Leibniz s notion of possibility is one of his most significant contributions to philosophy as well as one of the cornerstones of his metaphysics. This work attempts to bring out the intrinsic subtlety of Leibniz s approach to possibility and to explore some of its important repercussions in his metaphysics. This project involves an examination of some of the most difficult questions in Leibniz s metaphysics from this vantage point. The book consists of three parts, the first focusing on Leibniz s notion of possibility, the second on his notion of agency, and the third on his notion of...

In recent decades, there has been much controversy over the basic ontological commitments of the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. This volume brings together papers from many of the leading scholars of Leibniz's thought, all of which deal with the cluster of questions surrounding Leibniz's philosophy of body.

Leibniz s notion of possibility is one of his most significant contributions to philosophy as well as one of the cornerstones of his metaphysics. This work attempts to bring out the intrinsic subtlety of Leibniz s approach to possibility and to explore some of its important repercussions in his metaphysics. This project involves an examination of some of the most difficult questions in Leibniz s metaphysics from this vantage point. The book consists of three parts, the first focusing on Leibniz s notion of possibility, the second on his notion of agency, and the third on his notion of...

In recent decades, there has been much scholarly controversy as to the basic ontological commitments of the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). The old picture of his thought as strictly idealistic, or committed to the ultimate reduction of bodies to the activity of mind, has come under attack, but Leibniz's precise conceptualization of bodies, and the role they play in his system as a whole, is still the subject of much controversy. One thing that has become clear is that in order to understand the nature of body in Leibniz, and the role body plays in his philosophy, it is...

The present volume advances a recent historiographical turn towards the intersection of early modern philosophy and the life sciences by bringing together many of its leading scholars to present the contributions of important but often neglected figures, such as Ralph Cudworth, Nehemiah Grew, Francis Glisson, Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, Georg Ernst Stahl, Juan Gallego de la Serna, Nicholas Hartsoeker, Henry More, as well as more familiar figures such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, and Kant.

The contributions to this volume are organized in accordance with the...