Logik and Semiotik in der Philosophie von Leibniz (review) Walter Bernard Redmond Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 21, Number 4, October 1983, pp. 571-573 (Review) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.1983.0100 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/226993/summary Access provided at 4 Jan 2020 17:36 GMT from Reading University (+1 other institution account) BOOK R E V I E W S 57 ~ than the "model o f mathematics" is that what is being hypostatized is a "pure" set of relations with no content. Both abstract mathematical entities and concrete phenomenal entities provide different possible exemplifications or contents for these relations. T h u s it is wrong to say that for Descartes and Malebranche intelligible extension just is the set of axioms and rules of solid Euclidean geometry. Instead, there is "in being" a set of pure and necessary relations that can be expressed in discursive terms, algebraic terms, geometric terms, and by material objects, all of which can be exemplifications of or the content o f these relations. T h e being of the model o f number, then, is a set of pure (empty) relations setting forth the possibility (but not necessitating the actuality) of exemplification. This is in contrast to the necessary actuality o f being (God) on the model o f substance. This empty set o f relations fires the engines o f m o d e r n science and leaves God in the dust. Hobart shows clearly, conclusively, and elegantly how Malebranche typifies the duality of the seventeenth-century mind, how the agonizing incomprehension o f a substantial God is submerged by the ecstasy o f mathematical enlightenment. "Small wonder," Hobart concludes, "Pascal loathed the geometer's god" (p. 147). Hobart's book is a model for work in the history of philosophy using contemporary analytic techniques controlled by the historical texts and contexts. It is a pleasure to welcome this well-written addition to the small corpus o f standard and essential works on Malebranche and on the rise of m o d e r n science and philosophy. R i c h a r d A. W a t s o n Washington University Hans Burkhardt. Logik and Semiotik in der Philosophie von Leibniz. Analytica series (investigations in logic, ontology, and the philosophy of language). Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 198o. Pp. 487 . Like the Roman deity Janus, Leibniz had two faces, one looking to the future and the other to the past. His future, his significance for present-day philosophy, is well known; in fact, advances in logic today have led to a greater appreciation of his achievements. But his past philosophical roots have not been emphasized. Specifically, Burkhardt points out, there are no t h o r o u g h investigations of the debt Leibniz, the most important "Protestant Aristotelian," owed to scholasticism, "whose logic, ontology, and metaphysics [he] carefully studied and whose terminology he used all his life" (p. 2o). However, the recent publication of medieval and post-medieval scholastic texts and of competent interpretations has provided the basis for new insights into Leibniz's philosophy. Burkhardt's book is unique in that it takes both Leibniz's future and his past into account. It is basically an exhaustive catalogue of his teachings on logic and semiotics, densely summarized and related both to logic since Boole and Frege and to the philosophy Leibniz was heir to. It includes sketches o f relevant doctrinal developments before Leibniz and comments on the state of the research and on controversies over interpretations. T h e following are some examples of Leibniz's relationship to his philosophical 572 JOURNAL OF T H E H I S T O R Y OF P H I L O S O P H Y 2I: 4 OCT 198 3 past. In inference theory his main focus was the syllogism and his non-syllogistic forms were all from the tradition (pp. 23, 6 5 - 6 ). Anselm was the first to discuss the relations between natural and ideal language in detail, and Leibniz was indebted in his language studies directly or indirectly to scholastic speculative g r a m m a r (pp. 86, 87). His semantics, important for his theories o f definition, identity, and truth, was the traditional model of sign, concept, thing (pp. 18o-1). T h e r e was scholastic influence in his analytic definition of truth, and "the passage most often quoted for [his] truth theory turns out to be only the scholastic doctrine of the analogy of proportionality" (pp. 244, 258 ) . When discussing contingent propositions in the context of the coherence aspect o f his truth theory he "merely repeats scholastic analyses" (p. 249). O f the three themes comprising the core of his logica nova, Leibniz took the combinatory art from the Lullist current, the universal characteristic was a c o m m o n object o f speculation in the 17th century, and the logical calculus went back to Vieta--indeed J. J u n g e worked one out with formalization of relations before Leibniz (p. 320). Traditional doctrine on individual accidents was basic for Leibniz's (sometimes misunderstood) ontological individualism and theory of relations (pp. 407, 436). His probability doctrine, as a metrical extension o f modality for contingent propositions, formed part of a tradition rooted in Aristotle (p. 423). Leibniz's conception of logic itself as propositions about concepts and their properties and relations was a "new edition" of the scholastic theory of first and second intentions (pp. 402,434). Burkhardt isolates four concepts of modality in Leibniz (p. 422). Two are higherorder notions of the consistency of concepts and o f concept inclusion, the latter a syntactic interpretation from the tradition, while a use o f modal operators is o f course found in scholasticism (as well as a recognition o f the analogy between them and quantifiers, it might be added) (pp. 246, 259). Leibniz's discussion of possible individuals in the context of existential import, related to the scholastic doctrine o f ampliatio, was completed by his famous theory of possible worlds, which is seen as the contribution o f Leibniz to modal logic (pp. 41-2, 259, 256). However, A. Kenny has pointed out that the 16th-century Jesuit L. Molina had used such a technique when speaking of ordines rerum (and it could be said that his contemporaries seemed to have routinely quantified over possibilities and necessities). Yet Leibniz remains a pioneer in logic as well as mathematics and physics (p. 15). He was the f o u n d e r of deontic logic and his calculus ratiocinator was a great achievement foreshadowing mathematical logic (pp. 437, 18). He was often original, e.g., in dialogical logic and in his treatment of the identity principle, and he even had a theory o f abstracts (pp. 419, 228, 97-8). His language studies contained elements of both structuralist and generative linguistics, and his attempt to contruct artificial language was a decisive advance over scholastic and humanistic language analysis (p. 138 ). At the same time, Leibniz was more formal than any previous thinker, both because he equipped his logic with a better symbolism (e.g., with symbols for logical constants) and because he attempted to formalize proofs completely in some calculi (PP. 395, 182). Mathematics was his model; his doctrina formarum was a pure formal science subsuming logic and the combinatory art (p. 395)Burkhardt's work is an indispensable handbook for Leibniz scholars and histori- BOOK REVIEWS 573 ans o f logic; it will also be useful for logicians, linguists, historians o f philosophy, and philosophers o f science. For those still believing G e r m a n philosophy begins with Kant, B u r k h a r d t stresses that "Leibniz stands for a n o t h e r tradition o f G e r m a n philosophy besides Kant and G e r m a n idealism, for unlike these he was also acquainted with the Latin-Roman tradition, so i m p o r t a n t for E u r o p e a n c u l t u r e . . . " (pp. 2o-1). Walter Redmond Universidad Aut6noma de Puebla, Mexico Rex P. Stevens. Kant on Moral Practice. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, x981. Pp. x + 188. $15.95 T h e a r g u m e n t o f Stevens's book builds toward "A Kantian Moral Biography", the intent o f which is to explain "the kind o f life, and not j u s t the kinds o f actions, that should be expected o f someone who is moral in Kant's sense o f the term" (p. 127). T h e moral practice that emerges from this analysis is much m o r e than a list o f discrete right actions that could be e n d o r s e d by a K a n t i a n - - m o r e even than such actions coupled with a willingness to p e r f o r m them. As Stevens says, there is a "reciprocity between the actions in a life a n d the conception o f what that whole life is about. Actions t r a n s f o r m the conception o f the goals o f a whole life, a n d the goals o f a whole life charge particular actions with a significance they would not otherwise have" (p. 128). Moral experience, then, is a dialectical process o f direction-finding, the goal o f which is to introduce the good will, in ever m o r e c o m p r e h e n s i v e ways, into the world one is helping to make. But if a lifetime o f personal d e v e l o p m e n t is the f r a m e w o r k for explaining moral practice, then Kant's notion o f such practice cannot be c a p t u r e d in the standard, s h a r p division between right action (external conformity o f actions to the moral law) and virtue (an inward condition o f w i l l ) however much Kant may have e n c o u r a g e d this sort o f bifurcated thinking. I f a "whole life" is the only adequate context for discussing moral practice, morality must exist in the historical nexus between motives and actions. In o t h e r words, morality is "the progressive expression in conduct o f a good will" (p. 1o2). T h e governing principle t h r o u g h o u t this process is o f course the moral law. Stevens's main interest is in explaining how the moral law can e n t e r into, and be the d e t e r m i n i n g factor in, personal moral decisions. H e focuses on the moral subject as decision-maker---disputing the notion that an abstract subject simply accepts o r rejects objectively correct actions. T h e point o f sketching out a Kantian moral biography is to show what this involves. A m o n g o t h e r things, it involves coming to terms with the influence o f habit on conduct, becoming aware o f the intimate connection between f r e e d o m and honesty, a n d creating a moral discipline that will sensitize the agent to issues otherwise conveniently ignored. T h e theme o f "the chains o f habit" runs t h r o u g h much o f the literature o f Kant's time. Because Stevens is familiar with the variations on this theme, he is able to show that what a p p e a r to be r a n d o m r e m a r k s by Kant are actually the elaboration of a critical u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f character. This character unfolds in relation to natural