Infinite vs. Singularity. Between Leibniz and Hegel

The aim of this paper is to reconsider the controversial problem of the relationship between the philosophy of Hegel and Leibniz. Beyond the thick curtain of historical references (which have been widely developed by scholars), it is in fact possible to assume some guideline concepts (i.e. those of \u2018singularity\u2019 and \u2018infinity\u2019) to reconstruct the deep theoretical influence which Leibniz played in Hegel\u2019s thought since the Jenaer Systementwurf of 1804/05

LEIBNIZ\u2019S MIRROR THESIS. SOLIPSISM, PRIVATE PERSPECTIVES AND CONCEPTUAL HOLISM

One of the symbolic images to which Leibniz constantly entrusted the synthesis of his philosophy regards the idea of considering one and the same city from various visual perspectives. Such an image is diffused throughout all Leibniz\u2019s writings and clearly reflects the philosopher\u2019s interest for matters regarding perspective as well as optical phenomena. The point of view of its inhabitants can therefore be compared to a mirror that reflects some different portions of reality. But what do the city-viewers really see? Do they all see exactly the same thing? And assuming the plurality of points of view, how one can be sure that they share the same representative content? The paper presented here tries to offer a plausible interpretation of this topic also by linking different and somehow remote Leibnizian doctrines together

The lingua franca of Nominalism. Sellars on Leibniz

The paper is not built upon a single central thesis. It has been composed as an attempt to investigate a virtually unexplored theme of inquiry. A kind of historiographical thesis may be put in the following terms: Leibniz can be counted among the remote, but still significant, sources of Sellars's philosophy. Such thesis, however, is meaningless unless its conceptual relevance is displayed. Therefore, it will be immediately added that Sellars's relation with Leibniz is focused on three main fundamental issues, which respectively concern (1) the concept of nature, (2) the concept of truth and (3) the concept itself of nominalism. Besides, there are other seemingly minor topics, which actually refers to the definition of abstract entities, of predicates, of proper names and to the datum/factum distinction. Another challenge the paper is faced with, regards the fact that Sellars does not consider Leibniz only in himself, given that he very often positions him in a close relation to Kant: it is as though there were multifaceted issues brought forward by Leibniz and Kant together forming a complex theoretical unity (over and above their differences). According to Sellars, in fact, they both undermine some of the most solid epistemological principles of the early modern times (mainly founded upon the subject- object lexicon and the idea of veritas as adaequatio rei et intellectus) and they both reshape the meaning of expressions such as \u201cbeing actual\u201d or \u201cbeing true\u201d

Is it plausible to distinguish between "intraorganic" and "interorganic" relations within Leibniz's theory of organic matter?

The paper aims to establish whether the technical distinction introduced by scholars between “intra-monadic” and “inter-monadic” relations could also apply to the organic world. As is well known, the expression “intramonadic relations” denotates the relations which bind every individual with its internal representational states; whereas the expression “intermonadic relations” indicates the external relations, which every individual maintains with other monadic individuals. In my paper I will argue that this distinction, mutatis mutandis, might also be useful as well to differentiate the general level of “organic” qualities in bodies from the peculiar organic qualities, which are present just in living entities (like plants or animals). The ground for textual analysis will mainly be the text of the Animadversiones contra Stahl (also because in 2011 falls the anniversary of its last part, which was completed by Leibniz in 1711, when he wrote the last set of replicationes). The thesis will also be supported by other references, including the discussion of more advanced scholarly’ literature concerning these topics

The «Morbid Fear of the Subjective» : Privateness and Objectivity in Mid-twentieth Century American Naturalism

The “Morbid Fear of the Subjective” (copyright by Roy Wood Sellars) represents a key-element of the American naturalist debate of the Mid-twentieth century. On the one hand, we are witnessing to the unconditional trust in the objectivity of scientific discourse, while on the other (and as a consequence) there is the attempt to exorcise the myth of the “subjective” and of its metaphysical privateness. This theoretical roadmap quickly assumed the shape of an even sociological contrast between the “democraticity” of natural sciences and the fanaticism implicit in supernatural metaphysical systems. In between these two extremes stood phenomenology, in its early days on American soil. Its notion of “evidence”, which is less easily to naturalize than it might seem, was in fact hardly consistent with the widespread concept of “natural experience” of the world

Lineare o non lineare? Osservazioni sullo sviluppo dei concetti di "sostanza vivente" e di "organismo" in Leibniz

The doctrine of natural machines, of organisms, of composite substances, assumes a marked consistency in Leibniz starting from his mature years (let us say, from the publishing of New System in 1965 onwards). There is no doubt, therefore, that for a full explanation of the conceptual content of the reflection of Leibniz on the nature of living substances we must turn to the classic places in which it took form: from the letters to De Volder and Lady Masham of the early 1700s, to the Nouveaux Essais, to Animadversiones contra Stahl and, naturally to Principes de la Nature et de la Grace and to the Monadologie. We can in any case ask what are the elements of specific difference are that emerge in this vast doctrinal corpus regarding those elements of the theory of the living being that had already appeared with a certain frequency in the texts of the early 1780s. Put in other words: what link of continuity subsists between the proto-theory of the living being of the 80s and that of the mature years (let us say from New System on)? Or, overturning the formulation of the problem: what elements of discontinuity suddenly break into Leibniz's reflections from the second half of the 90s compared to the immediately preceding phases of his thought? Certainly, the monads, the machines of nature. But is it possibile to focus even more clearly the lens of our observations? I mean: after a decade of intense theoretical debate on the nature of corporeal substances, on organisms, on machines of nature, is it possibile to sketch a historical picture that accounts in a coherent manner for the development of Leibniz's thought in relation to the questions raised here

Funzioni e teleologia in G.W. Leibniz

It is certainly true that in early modern thought the emergence of a new science changed the image of the universe in a mechanistic way. It must be considered, though, that most of the main protagonists of this revolution (Kepler, Newton, Leibniz, ‘biologists’ like Leeuwenhoek, Hartsoeker, Hooke, Malpighi, Redi, etc.) still continued to consider the importance and the utility of a finalistic explanation of natural phenomena. Concepts like “function”, “self-organization”, “organism” have roots in early modern thought: not only from a linguistic and semantic point of view. They were the basis of an epistemology in which different kinds of categories are strictly related. The aim of the paper is to take into account the relevance of the mechanical explanation of natural phenomena in Leibniz’s thought and at the same time to highlight the polarization between mechanical explanations and finalistic consideration that emerges in his philosophy. The specific aim of the paper is to analyze and to develop this kind of dialectic between “teleology” and "mechanism", with particular reference to the concept of “living being”

Naturalismo e neuroscienze. Sulla genesi storica di un legame teorico

The first part of the paper offers an historical reconstruction of the relationship between philosophy and neuroscience. The goal of this part is to show that (1) such relationship has been generated on the basis of a theoretical common ground; (2) that this common story was essentially tied to the American philosophical naturalism; (3) that naturalism entails a metaphilosophical constraint, such that between philosophy and the natural sciences subsists a strong cognitive asymmetry. In the second part of the paper, it has been taken into consideration the proposal of a “naturalized epistemology” (Quine 1969). On the one hand, it has been examined the historical and theoretical consequences of it (often reductionist or eliminativist). But on the other hand, it is possible to show that in the very same quinean text there are conceptual resources that exceed the cages of reductionisms by restoring a broader and less hierarchical idea of philosophy. The fundamental claim of the work is that only assuming an idea of philosophy not already-naturalized it is possible to match the challenge for a new semantics of concepts brought forward by neurosciences

La fenomenologia negli Stati Uniti (1939-1962): l'utopia di una definizione

The paper investigates the first occurrences of the term \uabphenom- enology\ubb in the United States, underlying as well the history of its progressive resemantization. The temporal frame 1939-1962 refers to the foundation of the two major American phenomenological societies: the International Phenomenological Society (IPS) and the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP). Ac- cordingly, it will be described the shift of meanings of the word \uabphenomenology\ubb: originally the term simply meant \uabHusserlian philosophy\ubb, but in the turn of a few decades it ended up to de- note a plurality of different meanings, not always mutually compat- ible. The paper presents elements of historical reconstruction (the early institutional phases, the relationship between American and European phenomenologists, the \uabexistential\ubb turning-point of the Sixties, etc.) as well as elements of theoretical analysis. The main thesis is that the early-history of phenomenology in the US helps us to better understand the reasons that support the analytic-continen- tal distinction and, at the same time, the unbearable tension of this distinction