[Cross-posted from modsquad.] As I’ve been arguing in previous posts, Leibniz in 1686 offered an argument that [A] all individual substances express God. As he put the point in the essay “Primary Truths”, “all individual created substances are different expressions of the same universe and different expressions of the same universal cause, namely God” (my italics). However Leibniz also …
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Why think that substances express their causes?
[Cross-posted from modsquad.] Leibniz thought (at least sometimes) that substances express God, because they express their causes. But why did he think that substances express their causes? In this post I briefly explore three ways in which we might try to understand his reasons for this. Version 1: expression and knowledge The late-1670s note “What is …
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Leibniz on substances’ expression of God
[Cross-posted from modsquad.] Leibniz frequently uses the notion of expression. Expression is apparently a sort of representation relation. But what, according to Leibniz, has to happen for one thing to express another? Well, what often seems clear is the requirement that there be a regular relation between the expresser and the expressed. We might understand the debates …
Stewart Duncan 