 6.235/AG 118.
 ’    
This is a quick route to naturalism for anyone inclined to join the party. All one needs
to do is to count actions that derive from God’s nature as natural events.
This maneuver would seem strange to most naturalists, and rightly so. It is a
cheater’s naturalism, and Leibniz doesn’t fully endorse it. Under this construal,
Descartes’s and Malebranche’s theories could be considered natural theories.
Leibniz’s resistance to Cartesian theories of mind and motion is evidence that he
did not subscribe to such a broad construal of naturalism. But what makes this
broad form of naturalism coherent and intelligible is a theory of individual natures
that underlies Leibniz’s substance metaphysics. For Leibniz, the claim that an event
is natural involves an implicit reference to the natures of the acting substances that
participate in or cause the event—we must rephrase any statement of the form
“X is natural” to “X is natural for Y ” (where Y might pick out an individual or a set
of individuals).
1.2. Limiting “nature”

When Leibniz says that “popularly when Nature is spoken of, that of finite substances
is understood,” he is advocating a restriction in the domain of the term. But then he
needs to give a principled way of restricting the domain. Restricting the domain to
finite substances and applying it to the formulation of Sophie’s naturalism above
yields a false claim:
(2) Every event follows from the natures of one or more finite beings.
While (2) might be appealing to some, it cannot be attributed to Leibniz. If true, it
entails that no events follow from the nature of an infinite being (or, possibly, that
there is no infinite being).²¹ While it is an open question just how much supernatural
activity Leibniz allows for (more on this later), Leibniz certainly thinks that there is
an infinite being whose acts follow from its nature. It would be false to say that all
events follow from the natures of finite beings.
If the domain restriction implicit in the popular usage of the term is what
ultimately undermines Sophie’s naturalism, then Leibniz has a problem: the domain
restriction seems unmotivated. Leibniz is not against the modification of language (or
the invention of new terms) to provide greater clarity to the theory, provided the
modification is linked properly to popular usage. So, the popular usage of the term
cannot dictate the theory unless it is given a systematic grounding in that theory.
Leibniz claims that Sophie’s usage of the term can be given good sense. That is, it is
translatable into something that would not obscure her meaning.²² But once he does
so, it seems he is left with an unmotivated domain restriction.
In the quoted passage, Leibniz provides a further criterion for a natural act that
may not be as ad hoc as simply ruling out divine activity. He says that a supernatural
event occurs when it “cannot be explained by the laws of movement of bodies, or by
²¹ Note that this would be problematic for Spinoza as well—if this is the way we should contrast natural
and supernatural events, then Spinoza’s philosophy is not a natural philosophy.
²² For discussion of Leibniz’s views about the link between popular usage and the clarity of one’s theory,
see Mogens Laerke, “The Problem of Alloglossia: Leibniz on Spinoza’s Innovative Use of Philosophical
Language,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 17 (2009): §2.
   
other similar rules that are noticed in finite substances.”²³ And so, the characterization
of a natural event, closer to popular usage, might be as follows:
(3) A natural event is an event that can be fully explained by the laws of the
movement of bodies or other laws governing finite substances.
Leibniz is here appealing to the explanatory utility of the laws of nature, which
provides us some access to what makes an event a natural event. Leibniz’s appeal to
individual natures reveals a commitment to the full intelligibility of nature—natural
events are susceptible to a full explanation in terms of finite substances and the laws
governing them.²⁴
While (3) retains the domain restriction of (2), it gives us a principled way of
identifying the distinction. Supernatural acts are not intelligible in terms of the laws
proper to bodily motion (or other such laws).
Although the appeal to the intelligibility of nature might provide a greater motiv-
ation for the restriction of the domain, it is not decisive against Sophie’s naturalism,
formulated in (1), since, if there are supernatural events, then there are events among
finite substances that cannot be explained by appealing to “the laws of the movement
of bodies or other laws governing finite substances.” Thus, in order for nature to be
fully intelligible, we would need to include God’s actions as well—the restriction of
the domain in this way does not inevitably yield naturalism.
This may give us insight into why the popular usage is relevant here. As will
become clear in the next chapter, natural events are intelligible to us. Leibniz’s natural
theory is essentially connected to the explanatory force of the theory. While we could
stretch the term to include even events that are not intelligible to us (such as a
genuine miracle), there is value in preserving the emphasis on explanation.
Now Leibniz is in the position of having to identify just how far “nature” extends.
For Leibniz, the naturalness of a theory will be closely tied to its intelligibility. But this
by itself does not provide the principled way Leibniz needs to identify and define the
scope. What sorts of events are intelligible? Why think any events are fully intelligible
in this way? And if some events are, why aren’t all events intelligible in this way?
Leibniz’s claim that his account of the mind-body relation is “more natural” suggests
that he regarded it as able to explain more. But should we read this as suggesting that
his theory of mind is fully natural?
2. Leibniz’s Middle Way

2.1. Three sects of naturalists
Before trying to answer this last question, I want to look at a text in which Leibniz
distinguishes multiple types of “naturalist.” In an early essay, written some time
²³ Ibid.
²⁴ For more on this “principle of intelligibility,” see Donald Rutherford, “Leibniz’s Principle of
Intelligibility,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 9, no. 1 (1992). I will have more to say about this principle
in subsequent chapters.
 ’    
between 1678 and 1680, Leibniz identified “Two Sects of Naturalists.”²⁵ In this essay,
Leibniz discusses the shortfalls of naturalist theories that entail either necessitarian-
ism or materialism. The clear suggestion by the end of the essay is that there is a
natural theory that navigates clear of these hazards, and so, as I will argue, Leibniz is
not undermining naturalism as such. He is arguing for a third form of naturalism that
succeeds in ways the other two do not.
The first sort of naturalist that Leibniz describes as “fashionable” (en vogue) is the
Epicurean naturalist, who “believes that any substance, including the soul and God
himself, is corporeal, that is to say, composed of extended matter or mass.”²⁶ This
view Leibniz ascribes to Hobbes, and he claims that it has bad consequences for a
clear conception of God—if God is material, then it is impossible for God to be all
powerful or all knowing, and therefore this sect of naturalism denies God’s provi-
dential activity.
The second sort of naturalist is associated with the Stoics in ancient times and with
Spinoza and possibly Descartes in the modern period. According to this version of
naturalism, although there are incorporeal substances, God is the soul of the world,
operating on the basis of a “blind necessity.” “God has neither understanding nor
will,” and so everything happens by a “mechanical necessity.”²⁷ The denial of final
causes follows from this theory, and, Leibniz argues, there is “no justice or benevo-
lence with respect to God.” So, while these naturalists might grant the existence of
providence, it is providence “in name only.”
However, Leibniz does not deny naturalism. He goes on to identify a third sect,²⁸
the sect deriving from Socrates and Plato, which, he says, is more suitable to piety.
Leibniz ends the essay with a long quotation from Plato’s Phaedo,²⁹ in which Socrates
is presented as criticizing Anaxagoras. This criticism, Leibniz says, can be imported
into the modern period, showing the weakness of the naturalisms then in vogue. The
Socratic criticism is that Anaxagoras posits a governing intelligence (νοῦς) over all
things, which, Socrates infers, would lead Anaxagoras to discuss the principle of
perfection. Since everything would be disposed in the most perfect manner by an
intelligent cause, the full account of nature would allow us to show why things are
ordered in this particular way rather than another. But, in fact, Anaxagoras makes no
use of the governing intelligence.
Instead, while Anaxagoras describes certain material causes in the universe, he
never gives an account of why those material causes must be as they are. For example,
he describes the actions of the human body in terms of the relation of flesh, bones,
muscles, etc., as if this gives the full cause of the actions of a human body. These
material components of the human body do help make sense of a particular set of
causal relations. But Anaxagoras’s invocation of Nous suggests that the true cause
²⁵ “Two Sects of Naturalists” is the title given to the essay by Daniel Garber and Roger Ariew (AG 281).
The Gerhardt edition has no title for the essay (G 7.333). The Academy editors have given the title,
“Sentiments de Socrate opposes aux Nouveaux Stoiciens et Epicureens” (A 6.4.1384). As it will become clear,
I much prefer the Academy title.
²⁶ A 6.4.1384/AG 281. ²⁷ A 6.4.1385/AG 282. ²⁸ A 6.4.1386/AG 283.
²⁹ See Plato, “Phaedo,” in Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1997),
97b–9d.
   
would be the intelligent cause that orders the human body in such a way due to its
connection with the perfection of things. Socrates concludes, “Those who only
say . . . that motions of bodies around the earth keep it here, where it is, forget that
divine power disposes everything in the finest way, and do not understand that it is
the good and the beautiful that join, form, and maintain the world.”³⁰
The naturalists following Socrates and Plato would recognize that the mechanical
causes, even if exhaustively demonstrated by the new physics, do not provide the full
cause of things. There is a further, overarching cause that must be considered, and
this cause is a final cause—it tends towards something, namely the forms of the good
and the beautiful. The natural philosophy that Leibniz is pursuing preserves this
moral aspect of nature, recognizing in it a perfection of order and beauty that is due
to a cause that is not explicable in merely mechanical terms.
In sum, the naturalisms of the Stoics and the Epicureans either (a) fail to provide
a fully explanatory account of nature or (b) explain nature in a way that has
undesirable entailments. In the first case, there are global features of nature, its
particular ordering and arrangement, which are not explained in terms of the
particular patterns of causes themselves. And so, as Socrates argued, there must
be some other principle that governs the overarching structure, some explanation
for why it is structured as it is. Of course, the Stoics and Epicureans may simply
reply that it is necessarily so ordered—there is no other possible ordering. But this
is to move to the other horn of the dilemma, since, as Leibniz argues, this would
have undesirable effects, namely in undermining divine providence and principles
of justice.
The argument here arguably paves the way to a particular interpretation of the
principle of sufficient reason and the principle of the best. The principle of sufficient
reason, in one of Leibniz’s later formulations, is the principle that there is no “true or
existent fact . . . without there being a sufficient reason for why it is thus and not
otherwise.”³¹ Either the naturalists can give no such reason for the causal structure of
the world, thus violating the principle of sufficient reason, or the reason that is given
is “blind,” a mere necessity. In fact, to turn the screw a little tighter, Leibniz does not
think that those who appeal to blind necessity are even providing reasons:
For what is necessary is so by its essence, since the opposite implies a contradiction; but a
contingent which exists, owes its existence to the principle of what is best, which is a sufficient
reason for the existence of things . . . Whereas absolute and metaphysical necessity depends
upon the other great principle of our reasonings, viz., that of essences; that is, the principle of
identity or contradiction.³²
And so, the reply that the world is necessarily as it is plays a different game—it does
not supply a reason, it merely recognizes that other orderings are internally contra-
dictory. Leibniz, on the other hand, sides with Socrates and Plato, who provide an
explanation from outside the order of finite things, an explanation that is not “blind”
but is intelligent and acts in a way that tends towards the perfection of things.
³⁰ A 6.4.1388/AG 284. ³¹ M §32.

³² LC Leibniz 5, §§9–10. I will return to this quotation in chapter 3.
 ’    
The Socratic natural theory, then, provides a full explanation of the causes of
nature, leaving no undesirable gaps. But, once again, this sort of theory makes an
appeal to an intelligence that is beyond the realm of finite, dependent things. And so,
as before, it seems to stretch the meaning of the term to call this a “natural” theory.
The Socratic/Platonic naturalist might be closer to Leibniz’s characterization of
Sophie’s full-fledged naturalism: all events are natural, given that even so-called
supernatural events derive from the natures of higher beings.
Nevertheless, the discussion of the Phaedo brings out a difference in the sorts of
explanations that are adequate to an effect. Supposing someone wanted to explain
why Socrates is sitting in his cell. The Anaxagorian (and Hobbesian) explanation is
given in terms of the bones, muscles, and joints, etc. To put it in the language of the
mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth century, Socrates is sitting because of a
long mechanical process that resulted in his bones and muscles being positioned in
just such a way in that particular place. The full explanation, no doubt, would be long
and complex (possibly infinitely long and infinitely complex), but it is provided by
the interactions of matter and mechanical motions that give rise to the particulars of
Socrates’s body and its present placement.
But there is a second order of explanation available, as Socrates points out in the
Phaedo. Socrates is an intelligent person; he considers options and decides on a
course of action that affects the disposition of his body. Socrates is sitting in his cell
because the Athenians decided that it was best to convict him, and he decided that it
would be better to stay and face the charges rather than to flee or to request exile. The
explanation, again, may be long and complex, but in this case it is provided by the
intelligent recognition of the best action.
On the broadest scale, it is appropriate to regard Leibniz as a part of this third sect,
providing what Socrates was looking for in the pages of Anaxagoras. I think this
provides at least three things for Leibniz. First, it provides logical and normative
constraints on metaphysics. Leibniz complains that Descartes allows no room for
justice, since, for Descartes, God’s volition is the source of the principles of justice.
But then, on a fully voluntarist conception of God, there is little room to see why God
would deem certain orderings as just rather than others, and there is little room to
give God credit for doing so. Leibniz’s theology recognizes constraints on the divine
nature—God does not cause or create the principles of justice, but they are grounded
in the divine understanding, and God desires to act in accordance with them. And so
we have a principled way of explaining even God’s choices (if, per impossible, we
could enter into the infinite intuition of the divine intellect and see things as God
does), and the credit owed to God is based on God’s acting in accordance with the
good and the beautiful. As Leibniz frequently asserts, “God does nothing without a
reason.”³³ I will unpack the implications of this more fully in chapter 3—I think the
principle of sufficient reason, as employed by Leibniz, will have to carry with it some
normative weight, connecting it more closely with the principle of the best than
others have recognized.
³³ A 6.4.1388.
   
Secondly, this version of naturalism yields a full and systematic account of the
causes of things. While physics provides a legitimate account of the motions of
bodies, it is nevertheless a limited account. Physics must be grounded in some further
explanation. In the Socratic case, the ruling intelligence, which acts on the basis of the
principles of perfection, complete the account, thus avoiding the “blind” or “mech-
anical necessity” of the Stoic naturalists and the materialism of the Epicurean
naturalists.
These lead to a third benefit. Leibniz argues that the Epicurean and Stoic natur-
alists end up with an ethic of patience. Since all things are connected by mechanical
and blind causes, we must simply be content, since “it is madness to oppose the
torrent of things and to be discontented with what is immutable.”³⁴ Leibniz con-
tinues, “if they knew that all things are ordered for the general good and for the
particular welfare of those who know how to make use of them, they would not
identify happiness with simple patience.”³⁵ While I do not intend to pursue these
particular ethical claims in this volume, the clear implication is that if we get the
metaphysics right we will see our way to an ethic of action rather than of patience or
contentedness. The higher ideal, for Leibniz, is justice, which Leibniz defines in a
novel way: justice is the “charity of the wise,” or “a habit of loving conformed to
wisdom.”³⁶ Leibniz argues that happiness is essentially connected with this notion of
justice rather than an ethic of patience, that is, the happy person will seek to “know
how to make use of ” things for the general good.³⁷
But to get these benefits, it seems that Leibniz will have to extend his explanatory
thesis to include what we would otherwise recognize as non-natural events (like
God’s act of creating a well-ordered cosmos). Why, then, should we think this to be a
fully natural theory at all? It certainly seems to stretch the common usage of the term.
And, if we do grant this sort of naturalism, then it seems that occasionalism will be
natural in the same way. In section 2.2, I will explore how Leibniz thinks he can
separate himself from occasionalism, and then, in section 2.3, I will show how Leibniz
brings this sort of naturalism back down to earth.
2.2. The threat of occasionalism

Since even the occasionalists appeal to God’s acting on the basis of the principle of
perfection, they seem equally capable of exemplifying a Socratic naturalism. Male-
branche, for example, is able to account for regularities in nature by God’s consistent
action in nature, never departing from his eternal decree, and so it seems that
Malebranche’s theory can underwrite a full physical theory even though he regards
³⁴ A 6.4.1385/AG 282. ³⁵ Ibid.

³⁶ See, for example, “Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice” (Riley 45–64) and “Felicity” (Grua
2.579–84/Riley 82–4). For more on Leibniz’s novel definition of justice, see Patrick Riley, Leibniz’ Universal
Jurisprudence: Justice as Charity of the Wise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996) and Robert
J. Mulvaney, “The Early Development of Leibniz’s Concept of Justice,” Journal of the History of Ideas 29 (1968).
³⁷ In the “Dialogue between Polidore and Theophile,” written around the same time as “Two Sects,”
Leibniz spells this out more fully. Included in his full ethic are a satisfied contentment (rather than mere
patience), the love of God above all things, happiness with our current state, charity towards neighbor, a
striving for perfection (“especially the mind”), and a recognition that no good act will be without its reward
(A 6.4.2238–9/L 219–20).
 ’    
God as the only true cause. And yet Leibniz is insistent that the occasionalist theory is
not a fully natural theory, appealing, as he says, to perpetual miracles.³⁸ For Leibniz,
mere regularity and the law-like actions of God are not sufficient for a fully natural
theory. The difference ultimately rests in Leibniz’s conception of God; his belief in a
fundamental naturalism is grounded in a particular kind of theology.
The essential difference between Leibniz and Malebranche, according to Leibniz, is
a matter of whether God creates natures that could function as genuine causes in
their own right. Arnauld defends Malebranche in his March 4, 1676 letter to
Leibniz,³⁹ insisting that Leibniz and Malebranche are saying essentially the same
thing. Malebranche does not argue that each action, e.g., my decision to raise my arm
and the arm rising, requires a new volition of God. Rather, God exercises a “single act
of eternal will, whereby he has wished to do everything which he has foreseen that it
would be necessary to do, in order that the universe might be what he deemed it was
to be.”⁴⁰ This, Arnauld thinks, is precisely what Leibniz is arguing in his claim that
the mind does not cause motions in the body or vice versa, but rather they are
arranged in a harmony from the beginning by God.
Leibniz rejects this conclusion, and in so doing he clarifies his own thoughts on the
nature of God and his interaction with the world. Leibniz argues that the occasion-
alist position fails to be fully natural because the action of God is not based in the
nature of the finite substance. That is, Leibniz argues that the common usage of
“miracle” appeals to an intrinsic difference—there must be some appeal to what is
within the nature of the substance itself when distinguishing the natural from the
supernatural.⁴¹
The preferable position, according to Leibniz, is one in which
bodily substance has the force to continue its changes according to the laws that God has
placed in its nature and maintains there. And . . . I believe that the actions of minds effect no
changes at all in the nature of bodies, nor bodies in that of minds, and even that God changes
nothing on their occasion, except when he performs a miracle; and in my opinion things are so
prearranged that a mind never effectively desires anything except when the body is prepared to
do it by virtue of its own laws and forces.⁴²
Thus, a fully natural theory will be one in which each thing does what is already in its
nature to do and the force necessary to carry out the effect is resident in the nature of
the thing itself. Anything that exceeds the force of the natures involved in the event
will be miraculous. Occasionalism, Leibniz argues, continuously has such exceptions,
since the force for any action comes from an outside source, namely, God.
³⁸ See, for example, Leibniz’s claims in his correspondence with Arnauld (A 2.2.81/LA 65, A 2.2.179/LA
116), his Letter to Foucher, August 1686 (A 2.2.90/WF 52), and his response to Tournemine (G 6.595/AG
197). This charge wasn’t limited to occasionalists, Leibniz also charges Christiaan Huygens and Isaac
Newton with “perpetual miracles”: A 2.2.514/L 414, A 2.2.582, and G 3.517–18.
³⁹ LA 105f. ⁴⁰ LA 106.
⁴¹ This may not be an entirely fair criticism of Malebranche, given that Malebranche also recognizes the
need to appeal to the natures of things (Search 663; see A 6.4.1933 for evidence that Leibniz gave some
attention on this passage). But as I will discuss below, Leibniz thinks there is a crucial difference in how the
natures of things play into the explanations of natural events.
⁴² LA 115–16.
   
But this is not yet an argument for why Leibniz’s position is preferable to the
occasionalist view. Leibniz goes on to say that:
One cannot disagree that this hypothesis is at least possible and that God is a sufficiently great
workman to be able to carry it out; thereafter one will easily conclude that this hypothesis is the
most probable since it is the simplest and the most intelligible, and at once demolishes all the
problems, to say nothing of the criminal actions in which it seems more reasonable to invoke
God’s assistance merely in the preservation of created forces.⁴³
Leibniz here provides six criteria for favoring his hypothesis: (a) it is possible; (b) God
is capable of creating nature in this way; (c) it is simplest; (d) it is most intelligible;
(e) it solves problems in the natural theory; and (f ) it helps resolve the problem of
evil. We can divide these criteria into two groups—Leibniz says that his hypothesis is
“infinitely more reasonable and worthy of God.”⁴⁴ Logical constraints: (a), (c), (d),
and (e) are matters of reasonableness and theory selection—one should favor the
theory that is simplest, intelligible, resolves existing problems, and is in itself possible.
The second group reflects normative constraints: (b) and (f ) focus on aspects of God’s
nature and moral character. If Leibniz is right that his hypothesis is the more
reasonable (simplest, most intelligible, etc.) and that God is capable of creating such
a world, then it would be a defect on God’s part to have created a world that does not
line up with this hypothesis. Similarly, if God is more closely implicated as the author
of sin (which, it seems, he is in the occasionalist system), this again is a mark against
God’s nature. But, as Leibniz says in DM §3, “God does nothing for which he does not
deserve to be glorified,” and so the occasionalist hypothesis is out.⁴⁵
In order for this argument to be successful, Leibniz will have to show that his own
system is in fact more reasonable—that it is possible, simplest, most intelligible, and
solves all of the problems. And Leibniz does take up this challenge. But the challenge
will be to show that his system appeals ultimately only to the individual natures of
finite beings, that is, to show just how natural his theory is.
2.3. “Traces of God”: A representational theory of substance
One further problem might arise for the Socratic naturalist. The initial suggestion in
this chapter was that Leibniz’s natural theory is broadly Aristotelian, as finding an
explanatory basis in individual natures. However, section 2.1 introduced a different
sort of natural theory, namely one that provides the explanatory basis of nature in an
intelligent cause. On the face of it, this will be in tension with a broadly Aristotelian
reading, since the intelligent cause appealed to by Plato and others is not one that is
immanent in the individual finite natures. That is, for a full explanation of natural
⁴³ LA 118. ⁴⁴ LA 118.
⁴⁵ There is a different sort of argument that could equally apply here, presented in Leibniz’s second letter
to Clarke (LC Leibniz 2, §12):
1. If God must “mend the course of nature,” it must be done naturally or supernaturally.
2. If it is done supernaturally, then we must explain natural things by miracles, which is absurd.
3. If it is done naturally, then God will not be supramundane: he will be the “soul of the world,” which is
undesirable.
4. It is necessary to “mend the course of nature,” on Leibniz’s reading of Clarke and Newton.
5. And so, Clarke’s and Newton’s natural philosophy entails something absurd or undesirable.
 ’    
events, one must appeal to something beyond the finite individual natures. And so, it
seems, we have two competing naturalizing constraints: one that looks to the
individual natures as explanatorily basic and the other that looks to an overarching
intelligent (non-blind) cause as explanatorily basic. In this section, I will argue that
Leibniz believes that he can embrace both of these positions.
Leibniz brings the two theories together by appealing to a fully representational
theory of substance. When we turn to a text from Leibniz’s mature years—“On
Nature Itself ” (1698)—Leibniz says:
[I]f, indeed, the law God laid down [in creating] left some trace of itself on things, if by his
command things were formed in such a way that they were rendered appropriate for fulfilling
the will of the command then already we must admit that a certain efficacy has been placed in
things, a form or a force, something like what we usually call by the name “nature,” something
from which the series of phenomena follow in accordance with the prescript of the first
command.⁴⁶
This argument is again intended to distinguish Leibniz from Malebranche—he
argues that God’s command must have a lasting effect on the substances he creates,
and, if that is the case, then it is a short step to enduring, causally active, individual
substances. But the means of God’s lasting activity on a substance is by preserving the
traces of his command on the finite substances themselves, forming a part of their
nature.
And so the picture that emerges from Leibniz’s theory of substance is that each
substance contains in it everything that is necessary for a full explanation of each of
its states. As Leibniz says in the Discourse on Metaphysics, “every substance is like a
complete world and like a mirror of God or of the whole universe, which each one
expresses in its own way, somewhat as the same city is variously represented
depending upon the different positions from which it is viewed.”⁴⁷ The Leibnizian
extension of internal representations to all substances, not merely minds, allows for a
full explanation of things in terms of the representational states of the substances and
each substance’s tendencies to change in response to its representations.
All of this supports a naturalizing thesis of the following sort:
(4) An event is natural iff it can be fully explained in terms of the natures of finite
substances.
Given that each substance preserves a representation of God’s commands within its
own nature, this opens the door to a version of naturalism: each individual nature
provides the full and sufficient reason for each subsequent state of the substance.
Of course, we will have to look further to see just how many events will count as
natural events on this reading of “natural.” One obvious cause for continuing to limit
the scope will be Leibniz’s commitment to divine activity in the world. With this in
mind, we look at one final argument in which Leibniz argues for a restricted scope
to the term “nature.” In Leibniz’s discussion of miracles in DM §16, he says that
miracles “are always in conformity with the universal law of the general order, even
⁴⁶ G 4.507/AG 158–9, emphasis mine. ⁴⁷ DM §9.

   
though they may be above the subordinate maxims.” He follows this up with another
restriction on the term “nature”: “if we include in our nature everything that it
expresses, nothing is supernatural to it, for our nature extends everywhere.”⁴⁸ Once
again Leibniz gives sense to a full-blown naturalism, quickly followed by a
qualification:
But what our nature expresses more perfectly belongs to it in a particular way, since it is in this
that its power consists. But since it is limited . . . there are many things that surpass the powers
of our nature and even surpass the powers of all limited natures.⁴⁹
So we have yet another way of identifying the limit on nature, namely, in terms of the
power a particular individual has. But, as above, this remains unmotivated, since
Leibniz gives no reason to think that God’s nature (i.e., God’s power) shouldn’t be
included in the domain. For a further motivation, we must read further:
Thus, to speak more clearly, I say that God’s miracles and extraordinary concourse have the
peculiarity that they cannot be foreseen by the reasoning of any created mind, no matter how
enlightened, because the distinct comprehension of the general order surpasses all of them. On
the other hand, everything that we call natural depends on the less general maxims that
creatures can understand.⁵⁰
The domain restriction on the term “nature” corresponds with a restriction in
intelligibility by a finite mind. There are certain things that the finite mind will
never be able to explain. For Leibniz, the scope of intelligibility will mirror the
domain restriction on the use of “nature.” Statement (4) allows for this, and this
could be useful to the natural scientist who has theistic commitments—for example,
physics will explain all events that are explainable in terms of the laws of physics, but
if there are exceptions to those laws (through miracles), these events would in
principle not be explainable in the terms of physics.
With this sense of “natural,” then, we can raise the further question just how
wide of a scope does Leibniz think his naturalism will have? I have suggested here
that the scope of naturalism will be coextensive with intelligibility for Leibniz, but
just how intelligible does Leibniz regard the universe? This question will be taken
up in section 3.
3. A Harmony of Nature and Grace

3.1. Miracles
To determine the full scope of Leibniz’s naturalizing commitments, we will need to
consider just what sorts of exceptions Leibniz is prepared to allow. In his letter to
Sophie, he admits that “a succession of true prophecies that go into detail” would
require a genuine miracle, but, he goes on to say “they are rare, like all other
supernatural things.”⁵¹ It seems, from this letter and other writings, that Leibniz
would allow for genuine miracles. But I think at the same time there is good evidence
⁴⁸ DM §16. ⁴⁹ Ibid. ⁵⁰ Ibid.

⁵¹ A 1.7.46f.; A 2.2.460f./Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, 91–2.
 ’    
that Leibniz did not believe there were any genuine miracles, although he would
allow for their possibility.
The question of just how numerous or extensive miracles are comes up towards
the end of Leibniz’s life in his correspondence with Samuel Clarke. In the corres-
pondence, Clarke has argued that a miraculous event is an event conceived as
irregular and not explicable by usual causes.⁵² Leibniz’s response provides one of
his most common accounts of miracles:
Divines will not grant the author’s position against me; viz. that there is no difference with
respect to God between natural and supernatural: and it will be still less approved by most
philosophers. There is a vast difference between these two things . . . That which is supernat-
ural, exceeds all the powers of creatures.⁵³
Leibniz gives a clear definition of supernatural as that which “exceeds all the powers
of creatures.” In response, Clarke objects that, on Leibniz’s account, (a) events we
might think of as miraculous, e.g., walking on water, are not miraculous since they do
not require infinite power; and (b) events that we otherwise would not regard as
miraculous, e.g., the actions of animals, are miraculous, since they are not explicable
by the natural powers of bodies.⁵⁴ Leibniz grants the first and denies the second.
Many events that might be thought of as miraculous are not miracles of the “highest
sort,”⁵⁵ including most of those reported in the Bible. Walking on water, the sun
standing still, the flight of Hezekiah, and the stirring of the waters of the pool of
Bethesda all have an explanation in terms of finite natures. And so, at best, these are
miracles of an “inferior order.”⁵⁶ Additionally, Leibniz resists the claim that the
actions of animals are miraculous, being initially content to state it rhetorically,
“Why should it be impossible to explain the motion of animals by natural forces?”⁵⁷
The clear tenor of Leibniz’s mature writings is that genuinely supernatural events,
miracles of the “highest sort,” are (at least) uncommon, although the uncommonness
of the event is not what makes the event supernatural. The examples of genuine
miracles that Leibniz gives in his correspondence with Clarke are (a) creation,
(b) annihilation, and (c) action at a distance. The latter two Leibniz thinks to be
non-actual. Indeed, it is part of Leibniz’s criticism of the Newtonian system that it
appeals to miracles—action at a distance—as a part of its so-called natural philosophy.
Action at a distance, he argued, cannot be given an explanation in terms of “the natural
powers of creatures,” and so it should be rejected.
I do not wish to get too bogged down in the discussion of miracles here, but
there is good evidence to think that Leibniz severely restricted the number of
genuine miracles. The clearest instances of genuine miracles for Leibniz are
creation, the incarnation, and biblical prophecy.⁵⁸ And even for these three, there
⁵² See LC 24 and 29–30. ⁵³ LC 29–30. ⁵⁴ See LC 35. ⁵⁵ LC 91. See also T 249.
⁵⁶ LC 93. ⁵⁷ LC 43.
⁵⁸ Some Christian readers might be surprised not to see the resurrection of Christ in this list. One of the
benefits Leibniz thought his theory of mind provided was a natural way to account for the immortality of
the soul, which, according to him, is always embodied. Since every mind will survive death naturally, there
is no reason to suppose that Christ’s resurrection requires any further supernatural aids. See the passage at
A 6.3.365, note 5, quoted in Daniel J. Cook, “Leibniz on ‘Prophets,’ Prophecy, and Revelation,” Religious
Studies 45, no. 3 (2009): fn. 44.
   
are suggestions in Leibniz’s writings that a natural account could be given for these
as well.
Leibniz seems to be skeptical about miracles, even if personally witnessed, since the
Bible itself says that miracles will be done by the Antichrist that may deceive even the
elect.⁵⁹ Daniel J. Cook argues that Leibniz viewed biblical prophecy as susceptible of
natural demonstration, namely in its exact fulfillment, thus sidestepping the need to
verify the accompanying miracles. Cook says:
By relying on fulfilled prophecy as corroborating the truth of Christianity, rather than on
miracles (biblical or otherwise), one avoids basing one’s faith on possibly unreliable ancient
testimony or breaches of the laws of nature, but rather on the demonstrated march of history.⁶⁰
Robert Adams lists the following as miracles of the “highest rank”: creation, conser-
vation, incarnation, and annihilation. Again, as far as I know Leibniz nowhere claims
that annihilation is actualized. Further, creation and conservation change nothing in
the natures of the things (see, for example, Leibniz’s discussion of “original imper-
fection” of creatures who are created on the basis of the ideal nature of the creature as
conceived by God),⁶¹ and Leibniz in at least one text suggests that there is no initial
state of the universe.⁶² These suggest that God’s involvement here is simply that of
ontological dependency of finite substances on the infinite.
Further, in a very interesting passage quoted by Adams, Leibniz describes the
incarnation in a way that “would not change the natural laws of the first creature
[Jesus Christ] . . . This union [of God and man] would therefore change nothing in
the phenomena, even though the state of union differs internally from non-union.”⁶³
Thus, it seems that there is good evidence that none of the miracles of the “highest
sort” would affect the natural unfolding of finite beings. If this is right, then Leibniz’s
naturalism is indeed a full-blown naturalism.
If Leibniz is willing to go to great lengths in biblical theology to show that reported
miracles are open to explanation in terms of the natures of finite beings, it is good
evidence that in other domains, such as in the philosophy of mind, Leibniz would
restrict extra-natural explanations severely. Indeed, I think in his philosophy of
mind, he restricts them entirely. But even if the rare miracle were to occur, which
Leibniz never denies, it would not form a part of the natural philosophy of mind.
In his fifth letter to Clarke, Leibniz endorses just such a principle:
In good philosophy, and sound theology, we ought to distinguish between what is explicable by
the natures and powers of creatures, and what is explicable only by the powers of the infinite
substance.⁶⁴
This is a good representation of the naturalizing thread running through Leibniz’s
work. And this is the shape of the theory that I will be developing in this book.
Leibniz’s naturalism is not a blind, mechanical pushing-and-pulling naturalism.
Rather, the internal representations of finite substances cause each subsequent state
of the substance. But, Leibniz will argue, this is intelligible only if each substance has
⁵⁹ See A 6.4.2214. ⁶⁰ Cook, “Prophecy and Revelation,” 281. ⁶¹ T §20.

⁶² G 3.581–2/L 664. ⁶³ RML 413, quoted in Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, 99.
⁶⁴ LC 92.
 ’    
internal representations of the things surrounding it so that the relations it has to

other substances regulate its internal actions.
To summarize the exchange with Clarke, we can now characterize Leibniz’s
account of miracles in the following way:
(5) An event is supernatural iff the force required for the event exceeds the force
of all finite creatures.
Thus, it seems that as long as the sum total of force is conserved in a change, then
there is no need to appeal to supernatural aids. A natural event will be an event that is
not supernatural, that is, it is an event in which it is not the case that the force
required for the event exceeds the force of all finite creatures. And, as I have
suggested above, the exceptions to this sort of conservation will be exceedingly few
in kind.⁶⁵
This entails the following claim, for Leibniz:
(6) An event is supernatural iff the event cannot be explained in terms of finite
natures alone.
And, again, “natural” can be defined as the converse—a natural event is an event that
can be explained in terms of finite natures alone. That is to say, if there are no forces
beyond those of finite natures grounding the event, then the full explanation will
appeal only to those natures alone, and so intelligibility follows from Leibniz’s
naturalizing claims.
3.2. Nature and grace

The recognition that even God’s causal activity is explicable in terms of the individual
natures of finite substances brings out one further aspect of Leibniz’s natural theory.
Leibniz believed that each domain of explanation, discussed above, is compatible
with and harmonizes with the others. So, for example, the explanation of why
Socrates is sitting in his cell has two parallel forms of explanation: one explanation
in terms of the mechanical effects of the interactions of bones, muscles, and joints,
with surrounding objects, and another in terms of the intellect pursuing what it sees
as the best course of action. Leibniz argues that the explanation for Socrates’s sitting
can be given fully in terms of both mechanical causation and final causation,⁶⁶
although he recognized that in many cases the causes are more intelligible in terms
of efficient causation.
⁶⁵ Of course, Leibniz might also grant a more limited definition:

(5*) An event is supernatural iff the force required for the event exceeds the force of all natures
involved in the event.
This way of characterizing a supernatural event would not require appeal to a global conservation
principle. However, if there is some additional force involved in a local event, above what is contributed by
the finite substances involved in the event, there would also be an increase in the overall quantity of force,
and so (5) should suffice.
⁶⁶ “Any thing in the whole of nature can be demonstrated by final causes and also efficient causes”
(A 6.4.1367 (1667–79?)).
   
Similarly, Leibniz thought that God’s operations of grace were fully consistent with
a natural explanation of the created order.⁶⁷ In his correspondence with the Roman
Catholic Bishop of Meaux, Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, Leibniz makes the following
argument, commenting on the mechanics of nature:
[T]he laws of nature regarding motive force come from superior reasons and an immaterial
cause, which does everything in the most perfect way . . . And all this endless infinite variety is
animated in all its parts by an Architectural Wisdom that is more than infinite. One could say
that there is a harmony of geometry, of metaphysics, and, so to speak, of morality throughout.
And surprisingly, to take things in one sense, each substance acts spontaneously, independent
of all the other creatures, although in another sense all the others are obliged to accommodate
them. So that one could say that all nature is full of miracles, but miracles of reason, and they
become miracles by being reasonable, in a way that astonishes us. For these reasons, there is an
infinite progress, where our mind, although it sees as it should, can be followed by an
understanding of it. Otherwise, nature is admired without being understood . . . [T]he true
temperament for appreciating nature is with knowledge, recognizing that the more we
advance, the more we discover the wonder and beauty and grandeur of those same reasons
that are more surprising and less comprehensible to us.⁶⁸
The benefit of this view, for Leibniz, is that we need not simply settle into a cold,
lifeless naturalism. Leibniz’s view, following Lea Schweitz’s suggestion, may be called
a “sacramental naturalism.”⁶⁹ Just as Leibniz was willing to grant to Sophie a sense in
which all that happens is natural, he is also willing to grant to Bossuet that all that
happens is miraculous. This is the spirit of Leibniz’s natural theory—he does not
decide between a world that is intelligible on its own terms on the one hand and an
account of divine activity on the other. He sees the two as fully harmonious—the one
is an instance of the other. Leibniz is using the method of analogy to provide good
sense to his terms when used in a novel way—he says nature is full of miracles, but
then he provides the analogy. They are miracles of reason, that is, they astonish us by
being reasonable. And so his use of “miracle” here is simply to draw attention to the
amazement we might feel in the presence of a fully intelligible and reasonable domain
every time we investigate more deeply into the system of nature.
Leibniz is articulating a theologically rich naturalism. He is fully committed, at the
basic level, to causally active individual substances. He is equally committed to a God
who acts in a consistent and simple manner, doing always what coheres with the
principles of goodness and beauty. When Leibniz merges these two together, the
latter becomes fully expressed in the former—the rules of beauty and goodness are
intrinsic to the individual natures, and nature becomes intelligible without explicit
reference to the divine source.
⁶⁷ For an excellent discussion of how the aids of grace arise naturally, see Donald Rutherford, “Justice
and Circumstances: Theodicy as Universal Religion,” in New Essays on Leibniz’s Theodicy, ed. Larry
M. Jorgensen and Samuel Newlands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 71–91.
⁶⁸ Leibniz to Jacques-Benigne Bossuet, April 8/18, 1692 (A 2.2.516–17), emphasis mine.
⁶⁹ See Lea F. Schweitz, “On the Continuity of Nature and the Uniqueness of Human Life in
G.W. Leibniz,” in The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Ohad Nachtomy and Justin
E.H. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), §3, 213–7.
 ’    
4. Conclusion
The scope of naturalism does not get a lot of attention. For example, today some of us
might be committed to the following proposition:
(B1) Anything fully explainable in the terms of biology is a natural event.
But (B1) does not entail the stronger claim:
(B2) All events involving biological organisms are natural events.
Of course something like (B2) likely serves as a methodological assumption of a
research biologist, but the question is just how far the metaphysical assumptions
should extend. There are epistemic limits on the justification for this claim (for
example, there may be a few unobserved exceptions to it), and so it would need to be
supported by other metaphysical principles.
Leibniz not only shows that there are regularities among events that are intelligible
in terms of natural processes and laws alone, but he provides a metaphysical
grounding for these regularities in the natures of the individual substances and in
the moral character of the governing Mind. As he says in the quotation at the start of
this chapter, “nature, whose most wise Author uses the most perfect geometry,
observes the same rule [i.e. the principle of continuity]; otherwise it could not follow
an orderly progress.”⁷⁰ He is making a naturalizing claim—natural events display a
regularity and order according to a law. But he alludes to the grounding for this claim
as well: the author of nature reasons according to geometric principles. Since the
latter is true, one must expect that natural events observe laws analogous to those that
hold in geometry. While this is a common trope in the early modern period, Leibniz
argues that the Cartesians and the occasionalists have not seen the full sense of it. In
sum, I am arguing that Leibniz provides theological grounding for a fully natural
theory of mind.
Whatever his global commitments, I will argue that, at least with respect to his
theory of mind, Leibniz believed that he had offered a fully natural theory. That, at
least, is my interpretive hypothesis. The other true miracles that it seems that Leibniz
would allow—creation, the incarnation, and biblical prophecy—do not impinge on
Leibniz’s theory of mind. Whether or not there are actual miracles, this would not be
a part of his theory. That is, supernatural activity has no place in his fully developed
theory of mind, even if he allows for its possibility or even its actuality. This, Leibniz
thinks, is unlike Malebranche and other Cartesians, for whom the mind is not
intelligible without explicit reference to God’s intervention.
This will all make more sense once we have seen how his theory of mind derives
from broader naturalizing commitments. Indeed, the naturalizing commitments
I have started to outline here all refer to fundamentally mental categories—the
governing intellect guiding the divine will, the intelligibility of nature, and the
internal representation of God and other things in the natures of substances—and
each of these play a role in grounding and guiding Leibniz’s ultimate natural theory.
⁷⁰ G 4.375–6/L 398.
   
And so, while it might seem odd to call Leibniz a naturalist, I think that may be due to
his appeal to mental properties as foundational rather than (what we may be more
accustomed to hearing) physical properties. That is to say, Leibniz’s naturalism is
clearly not a version of physicalism, and for that reason it is of interest in its own right
as articulating an intriguing alternative among competing naturalized theories.
2
Naturalizing Constraints
Equipollence and Continuity
I find these leaps of yours very excruciating

—Charinus¹
In the previous chapter, I introduced Leibniz’s naturalizing project. In this chapter,

I will introduce what I take to be a methodological approach to naturalism—a way of
structuring one’s theory to ensure that the overall naturalizing goal is met. The
particular theoretical constraint I have in mind is the principle of continuity. In the
following sections, I will explore the genesis of the principle in Leibniz’s early work in
physics. Leibniz’s work in 1676 on a theory of motion, we will discover, actually
allowed for certain kinds of leaps. But even before his full endorsement of the
principle of continuity, Leibniz rejects the kinds of leaps that violate the principle
of sufficient reason.
As Leibniz’s thinking develops between 1676 and 1686, Leibniz becomes much
more confident that “nature never makes leaps,” and he develops what he will later
call the principle of continuity. Tracing his thinking in these years will illuminate the
grounds and implications of the principle of continuity. While I will be focusing
primarily on the principle’s application to physics in this chapter—since that is the
context in which Leibniz developed his thinking on continuity—the conclusions will
be broadly applicable to any natural theory. The principle of continuity serves as a
naturalizing constraint for Leibniz, and a clear understanding of this will give us a test
for the various interpretations of Leibniz’s theory of mind later in this book.
The discussion of the principle of continuity, however, will not be complete by the
end of this chapter. In chapter 3, I will consider the metaphysical basis of the
principle of continuity, which will require a digression into two further principles:
the principles of sufficient reason and the principle of the best. The principle of
continuity is grounded on these more basic principles, resulting in a fully systematic
outline for Leibniz’s naturalizing project. The larger thesis I will be arguing for in
these two chapters is this: Leibniz’s theory of mind must be continuous if it is to be
natural. Continuity is a necessary condition for a natural theory.
Of course, one might also wonder whether continuity is also a sufficient condition
for a natural theory. On an initial pass, it seems not. One could imagine a theory of
¹ A 6.3.560/Arthur 197.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Humming in misery “Non è ——”
He thinks not of the west so brightly ——
Nor listens to the faint and distant ——
But dreams of the false fair to whom is ——
The wo which never, never, will take ——.
Answer
367.
Convert the following into a couplet, perfect in rhyme and rhythm,
without adding or omitting a single letter:
“O Deborah, Deborah! wo unto thee

For thou art as deaf as a post.”
Answer
368.
One and the same word of two syllables, answers each of the
following triplets:
I. MY FIRST springs in the mountains;
MY SECOND springs out of the mountains;
MY WHOLE comes with a spring over the mountains.
II. MY FIRST runs up the trees;

MY SECOND runs past the trees;
MY WHOLE spreads over the trees.
III. MY FIRST runs on two feet;

MY SECOND runs without feet;
MY WHOLE just glides away.
IV. To catch MY FIRST, men march after it;

To capture MY SECOND, they march over it;
To possess MY WHOLE, they go through a march before it.
Answer
369.
Said the Moon to the Sun:

“Is the daylight begun?”
Said the Sun to the Moon:
“Not a moment too soon.
You’re a full Moon,” said he;

She replied, with a frown,
“Well! I never did see
So uncivil a clown!”
Query: Why was the Moon so angry?

Answer
370.
It is as high as all the stars,

No well was ever sunk so low;
It is in age five thousand years,
It was not born an hour ago.
It is as wet as water is;

No red-hot iron e’er was drier;
As dark as night, as cold as ice,
Shines like the sun, and burns like fire.
No soul, nor body to consume—

No fox more cunning, dunce more dull;
’Tis not on earth, ’tis in this room,
Hard as a stone, and soft as wool.
’Tis of no color, but of snow,

Outside and inside black as ink;
All red, all yellow, green and blue—
This moment you upon it think.
In every noise, this strikes your ear,

’Twill soon expire, ’twill ne’er decay;
Does always in the light appear,
And yet was never seen by day.
Than the whole earth it larger is,

Yet, than a small pin’s point, ’tis less;
I’ll tell you ten times what it is,
Yet after all, you shall not guess!
’Tis in your mouth, ’twas never nigh—

Where’er you look, you see it still;
’Twill make you laugh, ’twill make you cry;
You feel it plain, touch what you will.
Answer
371.
My FIRST, so faithful, fond and true,

Will ne’er forsake or injure you;
My SECOND, coming from the street
You often trample under feet;
My THIRD you sleep on every night,
Serene and calm, without affright;
My WHOLE is what you should not be
When talking with your friends or me.
Answer
372.
My FIRST is a little river in England that gave name to a
celebrated university; my SECOND is always near; my THIRD sounds
like several large bodies of water; and my WHOLE is the name of a
Persian monarch, the neighing of whose horse gave him a kingdom
and a crown.
Answer
373.
A horse in the midst of a meadow suppose,

Made fast to a stake by a line from his nose;
How long must this line be, that, feeding all ’round,
Permits him to graze just an acre of ground?
Answer
374.
FIRST, A house where man and beast

Find themselves at home;
SECOND, Greatest have and least
Wheresoe’er you roam;
THIRD, A pronoun, meaning many,
(You must add an L);
ALL, The manner of our meeting
When you ring my bell.
Answer
375.
A DINNER PARTY.
THE GUESTS,
(Who are chiefly Anachronisms and other Incongruities.)

The First: Escaped his foes by having his horse shod backward.
Second: Surnamed, The Wizard of the North.
3d: Dissolved pearls in wine; “herself being dissolved in love.”
4th: Was first tutor to Alexander the Great.
5th: Said “There are no longer Pyrenees.”
6th: The Puritan Poet.
7th: The Locksmith King.
8th: The woman “who drank up her husband.”
9th: The Architect of St. Peter’s, Rome.
10th: The Miner King.
11th: Surnamed The King Maker.
12th: The woman who married the murderer of her husband, and
of her husband’s father.
13th: The Architect of St. Paul’s, London.
14th: The man who spoke fifty-eight languages; whom Byron
called “a Walking Polyglot.”
15th: A death-note, and a father’s pride.
16th: The Bard of Ayrshire.
17th: The Knight “without fear, and without reproach.”
18th: Refused, because he dared not accept, the crown of
England.
19th: Whose vile maxim was “every man has his own price.”
20th: The king who had an emperor for his foot-stool.
21st: The conqueror of the conqueror of Napoleon.
22d: The inventor of gunpowder.
23d: The king who entered the enemy’s camp, disguised as a
harper.
24th: The greatest English navigator of the eighteenth century.
25th: The inventor of the art of printing.
26th: Whom Napoleon called “the bravest of the brave.”
27th: Who first discovered that the earth is round.
28th: The diplomatic conqueror of Napoleon.
29th: The inventor of the reflecting telescope.
30th: The conqueror of Pharsalia.
31st: The inventor of the safety lamp.
32d: First introduced tobacco into England.
33d: Discovered the Antarctic Continent.
34th: The present poet laureate of England.
35th: His immediate predecessor.
36th: The first of the line.
37th: Surnamed “the Madman of the North.”
38th: The young prince who carried a king captive to England.
39th: First sailed around the world.
40th: Said “language was given us to enable us to conceal our
thoughts.”
41st: The Father of History.
DISHES, RELISHES, DESSERT.

1: Natural caskets of valuable gems.
2: Material and immaterial.
3: The possessive case of a pronoun and an ornament.
4: A sign of the zodiac, (pluralized).
5: One-third of Cesar’s celebrated letter, and the centre of the
solar system.
6: Where Charles XII. went after the battle of Pultowa.
7: Whose English namesake Pope called “the brightest, wisest,
meanest of mankind.”
8: A celebrated English essayist.
9: Formerly a workman’s implement.
10: The ornamental part of the head.
11: An island in Lake Ontario.
12: Timber, and the herald of the morning.
13: A share in a rocky pathway.
14: The unruly member.
15: The earth, and a useful article.
16: An iron vessel, and eight ciphers.
17: A letter placed before what sufferers long for.
18: Like values, and odd ends.
19: A preposition, a piece of furniture, and a vowel, (pluralized).
20: An insect, followed by a letter, (pluralized).
21: The employment of some women, and the dread of all.
22: A kind of carriage, and a period of time.
23: A net for the head, an organ of sense, an emblem of beauty.
24: By adding two letters, you’ll have an Eastern conqueror.
25: Five-sevenths of a name not wholly unconnected with Bleak
House and Borrioboola Gha.
26: An underground room, and a vowel.
27: Skill, part of a needle, and to suffocate, (pluralized).
28: Antics.
29: An intimation burdens.
30: What if it should lose its savor?
31: Where you live a contented life; a hotel, and a vowel.
32: The staff of life.
33: What England will never become.
34: Scourges.
35: Running streams.
36: A domestic fowl, and the fruit of shrubs.
37: Married people.
38: A Holland prince serene, (pluralized).
39: To waste away, and Eve’s temptation, (pluralized).
40: Four-fifths of a month, and a dwelling, (pluralized).
41: Busybodies.
42: What Jeremiah saw in a vision.
43: Very old monkeys.
44: Approach convulsions.
45: Small blocks for holding bolts.
Answer
UNGUESSED RIDDLES.
As, on Louis Gaylord Clarke’s authority, “no museum is complete
without the club that killed Captain Cook”—he had seen it in six—so
no collection of riddles can be considered even presentable without
the famous enigma so often republished, and always with the
promise of “£50 reward for a solution.” It was first printed in the
Gentlemen’s Magazine, London, in March, 1757.
The compiler of this little book has no hope of winning the prize,
and leaves the lists open to her readers, with a hope that some one
of them may succeed in “guessing” not only this, but the next riddle,
of whose true answer she has not the faintest idea.
The noblest object in the works of art;

The brightest scenes which Nature can impart;
The well-known signal in the time of peace;
The point essential in a tenant’s lease;
The farmer’s comfort as he drives the plough;
A soldier’s duty, and a lover’s vow;
A contract made before the nuptial tie;
A blessing riches never can supply;
A spot that adds new charms to pretty faces;
An engine used in fundamental cases;
A planet seen between the earth and sun;
A prize that merit never yet has won;
A loss which prudence seldom can retrieve;
The death of Judas, and the fall of Eve;
A part between the ancle and the knee;
A Papist’s toast, and a physician’s fee;
A wife’s ambition, and a parson’s dues;
A miser’s idol, and the badge of Jews.
If now, your happy genius can divine
The corresponding word in every line,
By the first letter plainly may be found
An ancient city that is much renowned.
The other unguessed, if not unguessable, riddle claims to come
from Cambridge, and is as follows:
A Headless man had a letter to write;

It was read by one who had lost his sight;
The Dumb repeated it, word for word;
And he was Deaf who listened and heard.
(See Key.)
QUESTIONS NOT TO BE ANSWERED UNTIL THE

WORLD IS WISER.
Considering how useful the ocean is to mankind, are poets
justified in calling it “a waste of waters”?
How can we catch soft water when it is raining hard?
Where is the chair that “Verbum sat” in?
How does it happen that Fast days are always provokingly slow
days?
How is it that a storm looks heavy when it keeps lightening? And
the darker it grows, the more it lightens?
When it is said of a man that “he never forgets himself,” are we to
understand that his conduct is absolute perfection, or that it is the
perfection of selfishness?
PARADOXES.
1st. Polus instructed Ctesiphon in the art of pleading. Teacher
and pupil agreed that the tuition-fee should be paid when the latter
should win his first case. Some time having gone by, and the young
man being still without case or client, Polus, in despair of his fee,
brought the matter before the Court, each party pleading his own
cause. Polus spoke first, as follows:
“It is indifferent to me how the Court may decide this case. For, if
the decision be in my favor, I recover my fee by virtue of the
judgment; but, if my opponent wins the case, this being his first, I
obtain my fee according to the contract.”
Ctesiphon, being called on for his defense, said:
“The decision of the Court is indifferent to me. For, if in my favor, I
am thereby released from my debt to Polus. But, if I lose the case,
the fee cannot be demanded, according to our contract.”
2d. A certain king once built a bridge, and decreed that all
persons about to cross it, should be interrogated as to their
destination. If they told the truth they should be permitted to pass
unharmed; but, if they answered falsely, they should be hanged on a
gallows erected at the centre of the bridge. One day a man, about to
cross, was asked the usual question, and replied:
“I am going to be hanged on that gallows!”
Now, if they hanged him, he had told the truth, and ought to have
escaped; but, if they did not hang him, he had “answered falsely,”
and ought to have suffered the penalty of the law.
PART II.
FANCY TITLES FOR BOOKS.

Furnished by Thomas Hood for a blind door in the Library at
Chatsworth, for his friend the Duke of Devonshire.
Percy Vere. In Forty Volumes.
Dante’s Inferno; or Descriptions of Van Demon’s Land.
Ye Devyle on Two Styx: (black letter).
Lamb’s Recollections of Suet.
Lamb on the Death of Wolfe.
Plurality of Livings: with Regard to the Common Cat.
Boyle on Steam.
Blaine on Equestrian Burglary; or the Breaking-in of Horses.
John Knox on Death’s Door.
Peel on Bell’s System.
Life of Jack Ketch, with Cuts of his own Execution.
Cursory Remarks upon Swearing.
Cook’s Specimens of the Sandwich Tongue.
Recollections of Banister. By Lord Stair.
On the Affinity of the Death-Watch and Sheep-Tick.
Malthus’ Attacks of Infantry.
McAdam’s Views of Rhodes.
The Life of Zimmermann. By Himself.
Pygmalion. By Lord Bacon.
Rules of Punctuation. By a Thoroughbred Pointer.
Chronological Account of the Date Tree.
Kosciusko on the Right of the Poles to Stick up for Themselves.
Prize Poems. In Blank Verse.
Shelley’s Conchology.
Chantry on the Sculpture of the Chipaway Indians.
The Scottish Boccaccio. By D. Cameron.
Hoyle on the Game Laws.
Johnson’s Contradictionary.
When Hood and his family were living at Ostend for economy’s
sake, and with the same motive Mrs. Hood was doing her own work,
as we phrase it, he wrote to a friend in England: “Jane is becoming
an excellent cook and housemaid, and I intend to raise her wages.
She had nothing a week before, and now I mean to double it.”
It has been estimated that of all possible or impossible ways of

earning an honest livelihood, the most arduous, and at the same
time the way which would secure the greatest good to the greatest
number, would be to go around, cold nights, and get into bed for
people! To this might be added, going around cold mornings and
getting up for people; and, most useful and most onerous of all,
going around among undecided people and making up their minds.
In these days of universal condensation—of condensed milk,

condensed meats, condensed news—perhaps no achievement of
that kind ought to surprise us; but it must be acknowledged that
Thackeray’s condensing feat was the most extraordinary on record.
To compress “The Sorrows of Werther”—that three volumed novel: a
book of size—and tears, full of pathos and prettiness, of devotion
and desperation—into four stanzas that tell the whole story, was a
triumph of art which—which it is very possible GOETHE would admire
less than we do.
Werther had a love for Charlotte

Such as words can never utter.
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
Charlotte was a married lady,

And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
Would do nothing for to hurt her.
So he sighed, and pined, and ogled,

And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more was by it troubled.
Charlotte, when she saw his body

Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.
Theodore Hook was celebrated not more for his marvelous

readiness in rhyming than for the quality of the rhymes themselves.
In his hands the English language seemed to have no choice: plain
prose appeared impossible. Motley was the only wear; fantastic
verse the only method of expression. No less does he press into his
service phrases from the languages, as in the curious verses which
follow, in praise of
CLUBS.
If any man loves comfort and
Has little cash to buy it, he
Should get into a crowded club—
A most select society!
While solitude and mutton cutlets

Serve infelix uxor, he
May have his club (like Hercules),
And revel there in luxury.
Here’s first the Athenæum club,

So wise, there’s not a man of it
That has not sense enough for six;
(In fact, that is the plan of it).
The very waiters answer you

With eloquence Socratical,
And always lay the knives and forks
In order mathematical.
The Union Club is quite superb;

Its best apartment daily is
The lounge of lawyers, doctors, beaux,
Merchants, cum multis aliis.
The Travellers are in Pall Mall,

And smoke cigars so cozily,
And dream they climb the highest Alps,
Or rove the plains of Moselai.
These are the stages which all men

Propose to play their parts upon;
For clubs are what the Londoners
Have clearly set their hearts upon.
OTHER WORLDS.
Mr. Mortimer Collins indulges in sundry very odd speculations
concerning them.
Other worlds! Those planets evermore

In their golden orbits swiftly glide on;
From quick Hermes by the solar shore,
To remote Poseidon.
Are they like this world? The glory shed

From the ruddy dawn’s unfading portals?
Does it fall on regions tenanted
By a race of mortals?
Are there merry maidens, wicked-eyed,

Peeping slyly through the cottage lattice?
Have they vintage bearing countries wide?
Have they oyster patties?
Does a mighty ocean roar and break

On dark rocks and sandy shores fantastic?
Have they any Darwins there, to make
Theories elastic?
Does their weather change? November fog,

Weeping April, March with many a raw gust?
And do thunder and demented dog
Come to them in August?
Nineteenth century science should unravel

All these queries, but has somehow missed ’em.
When will it be possible to travel
Through the solar system?
STILTS.
Behold the mansion reared by dædal Jack,

See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,
In the proud cirque of Ivan’s bivouac.
Mark how the Rat’s felonious fangs invade
The golden stores in John’s pavilion laid.
Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,
Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides—
Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce rodent,
Whose tooth insidious Johann’s sackcloth rent.
Lo! now the deep mouthed canine foe’s assault,
That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,
Stored in the hallowed precincts of the hall,
That rose complete at Jack’s creative call.
Here stalks the impetuous Cow with crumpled horn,
Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn,
Who bayed the feline slaughter beast that slew
The Rat predacious, whose keen fangs ran through
The textile fibres that involved the grain,
That lay in Hans’ inviolate domain.
Here walks forlorn the Damsel crowned with rue,
Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew,
Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn
Tossed to the clouds, in fierce, vindictive scorn,
The harrying hound whose braggart bark and stir
Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur
Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw,
Struck the weird Rat, in whose insatiate maw
Lay reeking malt, that erst in Ivan’s courts we saw.
Robed in senescent garb that seems, in sooth,
Too long a prey to Chronos’ iron tooth;
Behold the man whose amorous lips incline,
Full with young Eros’ osculative sign,
To the lorn maiden, whose lac-albic hands
Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands
Of the immortal bovine, by whose horn
Distort, to realm ethereal was borne
The beast catulean, vexer of that sly
Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die
The old mordacious Rat, that dared devour
Antecedaneous ale, in John’s domestic bower.
Lo here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct
Of saponaceous lock, the Priest, who linked
In Hymen’s golden bands the torn unthrift,
Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,
Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn,
Who milked the cow with implicated horn,
Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied,
That dared to vex the insidious muricide,
Who let the auroral effluence through the pelt
Of the sly Rat that robbed the palace Jack had built.
The loud, cantankerous Shanghai comes at last,
Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast,
Who sealed the vows of Hymen’s sacrament,
To him who robed in garments indigent,
Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,
The emulgator of that hornèd brute morose,
That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that kilt
The rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built.
The Home Journal having published a set of rather finical rules

for the conduct of equestrians in Central Park, a writer in Vanity Fair
supplemented and satirized them as follows:
ETIQUETTE OF EQUITATION.
When a gentleman is to accompany a lady on horseback,
1st. There must be two horses. (Pillions are out of fashion, except
in some parts of Wales, Australia and New Jersey.)
2d. One horse must have a side saddle. The gentleman will not
mount this horse. By bearing this rule in mind he will soon find no
difficulty in recognizing his own steed.
3d. The gentleman will assist the lady to mount and adjust her foot
in the stirrup. There being but one stirrup, he will learn upon which
side to assist the lady after very little practice.
4th. He will then mount himself. As there are two stirrups to his
saddle, he may mount on either side, but by no means on both; at
least, not at the same time. The former is generally considered the
most graceful method of mounting. If he has known Mr. Rarey he may
mount without the aid of stirrups. If not, he may try, but will probably
fail.
5th. The gentleman should always ride on the right side of the lady.
According to some authorities, the right side is the left. According to
others, the other is the right. If the gentleman is left handed, this will of
course make a difference. Should he be ambidexter, it will be
indifferent.
6th. If the gentleman and lady meet persons on the road, these will
probably be strangers, that is if they are not acquaintances. In either
case the gentleman and lady must govern themselves accordingly.
Perhaps the latter is the evidence of highest breeding.
7th. If they be going in different directions, they will not be
expected to ride in company, nor must these request those to turn and
join the others; and vice versa. This is indecorous, and indicates a
lack of savoir faire.
8th. If the gentleman’s horse throw him he must not expect him to
pick him up, nor the lady; but otherwise the lady may. This is important
to be borne in mind by both.
9th. On their return, the gentleman will dismount first and assist the
lady from her horse, but he must not expect the same courtesy in
return.
N. B.—These rules apply equally to every species of equitation, as
pony riding, donkey riding, rocking horse riding, or “riding on a rail.”
There will, of course, be modifications required, according to the form
and style of the animal.
SONG OF THE RECENT REBELLION.

AIR: “Lord Lovell.”
Lord Lovell he sat in St. Charles’ Hotel,

In St. Charles’ Hotel sat he;
As fine a case of a rebel swell,
As ever you’d wish to see, see, see,
As ever you’d wish to see!
Lord Lovell the town had sworn to defend,

A-waving his sword on high;
He swore that the last ounce of powder he’d spend,
And in the last ditch he would die, die, die,
And in the last ditch he would die.
He swore by black and he swore by blue,

He swore by the stars and bars,
That never he’d fly from a Yankee crew
While he was a son of Mars, Mars, Mars,
While he was a son of Mars.
He had fifty thousand gal-li-ant men,

Fifty thousand men had he,
Who had all sworn with him they would never surren-

Leibnizs Naturalized Philosophy of Mind First Edition Edition Jorgensen Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Leibnizs Naturalized Philosophy of Mind First Edition Edition Jorgensen Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Leibniz’s naturalized philosophy of

mind First Edition. Edition Jorgensen

Leibniz’s Naturalized Philosophy of Mind

For Lillian and Evan

Part I. Leibniz’s Naturalizing Project

Part II. The Metaphysical Basis of Minds

Part III. Mind in the Natural Order

Part IV. The Prerogative of Minds

Karl Barth’s commentary on the book of Romans opens with an acknowledgement

Abbreviations for Editions of Leibniz’s Works:

xii   

LR The Leibniz–Des Bosses Correspondence, trans. Brandon C. Look and

Abbreviations for the Works of Other Seventeenth-Century Figures:

The celebrated American author Willa Cather (1873–1947) writes in a letter to a

¹ G 3.346/NS 223. ² G 6.595/NS 250.

 ’    

 ’    

regard as a fully natural theory. Leibniz’s commitment to naturalism is clear. In the

¹⁰ A 6.6.66/NE 66. ¹¹ Ibid.

The Argument of the Book

¹² See AG 281. ¹³ To Arnauld, October 9, 1687 (G 2.113/LA 145).

 ’    

in fully natural terms. In chapter 7, I argue for a same-order theory of consciousness

 ’    

This vulgar opinion, according to which we ought in philosophy to avoid, as much

 ’    

on Cartesian natural philosophy, Leibniz was not attempting a mere reﬁnement,

And again, in a response to René-Joseph Tournemine, Leibniz says:

Similarly, in his criticisms of Descartes’ theory of motion, Leibniz says that:

As a fully natural philosophy, Cartesian philosophy was a failure.

   

 ’    

1. Sophie’s Naturalism: “everything

   

In his response to Sophie, Leibniz claimed to be “thoroughly persuaded that there is

 ’    

1.2. Limiting “nature”

   

2. Leibniz’s Middle Way

 ’    

   

³⁰ A 6.4.1388/AG 284. ³¹ M §32.

 ’    

   

2.2. The threat of occasionalism

³⁴ A 6.4.1385/AG 282. ³⁵ Ibid.

 ’    

   

 ’    

⁴⁶ G 4.507/AG 158–9, emphasis mine. ⁴⁷ DM §9.

   

3. A Harmony of Nature and Grace

⁴⁸ DM §16. ⁴⁹ Ibid. ⁵⁰ Ibid.

 ’    

   

⁵⁹ See A 6.4.2214. ⁶⁰ Cook, “Prophecy and Revelation,” 281. ⁶¹ T §20.

 ’    

internal representations of the things surrounding it so that the relations it has to

3.2. Nature and grace

⁶⁵ Of course, Leibniz might also grant a more limited deﬁnition:

   

 ’    

   