Justin E. H. Smith

Georg Ernst Stahl y la curiosa historia del “Vitalismo” Leibniziano

[I Congreso Iberoamericano Leibniz, San José, Costa Rica, 10-12 Julio, 2012. Gracias a Leon Garcia Garagarza y Rafael Nájera por la traducción]

Hasta la fecha, los estudiosos sólo han tenido un acceso muy limitado a los documentos relacionados con el amargo debate que G. W. Leibniz y Georg Ernst Stahl mantuvieron acerca del papel del alma en el cuerpo y sobre las fuentes de la movilidad corporal. Las únicas dos o menos traducciones completas del latín –la de Blondin de 1864 y la de Carvallo del 2004--, adolecen, cada una a su manera, de fallas y no son enteramente confiables. En ambas, la falla más significativa es que las dos toman como base de sus propias publicaciones la edición de la correspondencia mediada titulada Negotium otiosum, seu Skiamachia [Una contienda fatigosa, o: Boxeo de sombra] que Stahl diera a la luz en 1720, a pesar de que, como sabemos ahora –y como pudiera adivinarse a partir del temerario título que escogió—el mismo Stahl presentó un recuento completamente distorsionado del debate, tanto en el modo en el que enmarcó el debate en su prefacio, como en las notas y en las interpolaciones que añadió a las partes del debate dedicadas a representar las opiniones de Leibiniz, por no mencionar las frecuentes alteraciones de las propias palabras de Leibiniz. Si acaso Stahl creía que “boxeaba con la sombra” de su enemigo, esto es porque éste ya llevaba cuatro años muerto, y no estaba pues en condiciones de realizar un contraataque.

Sin embargo, un examen de los manuscritos que Leibiniz le enviara al intermediario Carl Hildebrand von Canstein entre 1709 y 1711, nos muestra la mente filosófica de Leibiniz en su punto más sutil, y constituye la expresión más madura de sus ideas fisiológicas y filosóficas acerca de la estructura y la función de los cuerpos vivos., Cada participante en la contienda epistolar enarbola ideas opuestas sobre la naturaleza de la vida y sobre el sistema de los principios que rigen el mundo de los fenoménos. Stahl rebate la perspectiva micro-mecanicista en los intentos contemporáneos por explicar los procesos fisiológicos, mientras que Leibiniz se erige por su parte como un firme partidario de tal perspectiva, y se empeña en establecer una mathesis specialis aplicable a los cuerpos orgánicos, capaz de correlacionar las inferencias empíricas con los modelos mecanicistas y de eslabonar el conocimiento práctico con el teórico. Stahl y Leibiniz exponen concepciones divergentes sobre la conexión entre el cuerpo y el alma y sobre el papel que los principios psíquicos tienen en la formación, organización y funcionamiento de las “máquinas de la naturaleza.” Ambos difieren asimismo en su evaluación de la relevancia que tiene la teleología para explicar las funciones y las disfunciones, así como los comportamientos normales y patológicos de los animales y de los seres humanos.

En este trabajo se argumentará, en primer lugar, que el prolongado argumento de Lebniz contra la opinión de Stahl acerca del papel del alma en el cuerpo constituye su más enérgico rechazo a la doctrina que poco tiempo después vendría a denominarse 'vitalismo', según la cual la vida es, a fin de cuentas, una fuerza no corporal que juega un papel causal en el ámbito corporal, en particular, el papel de preservar la estructura del cuerpo a través del tiempo. Para el Leibniz maduro, por otro lado, la vida es solamente percepción, y por lo tanto incumbe sólo a sustancias simples. Los cuerpos animales, en contraste, tienen su organización y funcionalidad como resultado de 'sólo su estructura vegetativa', es decir, como resultado de factores estrictamente no vitales y micromecánicos. Tal y como bromea Leibniz, si el alma tuviera la responsabilidad de mantener unido el cuerpo, entonces, como Crísipo había observado antes que él, realmente no estaría haciendo nada más de lo que hace la sal en un jamón curado. 



Sin embargo, desde las décadas inmediatemente posteriores a la publicación del Negotium otiosum y hasta el día de hoy, persiste la impresión de que la teoría leibniziana del cuerpo orgánico constituye al menos una concesión parcial al 'vitalismo' tras el evidente fracaso del mecanicismo austero de un Descartes o un Borelli. De hecho, algunos han visto en la teoría de Leibniz sobre la estructura orgánica del cuerpo una anticipación de ese tipo de vitalismo materialista que caracterizaría mucha de la filosofía natural francesa del siglo 18, un vitalismo según el cual toda la materia está viva y no existen individuos vivientes discretos. Fue en parte en vista de este aspecto del legado de Leibniz que Jacques Roger se quejaría de que "en general, el siglo 18 no comprendió muy bien la metafísica de Leibniz". ¿Cómo podemos explicar esta pobre comprensión? En este trabajo se argumentará, en segundo lugar, que el variado legado de Leibniz en el siglo 18 tiene mucho que ver con el hecho de que no hubo un sólo Leibniz en ese periodo sino varios Leibnizes locales. El Leibniz escoriado en Halle por ser un mecanicista impío no le habría sido para nada familiar a los científicos naturales franceses que, como mínimo, habrían pensado que Leibniz no era lo suficientemente impío. En general, podríamos decir que éste último grupo se enfocó en el pan-organicismo de Leibniz, según el cual todo en el mundo tiene una estructura orgánica, y lo confundió con pan-vitalismo, mientras que Stahl se enfocó en la doctrina leibniziana de la armonía preestablecida y correctamente comprendió una importante consecuencia de ella: que, a pesar de que todo el mundo está estructurado orgánicamente, nada en el mundo, al menos si se considera desde el punto de vista fenomenal, está vivo.



En tercer lugar, finalmente, se argumentará aquí que los argumentos de Leibniz contra Stahl no alcanzan a ser una concesión al vitalismo, sino que, en efecto, son una radicalización del anti-vitalismo que Leibniz había heredado de la tradición mecanicista: Descartes, después de todo, había dejado abierta la posibilidad de que al menos algo de la percepción estaría fundamentada en órganos y procesos corporales. Si se quiere entender el verdadero carácter del anti-vitalismo de Leibniz se debe primero, sin embargo, dirigir la atención a la preocupación con que Leibniz se opone a lo que él considera como involuntaria impiedad de los pietistas de Halle, incluyendo a Stahl, quien creía que Dios permite entidades 'vice-gerentes' para manejar la estructura y movimiento de los cuerpos. Al final, para Leibniz, el vitalismo de Stahl, así como la teoría de Newton del 'sensorium', es, de hecho, una variedad de animismo, y Leibniz, quizás mucho más que cualquier otro mecanicista, es extremadamente sensible al peligro de lo que él considera un incipiente culto a la naturaleza. En este sentido ha sido un error entre algunos de los seguidores y comentadores de Leibniz el suponer que la introducción del concepto de organismo de parte Leibniz tiene algo que ver con rechazo al mecanicismo: de hecho, tal y como el debate con Stahl muestra, este concepto permitió a Leibniz ofrecer una versión de mecanicismo adecuada para la tarea de explicar la estructura y movimiento de los cuerpos animales sin tener que hacer referencia a lo que el veía como la noción transcendental de 'vida'.

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Bibliografía

T. Blondin, Œuvres medico-philosophiques et pratiques de G.E. Stahl, Tome VI, Paris: J.-B. Baillière & fils, 1864. 



Sarah Carvallo, La Controverse entre Stahl et Leibniz sur la vie, l’organisme et le mixte, Paris: Vrin, 2004.

François Duchesneau and Justin E. H. Smith, The Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, in The Yale Leibniz Series, Yale University Press, forthcoming.

L.J. Rather and J.B. Frerichs, “The Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, I: Leibniz’s opening objections to the Theoria medica vera”, Clio Medica, 3 (1968), 21-40.



L.J. Rather and J.B. Frerichs, “The Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, II: Stahl’s Survey of the Principal Points of Doubt”, Clio Medica, 5 (1970), 53-67. 



Georg Ernst Stahl, Skiamachia, sive, Negotium otiosum, Halle: Litteris & Impensis Orphanotrophei, 1720.

Call for Papers / Appel à propositions, LSNA, Montréal, 2012

(le français suit)

The 2012 Annual Meeting of the Leibniz Society of North America will be hosted jointly by the université de Montréal and by Concordia University in Montreal, October 19-20, 2012. It will be preceded, on October 17 and 18 in Montreal, by the North American wing of a pair of conferences on Leibniz and Bayle, the first of which will be held in Paris, at the Sorbonne, on from the 13th to the 15th of September, 2012.

We are currently inviting submissions for papers to be delivered at the LSNA meeting on October 19-20. Papers may be on any aspect of Leibniz's philosophy, and should have a delivery time of 45-50 minutes. Papers may be in either English or French.

Please send a 1- to 2-page abstract of your paper to Christian Leduc (christian.leduc.1@gmail.com) or to Justin Smith (justismi@alcor.concordia.ca) by December 15, 2011.

**

Le colloque annuel de la Société Leibnizienne de l'Amérique du Nord se tiendra conjointement à l'université de Montréal et à l'université Concordia, à Montréal, 19-20 octobre, 2012. Cette réunion sera précédée par le volet nord-américain d'un diptyque de colloques sur Leibniz et Bayle, dont le premier aura lieu à Paris, en Sorbonne, 13-15 septembre, 2012.

Nous vous invitons à soumettre vos propositions de communication à la réunion de la SLAN (les organisateurs du colloque Leibniz-Bayle feront un appel à propositions séparé). Les interventions peuvent porter sur tous les aspects et toutes les périodes de la philosophie de Leibniz. Chaque intervenant aura autour de 45-50 minutes pour sa communication. Les langues officielles du colloque sont le français et l'anglais.

Veuillez faire parvenir un résumé de votre communication (1-2 pages) à Christian Leduc (christian.leduc.1@gmail.com) ou à Justin Smith (justismi@alcor.concordia.ca) avant le 15 décembre, 2011.

Leibniz's Medical, Physiological, and Life-Scientific Works: A Catalog

This catalog is still in progress, and suggestions for additions are welcome. Eventually, I hope to include links to mss. and to available editions. I include only those texts that are entirely or principally devoted to life-scientific questions. 

Conventional Title	Manuscript Number, Publication Information, or Bibliographical Reference	Year of Composition	Subjects
Directiones ad rem medicam pertinentes	LH III, 1, 3, folio 1-9; Hartmann and Krüger 1976	1671	Medicine; public health
Bedenken von aufrichtung einer Academie oder Societät in Teütschland, zu Aufnehmen der Künste und Wißenschaften	A IV i, 543-552	1671	Medicine; public health
Excerptum ex autographo     Cartesii	LH III 2, 5 49	24 February, 1676	Embryology; physiology
Excerptum ex autographo Cartesii: Remedia, et vires medicamentorum	LH III 4, 3 1	24 February, 1676	Pharmacology
Note on the origins of fossils	LH XXXVII 4, 16	1672-77(??)	Paleontology
“Le phosphore de M. Krafft ou Liqueur de terre seiche de sa composition qui iettent continuellement de grands éclats de lumère”	Journal des Sçavans, August 2, 1677, 190-91	1677	Chemistry (fermentation)
Machina animalis	LH III 5, 12; Pasini 1996	3 October, 1677	Animal economy
“Extrait d’une lettre de Mr. de Leibniz, à l’auteur du Journal des Savans, écrite d’Hanovre le 18. Juin, 1677. Contenant la Rélation, et la figure d’un Chevreuil coëffé d’une manière fort extaordinaire”	Dutens II 2, 175-76	1677	Animal economy; ethology
De animalibus	LH 37, 2, 123	1672-6	Animal economy
Review of Jungius’s Harmonica et phytoscopia scripta posthuma Joachimi Jungii	Ravier 195 / KM 53	August, 1678	Botany, Taxonomy
Corpus hominis et aliuscujusque animalis est machina quaedam	LH III 1, 2; Mahrenholtz 1987; Pasini 1996; Smith 2007	1682-86	Animal economy
De scribendis novis Medicinae elementis	LH III 1, 1; Pasini 1996	1682-83	Animal economy; medicine
Excerpt of a letter from M. de Leibniz, “touchant une expérience considérable d’une eau fumante”	Journal des Sçavans, 17 February, 1681, 46.	1681	Chemistry (fermentation, perpetual motion)
“G. G. L. Meditatio de Separatione Salis et aquae dulcis, novoque Separationum Chymicarum genere”	Acta Erudtiorum, December, 1682, 386-88; Dutens II 2, 108-10.	1682	Chemistry (mixtures)
Four letters to Schelhammer	Dutens II 2, 164-8	1680-82	Generation theory; medicine
“Observatio de usu intestini coeci in figurandis, quorundam animalium excrementis. Ex Transactionibus sive Actis Philosophicis Anglicis”	Acta Eruditorum, June 1685, 313-15.	June, 1685	Physiology
Notes on Martin Lister’s article in the Philosophical Transactions of 1683/4, “Observatio de usu intestini coeci in figurandis quorundam animalium excrementis”	Acta Eruditorum August, 1685, 351-53; Ravier 200; MK 75	July, 1685	Physiology
Letter to Hertel	Guhrauer B II 458	1691	Medicine
“Extrait d’une lettre sur la maniére de perfectionner la Médecine”	Journal des Sçavans 1694; Dutens II 2, 162-4	1694	Medicine; public health
De ortu et antiquissimo statu rerum naturalium in regionibus Brunsvic.-Luneb. Dissertatio [Later published as Protogaea]	Scheidt 1749; Engelhardt 1949; Barrande 1993; Cohen and Wakefield, 2008	1691-93.	Paleontology; generation theory.
“G. G. L. Relatio ad Inclytam Societatem Leopoldinam Naturae Curiosorum, de novo antidysenterico Americano magnis successibus comprobato”	LH III 4, 4; Misc. Acad. Nat. Cur., 1695-96, decuria 3, iii, 1-22; Dutens II 2, 110-19.	1696	Pharmacology; medicine; botany
Letter to J. G. Sparwenfeld	Otium Hanoveranum	29 January, 1697	Physical anthropology
De methodo botanica (Letter to A. C. Gackenholtz)	Monatlicher Auszug April, 1701 VIII S.68-80; Kortholt 4, 83-194; Dutens II 2, 169-74.	April, 1701	Botany; taxonomy
“Summarische Punctuation die medicinalische Observationes betr. so durchgehends anzustellen und beständigt fortzusetzen seyn möchten”	Klopp 10, 346-50 / MK 176	23 April, 1701	Public health; medicine
“Verordnung betr. regelmäßige Beobachtungun zur Förderung des Sanitätswesens”	Klopp 10, 350-53 / MK 176	1701	Public health; medicine
“Mémoire sur les pierres qui renferment des plantes et des poissons desséchés”	Histoire de l’Académie des sciences 1704; Dutens II 2 178-9.	1704	Paleontology
De causis febrium	LH III 5, 111-12; Pasini 1996	1704-5	Medicine; animal economy
“Exposé d’une lettre de Mr. Leibniz à l’Abbé de St. Pierre, sur un chien qui parle”	Histoire de l’Académie des sciences 1706; Dutens II 2, 180	1706	Ethology
Animadversiones in G. E. Stahlii Theoria medica vera	Stahl 1720; Duchesneau and Smith (forthcoming)	1709-10	Animal economy; organics
“Commentatio de anima brutorum”	G VII 328-32.	1710	Physiology; animal economy
De secretione animali, ad P. A. Michelottum	Dutens II 2, 89-91	17 September, 1715	Animal economy

Some Poetry by Leibniz

This is from a letter in the LHv manuscripts, among the texts in the Ritterkatalog eventually to be included in Reihe VIII of the Akademie Edition. To see a scan of the original in the online Ritterkatalog, go here.

I have been working on transcribing the letter, but it is too messy towards the end for me to make out a clearly significant portion of the text. I am uncertain of the recipient and of the date, but judging from the handwriting and from the style it is almost certainly from the end of Leibniz's Paris period, 1675 or 1676.

The letter begins with a disarmingly sincere avowal of jealousy on Leibniz's part, at not having received letters from the addressee, whoever he or she (but almost certainly he) may be, while knowing nonetheless that a certain Abbé de Canisy, based in Normandy, continued to maintain an active correspondence with him or her (but almost certainly him).

It then moves on to an account of a letter Leibniz himself had sent to the same Abbé, in which he advises him of the importance of prohibiting the consumption of cider in Normandy and Brittany. He writes:

[J]e m'érigea en donneur d'avis, et je luy conseilla de faire défendre l'usage du Cidre, par ce que cette boisson estoit dangereuse, qu'elle n'estoit pas assez cuite par le soleil, et qu'elle faisoit monter a la teste certaines fumées grossieres capables de troubler les esprits des peuples. J'appuya cecy par des raisons et des experiences, et il faut qu'on les ait communiquées au Roy d'Angleterre, car c'est dépuis ce temps la qu'il a defendu l'usage public du Caffé, pour des motifs tous semblables.

[I set myself up as an advice-giver, and I encouraged him to have the consumption of cider outlawed, because this beverage was dangerous, because it was not sufficiently cooked by the sun, and because it caused certain heavy vapors, capable of troubling people's minds, to rise to the head. I backed this up with reasons and with evidence, and these must have been communicated to the king of England, for it is at that time that he prohibited the public consumption of coffee on similar grounds.]

Leibniz then confesses somewhat bashfully that he also included a poem in the letter to the abbot, intended to supplement the argument he had given against drinking cider:

J'avois adjouté des vers, qui contiennent mes raisons en racourcy. Les voicy, si vous les voyez dignes d'estre lûs.

[I added some verses, which include my reasons in abbreviated form. Here they are, if you consider them worthy of being read.]

So then, if you too consider them worthy of being read, here they are:

Normans enfoncez les tonneaux
Versez ce dangereux breuvage
Qui d'un peuple tranquille et sage
Peut faire un amas de brebaux.

L'air Breton est contagieux
Gardez vous d'en tirer l'haleine
Faites faire la quarantaine
Aux paysages audacieux.

On vous accorde assez d'esprit
Mais le Cidre en prend la partie,
Et en cas de quelque folie,
Dieu sçait si le reste suffit.

Mais j'y suis peut estre trompé
Et la nature toute sage
Vous fait encor un avantage
quand le vin vous est refusé.

Car si vous faites tant de bruit
Avec le surplus de souplesse
Avec le reste de finesse
Que le Cidre n'a pas détruit

Que feriez vous si la boisson
Estoit un peu plus genereuse,
La metamorphose est facheuse
Qui change un Normand en Gascon.

I've tried to translate the poem in a way that maintains at least a minimum of its poetic elements, in particular the enclosing rhyme scheme of the stanzas, while nonetheless giving first priority to the preservation of the general meaning:

Break your barrels, Normans,
Pour out this dangerous drink
Which transforms a people who think
Into a nation of morons.

The Breton air is contagious,
So content yourselves with breathing it,
Rather than thinking of leaving it
To suck something more outrageous.

You're endowed with adequate mind,
But on cider you've only a part left,
And God knows if you'll have enough art left,
To put paid to life's madness in kind.

But perhaps here I wrongly opine
And nature, with clear-sighted vantage,
Has seen to your nation's advantage
In refusing to let you drink wine.

For if you make so much noise,
With so much inborn ability,
With what's left of the natural agility
That the cider in large part destroys,

Then imagine if your flascons
Caused still greater a transformation,
And made of the great Normand nation
A mash more befitting Gascons.

The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy: A Workshop (Updated)

Princeton University, Department of Philosophy

May 7-8, 2011

Provisional Program:

Raphaële Andrault, université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne: "The Notion of Life in the Physicotheology of Ralph Cudworth and Nehemiah Grew: A  Comparative Study"

Catherine Abou-Nemeh, Princeton University: "Réaumur’s Crayfish Experiment in Hartsoeker’s Système: Regeneration and the Limits of Mechanism"

Gideon Manning, Caltech: "How Descartes' Medicine Made the Scientific Revolution"

Anne-Lise Rey, université de Lille: "Metaphysical Problems in Francis Glisson's Theory of Irritability"

François Duchesneau, université de Montréal: "'Organism' in the Leibniz-Stahl Controversy"

Ohad Nachtomy, Fordham University and Bar-Ilan University: "Leibniz and the Logic of Life"

Justin E. H. Smith, Concordia University and the Institute for Advanced Study: "Blood Transfusion and Pythagoreanism in the Royal Society"

Karen Detlefsen, University of Pennsylvania: "Finality and Functional Explanation in Descartes' and Malebranche's Theories of Living Beings"

Domenico Bertoloni-Meli, Indiana University: "The Uniformity of Nature and the Diversity of Organisms in the Early Modern Period"

Andreas Blank, Universität Paderborn: "Julius Caesar Scaliger on Biological Species and the Ordinary Power of God"

*

Organized by Justin E. H. Smith and Ohad Nachtomy.

Funding provided by the Princeton University Council on the Humanities, and the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University.

This event is open to the public.

For more information, please contact Justin Smith: jehsmith at ias dot edu

Divine Machines: An Interview at New APPS

Today is the first in a series of New APPS Interviews, which will run every Wednesday through the end of May, picking up again in September. 

Today's interview is with Justin E. H. Smith, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He is a member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton NJ from January through June 2011. His new book, Divine Machines: Leibniz and the Sciences of Life has just appeared with Princeton University Press (2011). 

*

John Protevi: Thanks very much for doing this interview with us, Justin.  Your book is subtitled “Leibniz and the Sciences and Life,” yet in the Introduction you also write that you will look at Leibniz in relation to "what we would now call 'biology'." Why the scare quotes on "biology"?

Justin Smith: I don't take those as scare quotes so much as marks signaling a use-mention distinction. One of my guiding principles in the book was, to the extent possible, to respect actors' categories, to avoid using names for concepts, practices, or entities that would not have been familiar to the people I was writing about; and 'biology', for example, makes its first appearance only in the late 18th century.

JP: fair enough. What is at stake in this use-mention distinction for you in writing in the genre of history of philosophy? (If that is indeed the genre in which you would place your work.)

JS: This is not just terminological quibbling: it is rather a necessary part of working one's way back into the problems that early modern philosophers faced, rather than allowing ourselves to update their problems so that they come out as more familiar to our own world of concerns than they in fact are. I certainly take this task to be a necessary and incontrovertible part of history-of-philosophy scholarship. The branch of philosophy that interests me is what was called at the time 'natural philosophy', which would later be sliced off and partitioned into biology, chemistry and other concrete 'sciences'. If we take actors' categories seriously, then, when we do the history of biology or chemistry we are willy-nilly doing the history of philosophy.

To continue reading, go here.

Immanuel Levy, Ueber den Vitalismus in der Mineralquellen-Lehre (Leipzig, 1862)

This work is remarkable for a number of reasons. It is a contribution to the scientific literature on balneotherapy, or the treatment of illnesses through visits to mineral baths. It is also a vociferously anti-Leibnizian tract, which takes up G. E. Stahl's side of what by the 19th century had been cast as a show-down between vitalism and mechanism, with Leibniz defending the latter camp and the Halle Pietist physician defending the former. Remarkably, Levy's work contains an extensive paraphrase in Latin of Leibniz's side of the correspondence, which may be one of the first republications of the work after Stahl's original 1720 edition (followed by Louis Duten's 1768 edition of Leibniz's part).

But most of all it is an interesting work because it shows how surprisingly late a certain distinctive tradition of natural philosophy survived in German medicine, even coexisting with other, seemingly opposed tendencies which we associate with high modernism: Levy cites both Jean-Baptiste van Helmont and Auguste Comte as authorities on various questions.

I hadn't given it much thought, but vitalism --which looks at first glance like a hopeless, backwards-looking current kept alive into the early 20th century, a 'dead-ender', so to speak-- was in fact the last pocket of natural philosophy to go extinct, to give way to 'science' in the narrower sense we understand it today. By 'natural philosophy' here I mean the investigation of concrete scientific questions, and often of practical medical or therapeutic questions, in a way that typically begins by an invocation of the authority of ancient philosophical texts, and that never loses sight from there of the ultimate imperative to rerum cognoscere causas, which often requires one to invoke transcendent or non-natural principles --and in particular principles that are conceived on the model of souls--, even as it is purporting to elucidate very narrown domains of the natural world (such as the working of mineral baths).

Here are just a few excerpts that I hope to use at some point (probably in the 'Leibniz and Medicine' article I am supposed to be writing). It's a shame I didn't know about this before I finished my book.

*

Vitalism, in the legitimate sense, is the theory of the ultimate foundation of life.

Investigators of nature and physicians in all times --from the most ancient to the most recent-- have meditated upon the ultimate foundation, and have attempted to arrive at it.

We recognize in the calidum innatum of Hippocrates the Heraclitean philosophy; in the animistic vitalism of Galen the Aristotelian philosophy; in van Helmont's archeus influus and in the subordinate archei that are innate in the parts [we recognize] the neo-Platonic philosophy. The Cartesian 'cogito, ergo sum' led to Stahl's abstract animism, which defines his principium vitae as rational soul or nature acting vitally and with intelligence, for which the corporeal organs are only passive tools par excellence, whose activity is transmitted directly from the soul, [and] which carry out every motion only on orders from the soul. -- With ponderous genius Leibniz attempted in vain to gain a direct influence on this theory, which was put forth by Stahl in the Theoria medica vera with the strength and rigor that are characteristic of this deep thinker: [in vain, that is,] in that he elucidated the phenomena of life from a physico-mechanical standpoint, and sent his counter-comments to the author [i.e., Stahl]...

By conrtrast Leibniz found a spirit more receptive to his theory in Stahl's colleague at Halle, Friedrich Hoffmann, who, under the influence of this philosophy, at the same time took up Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood as a positive starting point for his mechanico-dynamical theory of life. But the Leibnizian philosophy continues to have a strong influence both in the natural sciences as well as in the medicine of the present era; it constitutes the basis of Lotze's mechanical theory of life...

All this simply by way of a preface to the description of that sort of vitalism that has arisen in the theory of therapeutic springs, has long influenced it and to some extent influences it still.

For vitalism in the theory of therapeutic springs, to the extent that it is not an expression for as-yet-unknown properties, manifests itself as pseudo-vitalism, as mysticism...

The meteorology of Aristotle treats the earth as an animated organism, whose inner life is announced by the manifold changes in the surgace, wherein parts variously dry out, while others grow saturated and so are elevated to a higher degree of life energy. Thus certain parts were transformed and renewed, and in this way the life of the earth differs from that of plants and animals, whose entire organism ripens and ages, without renewal...

That one can expect only mysticism in the views of the Middle Ages concerning mineral springs is self-evident. But in the modern age itself, after geology had already begun to develop as a science, and discoveries were made without which the perection of the theory of springs would never have been possible, the natural-philosophical tendency [in this theory] has had as a consequence that the Aristotelian treatment of the earth as an animated organism has again found much support, whereby the springs are the products of secretion, [or] according to others the products of the earth's respiratory process, or the respiratory process of a free activity that is bound up in a polarity with the moon. Schelling himself proposed the hypothesis of an 'organic-telluric galvanochemistry', which by means of [a process comparable to [?]] Volta's batteries brings about the formation of the mineral springs in the interior of the earth.

Now as concerns the 'spirits of the springs' especially, which for so long have manifested their monstrosity in the theory of therapeutic springs and to some extent, in a more or less concealed way, continue to do so, these are in fact of a completely modern origin, and have nothing to do with the spirits of the ancient authors, other than the name; or [at least] they are derived from a completely perverted account of these spirits. For these newer spring spirits are nothing but ghosts, while the spirits of the ancients were, as is unmistakable on an attentive reading, a way of describing gases, which they were not yet able to distinguish from one another chemically...

*

Der Vitalismus im legitmen Sinne ist die Theorie von dem letzten Grunde des Lebens.

Ueber diesem letzten Grund haben die Naturforscher und Aerzte aller Zeiten -- von den ältesten bis auf die neuesten -- nachgedacht und sich bemüht, ihm nahe zu kommen...

[Wir] erkennen in dem calidum innatum des Hippokrates die Heraklitische, in dem animistischen Vitalismus Galen's die Aristotelische, in dem archeus influus und den ihm untergeordneten archei partibus insiti van Helmont's die Neuplatonische Philosophie. Das Cartesianische 'cogito, ergo sum' führte zu dem abstrakten Animismus Stahl's, welcher sein principium vitae als anima rationalis seu natura vitaliter et cum intelligentia agens definirt, welchem die körperlichen Organe nur schlechthin passive Werkzeuge sind, denen ihre Thätigkeit unmittelbar von der Seele mitgetheilt ist, welche jede Bewegung nur auf Befehl der Seele ausführen. -- Auf diese, in der Theoria medica vera mit der dem tiefen Denker eigenen Schärfe und Konsequenz von Stahl durchgeführte Theorie versuchte mit weit überlegenem Genie Leibnitz vergeblich einen direkten Einfluss zu gewinnen, indem er vom physikalisch-mechanischen Standpunkte aus die Lebenserscheinungen beleuchtete und seine Gegenbemerkungen dem Author zuschickte...

Einen dankbareren Geist fand Leibnitz dagegen für seine Lehre in dem Halleschen Kollegen Stahl's, Friedrich Hoffmann, welcher unter dem Einfluss dieser Philosophie zugleich die Harveysche Entdeckung des Blutkreislaufs zum positiven Ausgangspunkte für seine mechanisch-dynamische Lebenstheorie nahm. Die Leibnitzsche Philosophie wirkt aber, wie in den Naturwissenschaften, so auch in der Medizin der Gegenwart noch fort; sie bildet die Basis der mechanischen Lebenstheorie Lotze's...

Dies nur als Vorbemerkung für die Schilderung desjenigen Vitalismus, welcher in der Heilquellenlehre aufgetreten ist, sie lange beeinflusst hat und zum Theil noch beeinflusst.

Denn der Vitalismus in der Heilquellenlehre hat, so weit er nicht als Ausdruck für noch unbekannte Eigenschaften aufgetreten ist, als Pseudo-Vitalismus, als Mysticismus sich manifestirt...

Die Meteorologie des Aristoteles betrachtet die Erde als belebten Organismus, dessen inneres Leben durch die mannigfachen Veränderungen der Oberfläche sich kundgebe, wobei abwechselnd Theile austrockneten, andere wasserreich würden und somit zu höherer Lebensenergie zu erhoben. So alterten abwechselnd die einzelnen Theile und verjüngten sich wieder, und hierdurch unterscheide das Leben der Erde sich von dem der Pflanzen und Thiere, deren ganzer Organismus reife und altere, ohne sich zu verjüngen...

Dass man vom Mittelalter auch in den Anschauungen über die Mineralquellen nur Mysticismus erwarten kann, versteht sich von selbst. Aber selbst in neurer Zeit, nachdem die Geologie bereits als Wissenschaft sich zu entwickeln angefangen und Entdeckungen gemacht hatte, ohne welche die Vervollkommnung der Quellenlehre niemals möglich gewesen wäre, hat die naturphilosophische Richtung es zur Folge gehabt, dass die Aristotelische Betrachtung der Erde als eines belebten Organismus wieder vielfachen Ausdruck fand, wonach dann die Quellen die Sekretionsprodukte, nach Anderen die Produkte des Athmungsprozesses der Erde, oder einer freien, mit dem Monde in Polarität begriffenen Thätigkeit deselben wären. Schelling selbst stellte die Hypothese eines 'organisch-tellurischen Galvanochemismus' auf, welcher durch Voltasche Riesenbatterien im Innern der Erde die Entstehung der Mineralquellen bewirke...

Was nun aber speziell "die Brunnengeister" betrifft, welche in der Heilquellenlehre so lange ihr Unwesen getrieben haben und zum Theil, in mehr oder minder versteckter Weise, noch treiben, so sind diese eigentlich ganz modernen Ursprungs und haben mit den spiritus der älteren Schriftsteller nichts als den Namen gemein, oder sind aus gänzlich verkehrter Auffassung dieser spiritus hervorgegangen. Denn diese neueren Brunnengeister sind... nichts als Gespenster, während  die spiritus der Aelteren der bei aufmerksamem Lesen gar nicht zu missverstehende Ausdruck für die Gase waren, die man noch nicht chemisch zu unterscheiden vermochte...

Leibniz to Herzog Anton Ulrich, 1 September, 1711

In the hall at Salzdahlem where comedies are performed, instead of dinner theatre there could take place at mealtime a presentation of the power of the Great Tsar through a representation of his Empire with carved figures that variously serve this purpose and indicate the Tsar’s [military] victories. Its place would have to be on the floor of the hall so that water could be taken to and from it.

So that it should contain within it a new and special contrivance, the representation of the great Muscovite Empire should not be a mere surface, as in land-maps, but rather a true depiction of the heights and depths of the land, the source of the streams, showing their course and flow into the sea, to which end it should be ensured that the 5 seas are at the lowest [place], and the high land at the highest, and everything in between: namely, the White Sea with the flow of the Dvina, the Ob’, the Yenisei, and the Lena; the Baltic [Sea] with the in-flow of the Narva and the Duna; the Black [Sea] with the in-flow of the Volga; the Oriental or Japanese [Sea] with the in-flow of the Amur, which comes out of Muscovite Tartary.

One would be able to see there the peoples with their traditional garb, as well as the strange animals of each place, all the mountains and forests and otherwise the most important cities, with the boundaries and names of the provinces.

*

Es köndte bey einer Mahlzeit im Saal zu Salzdahlem, wo etwa Comoedien gespielet worden anstatt eines Schauessens die Macht des grossen Czars in der vorbildung seines Reichs vorgestellet, und dies mit allerhand sowohl dazu dienenden, als auf des Czars Siege zielenden Figuren ausgezieret werden. Der orth müste ein auf dem Boden befindlicher Saal seyn, damit man wasser ab und zuleiten könne.

Die Vorbildung des grossen Moscovitischen Reichs, damit Sie eine neue und besondere Erfindung in sich habe, solte nicht seyn eine blosse Ebene, wie die Land Carten, sondern eine wahre anzeige der Höhe und Vertiefung des Landes, der Ströhme ursprung, lauff und einfluss in das Meer anzudeuten, zu welchem ende zu sehen seyn solte, die 5 Meere zu unterst, und das hohe Land zu oberst, samt den Mittel: nehmlich das weisse Meer mit dem lauff der Dwina, des Oby, der Jenesea und Lena, das baltische mit dem Einfluss der Narva und Düna, das Schwarze mit dem Einfluss der Volga, das orientalische oder japanische mit dem Einfluss des Amur-stroms, so aus der Moscovitischen Tartarey hehr komt.

Es köndte dabey zu sehen seyn die Völker mit ihren trachten, auch frembde Thiere jedes orths, samt Bergen und Wäldern und sonderlich die vornehmste Städte, mit den Grenzen und Nahmen der Provinzen (addendum do a letter to Herzog Anton Ulrich, September 1, 1711, Ger’e No. 123, 169).

Fourth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America

Below is the program for the Fourth Annual Conference of the Leibniz Society of North America, which will be held at the University of Houston in Houston, TX from 3 to 5 December 2010.  Active links are to abstracts of the papers.  Further information about the conference can be found on the website for the conference at http://www.gwleibniz.com/lsna_houston.

• Friday, 3 December 2010
  • 2:00-2:30: Coffee
  • 2:30-5:50: Session 1 (Chair: Mark Kulstad, Rice University)
    • 2:30-3:30: Brian Glenny (Gordon College), "Leibniz on Molyneux's Question."
    • 3:40-4:40: Christopher Noble (Villanova University), "Leibniz's Comments on Spinoza's Philosophy."
    • 4:50-5:50: Stephen Puryear (North Carolina State University), "Force, Absolute Motion, and the Threat of Circularity in Leibniz."
    • 6:15: Reception (Palacio del Rio, University of Houston Hilton)
• Saturday, 4 December 2010
  • 8:30-9:00: Light Breakfast
  • 9:00-12:20: Session 2 (Chair: Brandon Look, University of Kentucky)
    • 9:00-10:00: Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (Oriel College, Oxford), "The Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles, the Tabula Rasa, and Unthinking Minds."
    • 10:10-11:10: Mogens Laerke (University of Aberdeen), "Leibniz's Cosmological Argument."
    • 11:20-12:20: Giovanni Merlo (University of Barcelona), "Leibnizian Aggregates are not Mind-Dependent Entities."
    • 12:20-2:00: Lunch
  • 2:00-5:20: Session 3 (Chair: Donald Rutherford, University of California - San Diego)
    • 2:00-3:00: Ohad Nachtomy (Bar-Ilan University), "Leibnizian Encounters with Infinity."
    • 3:10-4:10: Maria Picone (Rice University), "Aporetic Monologues: Questions Surrounding 'Von der Allmacht.'"
    • 4:20-5:20: Christian Barth (Institut für Philosophie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), "Another Case of Illegitimate Backward Projection: Why Leibnizian Apperception is not (Essentially) Higher-Order Perception in the New Essays."
  • 5:30-6:00: LSNA Executive Committee Meeting
  • 6:30: Dinner for Conference Participants
• Sunday, 5 December 2010
  • 8:30-9:00: Light Breakfast
  • 9:00-12:20: Session 4 (Chair: Martha Bolton, Rutgers)
    • 9:00-10:00: Samuel Newlands (University of Notre Dame), "Leibniz and the Ground of Possibility."
    • 10:10-11:10: Michael Ferreira (Ohio State University), "Simmons on Leibniz on the Intentionality of Sensation."
    • 11:20-12:20: Evelyn Vargas (Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina), "Seeing is Believing: Leibniz on Perception and Will."

Leibniz's Theodicy: Context and Content

September 16-18, 2010

University of Notre Dame

http://nd.edu/~cprelig/conferences/leibniz2010/index.php

Wednesday, September 15th

                6:30pm: Pre-Conference Banquet and “Bayle on the Problem of Evil” Workshop

                                  Chair: Todd Ryan, Trinity College

                                  Speakers: Kristen Irwin (Biola University) and Jean-Luc Solere (Boston College)

                                  Commentator: Tom Lennon, University of Western Ontario

Thursday, September 16th

                9:00am-10:30am: Nicholas Jolley, University of California, Irvine, "Is Leibniz's Theodicy a Set of Variations on a Theme by Malebranche?"

                                  Chair: Marleen Rozemond, University of Toronto

                                  Commentator: Sukjae Lee, Seoul National University

                10:40am-12:10pm: Paul Rateau, Université Paris,"The Theoretical Foundations of the Leibnizian Theodicy and its Apologetic Aim"

                                  Chair: Mark Kulstad, Rice University

                                  Commentator: Mogens Laerke, University of Aberdeen

              

                1:30pm-3:00pm: Greg Brown (University of Houston), Robert Sleigh (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) and Sean Greenberg (University of California, Irvine), Special session, "Translating the Theodicy: Then and Now"

                                  Chair: Justin Smith, Concordia University

                3:10pm-4:40pm: Donald Rutherford, University of California, San Diego,"Justice and Circumstances: Theodicy as Universal Religion" 

                                  Chair: Jill Hernandez, University of Texas, San Antonio

                                  Commentator: Larry Jorgensen, Skidmore College

                7:45pm-9:00pm: Robert Merrihew Adams, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, "Perfections, Justice, and Love in Leibniz's Theodicy" 

                                  Chair: Andrew Chignell, Cornell University

Friday, September 17th

                9:30am-11:00am: Christia Mercer, Columbia University, "Leibniz's Theodicy and the Epistemological Problem of Evil"

                                  Chair: Joel Schickel, University of Dayton

                                  Commentator: Lea Schweitz, The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago

                11:10am-12:40pm: Michael J. Murray, Franklin and Marshall College, "Vindicatio Dei: Evil as a Result of God's Free Choice of the Best"

                                  Chair: Marcy Lascano, California State University, Long Beach

                                  Commentator: Lloyd Strickland, University of Wales, Lampeter 

                2:00pm-3:30pm: Maria Rosa Antognazza, King's College London, "Metaphysical Evil Revisited"

                                  Chair: Daniel Schmal

                                  Commentator: Ohad Nachtomy

                3:40pm-5:10pm: Tad Schmaltz, University of Michigan, "Moral Evil and Divine Concurrence in the Theodicy" 

                                  Chair: Derk Pereboom, Cornell University

                                  Commentator: John Whipple, University of Illinois, Chicago

                7:45pm-9:00pm: Jonathan Israel, Institute for Advanced Studies, "Philosophy, Divine Providence, and the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755"

                                  Chair: Martha Bolton, Rutgers University

Saturday, September 18th

                9:00am-10:30am: Jan Cover, Purdue University, "Anti-Voluntarism and Divine Perfection"

                                  Chair: Anja Jauernig, University of Notre Dame

                                  Commentator: Brandon Look, University of Kentucky

                10:40am-12:10pm: Agustín Echavarría, Universidad de Navarra, "Leibniz's Dilemma on Predestination"

                                  Chair: Timothy O'Connor, Indiana University, Bloomington

                                  Commentator: Ursula Goldenbaum, Emory University

                1:30pm-3:00pm: Daniel Garber, Princeton University, "Metaphysics and Theology: The Role of the Monadology in Leibniz's Theodicy"

                                  Chair: Marilyn Adams, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

                                  Commentator: Jeff McDonough, Harvard University

IX. International Leibniz Congress: Nature and Subject

September 19–23, 2011, Leibniz-Universität zu Hannover
 
First Circular
 
Leibniz’s importance for the present, as well as his historical standing in philosophy and in the sciences, are to be the focus of the congress. Since the previous congress six volumes of the Academy Edition have appeared; four further volumes will be published before the congress takes place. Furthermore, since the previous congress hundreds of pages of previously unpublished texts have been made available in provisional form on the internet.

Leibniz composed a series of important philosophical texts in dialogue form. It is intended that the congress should, in the sense of such a “Dialog of Reason”, bring together and confront existing investigations, elucidate consensus and controversy, ascertain what has been achieved and identify research desiderata. These could also include such hitherto, if at all, implicitly conducted methodological controversies. To what extent could texts composed at intervals of many years be mutually illuminating? Is our present picture of Leibniz’s philosophical development precise enough for such an approach?

The motto “Nature and Subject” is to constitute a focal point of the congress. In recent years Leibniz’s views of biology and the living body have become more and more the center of attention; the role of the “machines of nature” has been more exactly investigated. In addition, the debate concerning corporeal substance has gained increasing attention. Leibniz attributes subjectivity or subjective experience in the broader sense not exclusively to the spiritual monads. Naturally the motto also encompasses the dimension of epistemology and philosophy of science.

The Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Society invites all interested researchers, specialists and friends to participate. Announcement of papers is requested by February 1, 2011; of the accepted contributions a file or a reproducible paper copy (camera-ready, maximum length 8 pages) is required by May 1, 2011, since the contributions are to be available in a bound volume at the congress opening.

Detailed information about the congress program and the preparation of contributions will be made available in further circulars and on the congress homepage at:

http://www.Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Gesellschaft.de/Veranstaltungen/Kongress/

Queries should be addressed to: kongress@Leibnizgesellschaft.de or Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz-Gesellschaft, Waterloostr. 8, D-30169 Hannover; Tel. +49 511 1267-331 or -327; Fax +49 511 1267 202.

Leibniz on Natural History and National History

Draft only. Do not cite. Please click here for a pdf version of the article. Comments eagerly solicited.

Wilhelm Piso, Historia naturalis Brasiliae (1648)

[This is a translation of a section of the first book, 'On the Air, Waters, and Places of Brazil', of Piso's massive, four-book work. It is followed by those passages from the fourth book, on the plants of Brazil, that would later be drawn upon in G. W. Leibniz's De novo antidysenterico americano of 1695, a translation of which will follow shortly. Among other interesting features of this work, the selection translated from Book I may very well be the first European description ever of couvade, which would later be well attested in the ethnographic record. The original Latin text follows. And yes, this is how I spend my Saturday nights.] 

Book I.

...The women are marvellously fertile, and give birth with little pain, rarely aborting. At the time of childbirth the husband lies down in the place of the wife for the duration of the labor, and, like a woman about to give birth, enjoys sweetmeats and feasting, citing the necessity of restoring his lapsed vigor. A preposterous custom, of course, which nevertheless appears to them to be most praiseworthy, as many women, immediately after giving birth, with no one having assisted them, get right up to meet [the men]; nay more, they hasten to the nearby river to cleanse their body, and from here they seek out their nourishment. They do not bemoan the killing of children beyond two or three days, with the mothers filling the whole place with their miserable wailing. With the profuse tears that they have in their power they welcome their relations and their returning friends, whose misfortunes and labors they [peregre] endure, weeping with many sighs and groans, and pressing them to their chests with arms around their neck and head. 

Those who live among the Hollanders and the Portuguese follow Christ, though more indifferently, and the adults are very laid-back with respect to our efforts: nor can our pleading make its way much into their heads, unless they are of a tender age, with souls that are not yet preoccupied, and that are remote from their parents. Their languages are hardly different the one from the other. And however much those who are born [there] descend from a lineage of cannibals, nevertheless through mutual exchange with Europeans and through habit they are improved, and they shed their barbarity, attaining to a humanity that is comparable to our own. Unlike Mediterranean peasants, they are truculent, brutal, without law, without religion, they roam in the manner of wild beasts, without any fixed or stable quarters, and here and there will lie in wait, with admirable knowledge and swiftness, for the fish or wild animals that will be their victuals, whether these be abundant or scarce. They know how to hurl javelins, without a bow, with the most admirable strength and with stupendous skill... The men and the women as well go about with nothing covering their pudenda, with their hair disshevelled, though some of them have it clipped, and with the other body parts hairless; and they adorn themselves with the feathers of differently colored birds. They disgracefully paint their bodies with a certain dusky color pressed out of the lanipapa apple. And nor is the face free of ornamentation: they affix the most vile and tedious little stones to their ears, which have been pierced since earliest infancy, as well as to the lower and upper lips.  

When one of them falls ill, his friends approach, and they conjure a trick, making notice of a remedy that they have already tried out on themselves. Next they scarify and cut deep into the skin of his muscular arms and of parts of his thighs with the spines of the Carnaiba tree, and with the teeth of the fish they also use to sharpen their arrows, so that he bleeds profusely... They bring on vomiting by force by means of the twisted leaves of the Carnaiba, which they force into his throat. With these and similar remedies tried out in vain, they attempt nothing else, nor yet do they relinquish the sick man, but by unanimous consensus, as if desperate for his health, they kill him off with a wooden cudgel, still gratifying him and themselves, that his death has come to pass in a masculine fashion, and that he is liberated of all suffering. In this way, indeed, they rejoice and glory in this moment of death. It is with great applause among his relatives that his enemies take vengeance upon the cadaver of the victim, this one for a shameful love, that one out of brutal indivtiveness, tearing him to pieces in the most savage manner of wild beasts. Others come forth for the flesh and bones, down to the teeth, scraping them down for their frightful banquet.

Book IV.

Chapter 49. Of Caa-apia and Its Properties.

... The indigenous people crush the plant, and expel the poison from the stomach by the juice that is drunk: wounded by serpents or struck by poison arrows, they pour it drop by drop into the wounded person in lieu of an antidote, and not without success. Here there are also other species of Caa-apia, similar in all respects to the first one, except as concerns their leaves, which are of course of the same figure, but are serrated and bristly along their edge, and their stalks are covered with sparse hairs...

Chapter 65. Of Ipecacuanha and Its Properties

Finally, the proper order of things brings us to those much-vaunted salutary roots, which, beyond their power of purgation by both the upper and lower passages, are eminently opposed to all poison. Nor do I believe that one could find on this earth a more effective remedy against the many illnesses arising from a long obstruction, and above all for the assuaging of the fluxus ventris.

There exist two species, neither having been described, to my knowledge, nor their excellent qualities brought to light. And both are dedicated to the same use, but with different degrees of powers, depending upon their figure and their native soil. Indeed, one of them, the smaller one, lying low in the soil, grows in meadows; it is not so different from pennyroyal, for the stalk extends upward with many lanuginous leaves, and is encircled with little white flowers. Its root is course, fibrous, whitish, and it is called by the Portuguese, for the sake of distinction, Ipecacuanha blanca, which, while agitating the body less, resists most powerfully against poisons, and is likewise given to children and to pregnant women. 

The other is a demi-cubit in length, though endowed with only three or four leaves. It delights in dark places, and is found in denser forests. At the top of its stalk it produces black berries, though not many. Its root is fine, winding, knotted, of a dusky color, unpleasant to the taste, bitter, hot, and piercing. In a dried form it is kept for many years, nor is it easy to cut. Its dosage is one drachma if reduced to a powder, or, in an infusion, two drachmae, give or take.

And both [species] are for daily use, though they prefer it diluted, since either in chewing on it at night in the open air or in mixing it in water, it powerfully communicates its medical virtue to the liquors [of the body]. Afterwards a caput mortuum is left over, and it is prepared again in the same way and is furnished for the same use; though no longer as effective for purging and vomiting, it is now more effective as an astringent. Thus this root does not only remove even the most tenacious sickness-inducing matter from the affected part, expelling it through the upper passage, but also, functioning as an astringent, restores the tonus of the viscera. Beyond this, it relieves flatulence and other illnesses, counters the effect of poisons and of venoms both hidden and manifest, immediately expelling them through vomiting. Wherefore it is carefully [religiose] guarded by the Brazilians, who first revealed its virtues to us.

Peter the Great to Herzog Anton Ulrich on the appointment of Leibniz to Privy Councillor

Вашей Светлости и Любви Тайнной Советникъ фонъ Лейбницъ приятное Ваше писанiе отъ 25 Окт. вручилъ намъ исправно и вящей словесно предлагалъ, что Вы ему въ коммиссiи дать изволили. Мы Вашей Светлости и Любви обязаны за доброе мненiе и намеренiе, которое Вы кнамъ и интересу нашему оказуете и мы на то его Лейбницево предложенiе наше мненiе письменно ему объявить указали, на что мы ссылаемся и ко оказанiю всехъ приятныхъ угодностей пребываемъ

12 Нояб. 1712

Петръ

*

The Privy Councillor von Leibniz, my Cherished and Esteemed sir, did duly give me your agreeable letter of 25 October, and also told me what you charged him to communicate. I am very attached to you, Cherished and Esteemed sir, for the good thoughts and intentions that You have shown in relation to me and my interests, and I have issued a command that an answer be given to Leibniz in written form concerning his proposal, to which I refer, and in fulfillment of all agreeable functions I remain

12 November, 1712

Peter

Лейбниц и Ньютон в русском Просвящении

[Outline of a research project to be carried out on the invitation of the Mechanico-Mathematical Faculty of Moscow State University, Summer, 2010. Second Draft!]

В моем актуальном исследовании российской науки первой половины XVIII века я интересуюсь сложной историей распространения лейбницианства с одной стороны, и  ньютонианства с другой.

Хорошо известно, что уже начиная с конца XVII века, немецкий философ и математик Готфрид Вилгельм Лейбниц стал заниматься планом для основания Академии Наук в Санкт-Петербурге, а в 1712 году был назван тайным юстиц-ратом на службе Петра Великого, чтобы "науки Iискуства вншεмъ гдрствѣ вящεи цвѣтъ произошли употрεбить."

Влияние Лейбница на математику и на философскую мысль в России, да и в самой Академии, не просуществовало долго, несмотря на то, что мечта Лейбница об основании Академии исполнилась в 1724 году, 8 лет после смерти философа.Сам Леонард Эйлер, выдающийся математик и физик в ранней истории петербуржской академии, был строгим критиком мировозрения Лейбница. Как объяснить исчезновение немецкого философа, любимого Петром Первым со сцени русской философии?

Бесспорно, что в какой-то мере это связанно с введением в Россию ньютоновской физики, особенно в результате перевода на русский язык в 1717 году книги голландского астронома Христиана Гюйгенса, "Мiрозрѣнiя или мнѣнiе о небесноземныхъ глобусахъ", в которой находится первое объяснение ньютоновской теории тяготения на русском языке. Как пишет Т. П. Кравец в его замечательной книге "От Ньютона до Вавилова" (1967),"Невозможное и невероятное осуществилось: в России заговорили о "Невтоне" и его творениях, стали спорить об их значении, сомневаться в них, и, в конце концов, убеждаться в их всепобеждающей мудрости."

На самом деле, введение ньютоновской космологии не может полностью объяснить отказа от лейбницевской философии в тот же самый период, так как большинство русских ученных радикально отказывалось от теории тяготения, которая была краеугольным камнем всей ньютоновской системы. Сам Ломоносов, будучи под влиянием ученика Лейбница, Христиана Вольффа, пишет в своем "Рассуждении  о твердости и жидкости тел" (1760) о том, что Ньютон не мог действительно верить в тяготение как в реально существующую силу, а верил лишь как в эмпирическое данное.

Я полагаю, что до второй половины XVIII века Лейбниц играл более важную роль в этом подозрении к ньютоновской системе, чем признают исследователи.  Для того, чтобы поддтвердить эту гипотезу, мне нужно будет прочитать как неопубликованные письма и документы русских корреспондентов Лейбница в Императорских Архивах, так и Архивы Российской Академии Наук. Больше всего я интересуюсь ролью советника Петра Великого, Якова Вилимовича Брюса, шотландского дворянина, который был досконально знаком с разносторонней научной полемикой Лейбница и Самюэля Кларка по поводу реальности тяготения как силы природы, с которым Лейбниц имел неисследованную пока переписку.

Я надеюсь, что в России мне возможно будет разгадать несколько загадок для нашего понимания Лейбница не только как мыслителя, но и деятеля на международной сцене раннего Просвящения. Чтобы это достичь, мне надо будет полностью принять во внимание важную роль его русских корреспонденций в формировании лейбницевского наследства XVIII века. 

Библиография

Valentin Boss, Newton and Russia: The Early Influence, 1698-1796, Harvard University Press, 1972.

Я. В. Брюс, Приемы циркуля и линеики или избраннейшое начало во математических искуствах, Москва, 1709. 

В. И. Герье, Сборникъ писемъ и мемориаловъ Лейбница относящихся к России и Петру Великому, Санкт-Петербург, 1873.

М. В. Ломоносов, Полное собрание сочинений, Москва и Ленинград, 1950-1957.

Moritz Posselt, Peter der Grösse und Leibniz, Tartu, 1848.

В. Л. Ченакал, Научные связы русских и английских  астрономов в XVIII в., in Вопросы истории физико-математических наук, изд. К. А. Рыбников, Москва, 1951, 1083-1101. 

Leibniz on the History of Nations and the Theodicy of Cultural Difference

[Abstract submitted for the Theodicy anniversary conference at Notre Dame, Fall, 2010]

Leibniz composed the Theodicy at the very peak of his activity as a historian. Contrary to widespread belief that he undertook this activity only grudgingly, in fact he pursued his historical research with great interest (even if he did it more slowly than his employer would have liked), and even saw it as inseparable from his broader intellectual project-- his philosophy, if you will. Thus he complains to Nicolaes Witsen in a letter of 1698 that "people criticize me when I attempt to take leave of the study of mathematics, and they tell me that I am wrong to abandon solid and eternal truths in order to study the changing and perishable things that are found in history and its laws" (Ger'e 1873, No. 36). And in a 1708 draft of a proposal to Peter the Great for the classificatory system to be used in the eventual library of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, Leibniz identifies history, alongside mathematics and physics, as one of the three ‘Realien’ or distinct domains of science, namely, the one that "involves the explanation of times and places, and thus of singular things" including "the descriptions and attainments of kingdoms, states, and peoples" (Ger’e 1873, No. 73).

But what are the laws of the study of res singulares? And do these laws cover all human affairs, or only a certain subset of them? There is a commonplace of later German philosophy of history, extending at least from Kant to Marx, according to which history just is European history, since only Europe had succeeded in initiating the process of global change that alone makes human life more than static, and thus, by implication, more than animal. Thus Kant thought that the inhabitants of undiscovered South Sea islands are no more the subjects of history than are sheep, while Marx maintained that the British imposition of industrial weaving equipment in Bengal had been a blessing to those upon whom it was imposed, since it is only through technological change that cultural change can happen, and history just is cultural change. The distinction that Marx would later make in terms of technology was made by Leibniz, mutatis mutandis, in terms of religion: only those who have been absorbed into the "true doctrine of the unity of God and the immortality of souls" (Theodicy, Preface) may be considered as having lived, as Kant would later put it, a life worth living, and it's only a life worth living that is a life worth writing down, which is to say a historical life.

For at least the early Leibniz, there is no hierarchy of races (pace Fenves 2005), but only a basic distinction between barbarians on the one hand and children of God on the other. This dichotomy comes out very vividly in, for example, an early text such as the Method for Insituting a New, Invincible Militia of 1671, in which he proposes that "slaves captured from all over the barbarian world will be brought [to an island such as Madagascar], and from all of the wild coastal regions of Africa, Arabia, New Guinea, etc. To this end Ethiopians, Nigritians, Angolans, Caribbeans, Canadians, and Hurons fit the bill, without discrimination. What a lovely bunch of semi-beasts!" (A IV i, 408-10). In an important sense, it is true that what Leibniz is proposing is 'without discrimination': the people he proposes to treat in this horrific way are suitable subjects of such treatment because they lack knowledge of what Leibniz would call in the Theodicy the 'true doctrine'; if they had this knowledge, their Ethiopian or Canadian origins would immediately become irrelevant to their moral status. Leibniz's conception of how one might come to hold this true doctrine, moreover, changes dramatically over the course of his career. In 1671, he probably held that baptism alone could suffice; by the time of the Theodicy, in contrast, the paths to the true doctrine are many. One such path is Islam: Mohammed, he writes, "showed no divergence from the great dogmas of natural theology: his followers spread them abroad even among the most remote races of Asia and of Africa, whither Christianity had not been carried; and they abolished in many countries heathen superstitions which were contrary to the true doctrine of the unity of God and the immortality of souls" [Theodicy, Preface, 51]. By the time of the Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese, composed in 1715-16, Leibniz no longer requires even a genealogical connection to the Abrahamic tradition and its revelations in order for a people, such as the Chinese, to come to knowledge of the true doctrine of God. Thus the clear distinction of the 1671 New Method between us and them begins to collapse, as the possibility opens up that the semi-beasts might simply happen upon knowledge of the true doctrine by means of an innate, or natural, theology.

Already, we have ample material to ask a number of Theodicy-inspired questions about Leibniz's conception of the histories of nations, and his conception of the nature of human cultural difference. Does Leibniz have any sort of account of the conditions under which a community, such as the Chinese, might arrive unaided at the sort of natural theological knowledge that moves one out of the barbarian's world? Is there moreover any deep reason, motivated by Leibniz's abiding commitment to the harmony of the world order, and the explanation of degrees of perfection in terms of God's choice of the best --because most plenitudinous-- order, why there should be barbarians at all? That is, can we ask in the conceptual terms provided for us in the Theodicy, why there are barbarians in the same way that we are already familiar with asking, and with answering by means of tools the Theodicy gives us, the question as to why there are mosquitoes or earthquakes?

I will argue that we in fact can approach the question of cultural difference in terms of the basic argument of the Theodicy, and indeed that Leibniz believes, notwithstanding his explicit disdain for barbarianism, that cultural diversity is good when considered in a holistic way. Evidence that this is in fact what he thinks can be discerned, I will argue, in much of his work, contemporary to the Theodicy, on the ancient history of preliterate Eurasian peoples such as the Scythians and the Huns, and on their languages as the sources of modern living languages. In this respect, Leibniz's mature conception of history is much more capacious than that of Kant or Marx: it includes everyone, and it includes the entire span of human existence, even what would later come to be called 'prehistory'. 

Finally, I will argue that, for the reasons already spelled out, Leibniz's philosophy of culture and of cultural difference places him in a lineage that will later include not Kant and Marx, but rather the communitarian thinker Johann Gottfried Herder: Leibniz and Herder both believe that cultural distinctness is rooted in linguistic community, that the cultural identity preserved by language is one that is more deeply rooted than the written records of history conceived as the sequence of recorded events, and that, ultimately, distinct cultures cannot be measured against one another, but rather each has its place in the whole order of human culture, and each is in the end, in spite of the superficial uniqueness of its cultural forms, an expression of the same underlying human reality.

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Select Bibliography

Peter Fenves, “Imagining an Inundation of Australians; or, Leibniz on the Principles of Grace and Race.” In Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy, edited by Andrew Valls, pp. 73-89. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Stefano Gensini, Leibniz: L'armonia delle lingue. Bari: Biblioteca Universale Laterza, 1995.

V. I. Ger’e (Ed.), Sbornik pisem i memorialov Leïbnitsa otnosiashchikhsia k Rossii i Petru Velikomu. Saint Petersburg, 1873.

Schulenburg, Sigrid von der, Leibniz als Sprachforscher. Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1973.  

Peter the Great's Decree Appointing G. W. Leibniz to the Rank of Russian Privy Council (from the Slavonic)

I, Peter the Great, Tsar and Protector of All Russia, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, have in good favor chosen the Privy Council of the Elector and Prince of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, in view of the good qualities and accomplishments of his that have been communicated to me and that I have confirmed, to serve also as my Privy Council, that he may contribute to the advancement of the mathematical and other sciences, and be of service to the investigation of history and to the undertaking of studies in general. It is my intention that he will contribute to the flourishing of the sciences and arts in our state, and for the above-mentioned rank of Privy Council I wish to offer him an annual salary of 1000 talers, which should be paid to him yearly on my behalf, and for which I shall place the requisite orders, beginning from the date indicated below. In testimony whereof I give my signature, together with our state seal, in Karlsbad, 11 November, 1712.

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Мы пεтръ пεрвыï Цръ и самѡдεржεцъ всεросиïскиï: Iпротчая ипротчая ипротчая; изобрѣли мы заблго всемилтивѣйше кȣрѳирстского икняжаго браȣнщвигъ люнѣбȣргъ таиного юстицъ рата готѳрида вилгεлма ѳонъ леïбница. Заεто намъ выхвалεнныя иот насъ изѡбрѣтεнныя изрядныя достоинства I искȣства тамождε внаши таиныя юстицъ раты опрεдεлить иȣчрεдить. Что намъ помεжε мы извεстны. Что ѡнъ поȣмножεнию матεматичεскихъ Iиныхъ искȣствъ ипроизыскиванью гисторεи ïкприрашεнию наȣкъ много вс'помоши можεтъ. Его поимεющемȣ нашεмȣ намѣрεнию что наȣки Iискȣства вншεмъ гдрствѣ вящεи цвѣтъ произошли употрεбить. Имы для вышεпомянȣтого εгѡ чина ншεго таиного юстицъ рата годовоε жалованьε потысячи ефимковъ опрεдεлить изволили, которыя εмȣ отнасъ εжεгодно исправно заплачεны быть имѣютъ инчεму мы налεжащи Указы дать изволимъ. Аεто слȣжба начичаεтца снижεписанногѡ числа; воȣвεрѣние того сие заншимъ собствεннымъ рȣкопописаниεмъ игдрствεнною ншεю пεчатью Дано в Карлсьбадε [11 ноября] въ 1712 году. 

Doç. Dr. Justin E. H. Smith: İnsanlık tek bir tür; farklılıklar yüzeysel

[From Cumhuriyet. For the English version, go here. If you would like to learn to read the Turkish, the best manual of Turkish grammar I know is Geoffrey Lewis, Turkish Grammar (Oxford, 2001), ideally supplemented by the classic Elementary Turkish of Lewis V. Thomas and Norman Itzkowitz.]

Concordia Üniversitesi’nden Doç. Dr. Justin E. H. Smith, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi’nde “Irk ve Doğal Türlerin Tarihsel Hayatı” konulu bir konuşma yaptı. Leibniz’in hayatı ve eserleri konusunda uzmanlaşan Smith’in, Leibniz’in biyoloji felsefesiyle ilgili son kitabı Divine Machines, yakında Princeton Üniversitesi Yayınları’ndan çıkıyor.

Bilim felsefesindeki güncel en önemli tartışma nedir?

Bilimsel akıl yürütmenin yapısıyla, ideoloji, mitoloji, ahlak ve sağduyu gibi diğer insan düşünme formları arasındaki benzerlikler ve farklar, akademik felsefe açısından olmasa da önemli bir tartışma. Uzun zaman boyunca, bilimin ne olduğuyla ilgili hâkim fikir, bilimsel akıl yürütmenin diğer düşünme biçimlerinden radikal şekilde ayrılarak bize tarafsız bir dünya görüşü sunduğu şeklindeydi. Bu bir noktaya kadar doğru olsa da, daha derin düşünüldüğünde, bilimin kültüre bağlı olduğu, sadece verilerin yorumlanmasında kültürel değerlerin rol oynaması değil, ayrıca araştırma programlarının seçiminde de etkisi olduğu ortaya çıkıyor.

Uzak ve deneysel olarak tekrar edilemeyecek geçmiş ile ilgilenen bilimler (paleontoloji ve kozmoloji) özellikle bilim öncesi düşünme biçimlerinin unsurlarından etkilenmeye açık. Büyük patlama kozmolojisiyle yaradılış mitlerinin karşılaştırılmalı incelenmesinden çok şey öğrenilebilinir.

Leibniz’in biyoloji felsefesinin özelliği nedir?

Leibniz’in sonsuz küçükler hesabının bulunmasına katkısı var, fakat oraya Newton’un mu, yoksa Leibniz’in mi önce vardığı kesin olarak bilinmiyor. Ayrıca, fosilleri doğru tanımlayıp hayvan taklidi değil, hayvan kalıntısı olduğunu ilk iddia edenlerden biri. Newton’un fiziksel nesnelerin içinde bulunduğu mutlak bir kap olarak kabul ettiği zaman ve uzayla ilgili Leibniz’in göreceliliğe dayalı görüşlerinin 20. yüzyıl fiziğine büyük katkısı olduğu da düşünülüyor. Leibniz’in yaşadığı dönemde kavramsal problemlere bulduğu çözümler onun dehasını ortaya koyuyor.

From Tractorics to Pyrotechnics: Leibniz's Model of Animal Bodies

[Submitted for the First Quebec Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, université de Sherbrooke, October 10, 2009]

Scholars have long been aware that 'mechanist' or 'mechanical philosopher' is a very slippery label. There seem to be no necessary or sufficient conditions for classifying certain philosophers as mechanists but not others, and much as with 'feminist' or 'analytic philosopher', the prudent taxonomist will simply permit all self-identifiers to come under the label, while withholding it from anyone who does not actively embrace it. But things may be even more problematic than we've thought: not only do we not really know what a mechanist is; we also don't have a clear idea of what is to count as a machine.  Most scholars have taken one kind of machine --the machine driven by pulleys, gears, and levers, and identified somewhat derisively by Kaspar Schott in his 1657 Mechanica Hydraulico-Pneumatica as a merely 'tractoric' machine-- as the model of mechanicity in general.  'Mechanist' philosophers have accordingly often been criticized for letting their analogical imaginations run wild, since patently animal bodies (to cite the most obvious stumbling block for a universally applicable science of tractorics) are not composed of gears and levers.  But there were in fact many other kinds of machine, driven by fundamentally different principles than those of the clock.  As the title of his book suggests, Schott was mostly interested in machines driven by water and air.  Others --particularly those such as Cornelis Drebbel and Joachim Becher who sought to build their own perpetual-motion machines-- were more interested in chemical principles such as fermentation than in tractoric principles as a source of machine motion. 

Still others, such as Robert Boyle and G. W. Leibniz, were principally interested in what Leibniz would call 'hydraulico-pneumatico-pyrotechnical [HPP] machines', that is machines that are kept in motion by the appropriate interaction of air, water, and a certain kind of chemical explosion akin to that in gunpowder.  Leibniz thought animal bodies were just such a machine.  Given that Leibniz was also a panorganicist who believed that, in the end, everything is an animal body or somehting like it, clearly it should be important for scholars to pay attention to the sort of machine he took animal bodies to be.  In this presentation, I shall summarize Leibniz's theory of HPP machines, and I shall attempt to show the importance of this theory for our understanding of his theory of corporeal substance, and ultimately for our understanding of his deepest ontological commitments.  On the basis of Leibniz's example, I shall further argue that much late-17th-century mechanism, far from amounting to a crude 'contraptionism' that would seek to reduce the complexity of natural beings to whatever passed at a given moment of history for state-of-the-art technology, in fact sought to incorporate knowledge of processes gained in the first instance from direct investigation of natural processes that clearly defied any attempt to model them tractorically.