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5027
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If a person's memories became totally those of the King of China, he would be the King of China [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
If someone were suddenly to become the King of China, forgetting what he has been, as if born anew, is this not as if he were annihilated, and a King of China created in his place at the same moment?
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Discourse on Metaphysics [1686], §34)
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A reaction:
Strikingly, this clearly endorse the view of the empiricist Locke. It is a view about the continuity of the self, not its essence, but Descartes must have turned in his grave when he read this. When this 'King of China' introspects his self, what is it?
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12942
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Memory doesn't make identity; a man who relearned everything would still be the same man [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
If a man were made young again, and learned everything anew - would that make him a different man? So it is not memory that makes the very same man.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01)
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A reaction:
Leibniz takes this as a foregone conclusion. If you flipped to a possible world where someone you know well, as a physical being, has been brought up entirely differently (new language, culture, ethics etc), is it really the same person?
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5023
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Future contingent events are certain, because God foresees them, but that doesn't make them necessary [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
We must distinguish between what is certain and what is necessary; everyone agrees that future contingents are certain, since God foresees them, but it is not thereby admitted that they are necessary.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Discourse on Metaphysics [1686], §13)
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A reaction:
An interesting point, since there is presumably a difference between God foreseeing that future squares will have four corners, and His foreseeing the next war. It seems to me, though, that 'certainty' is bad enough news for free will, without necessity.
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19413
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If we know what is good or rational, our knowledge is extended, and our free will restricted [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
The more perfect one is, the more one is determined to the good, and so is more free at the same time. ...Our power and knowledge are more extended, and our will much the more limited within the bounds of perfect reason.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Pierre Bayle [1702], 1702)
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A reaction:
I like this idea, which seems to me to derive from Aquinas. When I choose to eat and drink each day, or agree that 7+5 is 12, I don't complain about my lack of freedom in the choices. Goodness and reason are constraints I welcome.
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19367
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Saying we must will whatever we decide to will leads to an infinite regress [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
As for volition itself, to say that it is the object of free will is incorrect. We will to act, strictly speaking, and we do not will to will, else we should still say we will to have the will to will, and that would go on to infinity.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.151), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.IV
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A reaction:
This strikes me as an elementary difficulty which most fans of free will appear to evade. Thoughts just arise in us, and some of them are volitions. We can say there is then a 'gap' (Searle) where we choose, but what happens in the gap?
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7841
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We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
The will has its causes, but since we are ignorant of them, we believe ourselves independent. It is this chimera of imaginary independence which revolts us against determinism, and which brings us to believe there are difficulties where there are none.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.16
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A reaction:
It seems that in his notebooks Leibniz was actually a (Spinozan) determinist. So he should have been, given his view that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and his claim that mind and brain run like two clocks. (Ideas 2114 and 2596)
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5031
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Everything which happens is not necessary, but is certain after God chooses this universe [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
It is not the case that everything which happens is necessary; rather, everything which happens is certain after God made choice of this possible universe, whose notion contains this series of things.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.05)
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A reaction:
I think this distinction is best captured as 'metaphysical necessity' (Leibniz's 'necessity'), and 'natural necessity' (his 'certainty'). 'Certainty' seems a bad word, as it is either certain de dicto or de re. Is God certain, or is the thing certain?
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19368
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The will determines action, by what is seen as good, but it does not necessitate it [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Choice, however much the will is determined to make it, should not be called absolutely and strictly necessary: a predominance of goods of which one is aware inclines without necessitating, though this is determining and never fails to have its effect.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.21)
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A reaction:
Something like seeing that 7+5 equals 12 makes you say '12', but it doesn't actually necessitate your saying '12'? Certain facts seem determined by nature, but not necessitated. Or not necessarily necessitated?
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