Leibniz And Concurrentism : The Problem Of Using Leibnizian Reasons

In the Discourse on Metaphysics by Leibniz he suggest that, "we maintain that everything that is to happen to some person is already contained virtually in his nature or notion, as properties of a circle are contained in its definition." This assertion raised a difficulty for Leibniz. This difficulty was that "human freedom will no longer hold, and that an absolute fatality would rule over all our actions as well as over all the rest of what happens in the world." With such a reality there would be no use for free will and whatever fate succumbs an individual is the will of the Most High; in other words, being destined. But for Leibniz, this is not the determined reality of humanity. Leibniz

Consequentialism is a class of ethical theories stating that the consequences of one’s actions are the superior judge as far as to what is right or wrong, moral or immoral. The doctrine of Utilitarianism falls under the umbrella of consequentialism and suggests that actions are right if they are deemed as useful or are for the benefit of the majority. Alongside that, Utilitarians argue that everyone counts and everyone counts equally. This imposes that each being, belonging to the moral community, is owed a certain amount of respect and acknowledgment of needs. As far as who “everyone” truly is and who belongs in the moral community, Utilitarians believe that all beings that can suffer deserve a home in the moral community. Therefore humans and non-human animals, who are both susceptible to suffering, are morally equal.

in this world, and they are effects derived from a cause. The effects in turn

The fact that Leibniz rejects the Divine Command Theory is significant, for he is one of the most committed theists in the Western intellectual tradition. He argues at great length that there must be an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God and consequently that this must be the

The argument Renatus intends to make with this ideology is that every effect must contain the same properties as its cause, and vice versa (41). This point is the precursor to his first proof of the existence of God. The understanding is that a rock could not have been a rock unless the forces, by which it was created, also contained the qualities of a rock (41). Alternatively, as much as a substance can only exist as a result of something of equal perfection, for an idea to be derived from a cause different from its effect, the idea would have been created from nothingness. Therefore, because an idea is not (nor cannot be) nothing, it must always be the case that reality follows this cause and effect relationship (41).

Kim’s essential argument relies on two different metaphysical principles. Firstly, he presents the ‘Casual Individuation of Kinds’ principle that states that kinds in science are individuated on the

This view was in dialectical opposition to Heraclitus of Ephesus, who argued that the world is in a constant state of flux. Heraclitus argues that there is a problem with people’s attachment to the illusion of permanence. Everything in the world will not stay the same, we can see this from the idea from Heraclitus that ‘it is not possible to step twice into the same river, according to Heraclitus, nor to touch mortal substance twice in any condition’ (Plutarch, 392B). Rivers are bodies of water that continually flows so that every second the water at a point in the river is not the same as it was before. The state of the physical world has never remained the same; mountains move over millions of years, a few billion years ago Earth could not sustain life, and even longer ago there were no solids, no liquids, only gases. Each moment can be said to die and be reborn in the next, so that change occurs every moment and it

Reneì Descartes’ treatise on dualism, his Meditations on First Philosophy, is a seminal work in Western intellectual history, outlining his theory of the mind and its relation to the rest of the world. The main argument running through the Meditations leads from his universal methodic doubt through his famous cogito, to proofs of dualism, God, and the world. The Cartesian dualism is one of the most influential ideas to come out of the work; the style of the Meditations, however, is one of personal rumination, following what appears to be Descartes’ stream of consciousness , and it allows for mild tangential discussions. Hence alongside his more famous argument for dualism,

In this paper, I will consider Harry Frankfurt 's arguments for the compatibilism of determinism and

In “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”, Harry Frankfurt illustrates the concepts of freedom of will and freedom of action, but more importantly, Frankfurt has refined the compatibilism theory. Compatibilism allows the freedom of will to exist in the deterministic world. According to determinism theory, the future state of worlds is determined by some events in the distant past (E) and the laws of nature (L). More specifically, E refers to the history, such as experiences or states whereas L refers to scientific or physical law like gravity. For example, an alcoholic’s action is determined that he will not stop drinking. Here E is that he had been drinking in the past, and L is the physiological addiction effect caused by

The topic of free will has been rooted in the heart of philosophy for many centuries, and like many other topics in philosophy, there is never an answer that everyone can agree on. The topic itself stems from a notion that morality can’t seem to exist if we don’t have free will. Furthermore, since God is an all-knowing being, how can free will exist if he already knows what we are going to do? Leibniz offers an interesting argument to tackle this issue. First, I want to explain his concept of the monad, then delve into his position on free will, and finally tie the two ideas together and evaluate if his logic is sound.

In his only extant work, the poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), Epicurean author Titus Lucretius Carus writes of the soul as being inseparable from the corporeal body. This view, although controversial in its opposition to the traditional concept of a discrete, immortal soul, is nevertheless more than a mere novelty. The argument that Lucretius makes for the soul being an emergent property of interactions between physical particles is in fact more compelling and well-supported now than Lucretius himself would have ever imagined.

In order to build a different interpretation about the Cartesian dualism and the union of mind and body, I have established two categories. I call diachronic interpretations those that maintain that Descartes was first a dualist (i.e., in the Meditations), and later on developed his stance on the union of mind and body (i.e., in the Passions).

The Approach to Nature of Descartes and White The approach to nature which René Descartes takes is distinct from

1, pp. 156–9). He expressed admiration for Bacon’s Novum Organum, Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy, and the work of ancient and recent atomists, although he says that in his early days he refrained from reading them carefully because he feared that he might be seduced by their reliance on pure reason rather than observation and experiment. He hoped to provide empirical evidence relevant to their views.