Leibniz on Teleology and the Intelligibility of Nature
Among the many tensions in Leibniz’s philosophical system is his tendency to invoke both mechanistic and teleological explanations. Jonathan Bennett, typical of recent Leibniz commentators, attempts to relieve this difficulty by arguing that teleology for Leibniz is theological posturing and philoso...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
[publisher not identified]
2003
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| In: |
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Year: 2003, Volume: 77, Pages: 173-188 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Among the many tensions in Leibniz’s philosophical system is his tendency to invoke both mechanistic and teleological explanations. Jonathan Bennett, typical of recent Leibniz commentators, attempts to relieve this difficulty by arguing that teleology for Leibniz is theological posturing and philosophically thin; such a doctrine does not serve to explain the relationship between teleology and mechanism. I argue that Leibniz’s appeal to final causality is both inextricably grounded in his wider metaphysic and helpful in understanding the preconditions for causality in general. To this end I defend the two following claims: 1) It is in part Leibniz’s theory of contingency, and not exclusively theological concerns, that leads him to conclude that the laws of nature must admit of teleological explanations. 2) The finality of the laws of nature, coupled with one of Leibniz’s most promising arguments against occasionalism, are together sufficient to show that teleology must play a role in explanations of the activity of all genuine substances. |
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| ISSN: | 2153-7925 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Catholic Philosophical Association, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5840/acpaproc20037722 |