Leibniz’s Metaphysics: Its Origins and Development

Christia Mercer0-511-03937-9, 0-521-40301-4

Christia Mercer has exposed for the first time the underlying doctrines of Leibniz’s philosophy. By analyzing Leibniz’s early works she demonstrates that the metaphysics of pre-established harmony developed many years earlier than previously believed and for reasons that have not been understood. A much deeper understanding of some of Leibniz’s key doctrines emerges. Christia Mercer’s study will force scholars to reconsider their basic assumptions about early modern philosophy and science. This is a very significant contribution to the history of early modern philosophy that will be of special importance to philosophers, historians of ideas, historians of science and those in religious studies.

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Table of contents :
Acknowledgments……Page 13
References to Leibniz’s works……Page 15
Introduction: First truths and half truths……Page 17
Part one Metaphysics of Method……Page 37
1.Eclecticism and conciliation, 1661-68……Page 39
Part two Metaphysics of Substance……Page 77
2.Aristotelian assumptions, 1668-69……Page 79
3.Original conception of substance, 1669……Page 115
4.Second conception of substance, 1669–early 1671……Page 146
Part three Metaphysics of Divinity……Page 187
5.Platonist assumptions……Page 189
6Metaphysics of Divinity,1668–early 1671……Page 222
Part four Metaphysics……Page 269
7.Matter, passivity, and panorganic vitalism,1670–71……Page 271
8.Phenomenalism and Preestablished Harmony, 1671……Page 316
9.Preestablished Harmony, late 1671 – early 1672……Page 361
10.Final steps toward the mature philosophy, 1672-79……Page 401
Conclusion: the truth behind the First truths……Page 478
Appendix I.(Not exactly) First truths……Page 489
Appendix II.Leibniz’s Original Assumptions……Page 493
Bibliography……Page 501
Index Locorum……Page 519
Index……Page 526