University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 1-1-2006 Leibniz and Locke on the ultimate origination of things. Marcy P. Lascano University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1 Recommended Citation Lascano, Marcy P., "Leibniz and Locke on the ultimate origination of things." (2006). Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014. 2403. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_1/2403 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations 1896 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/leibnizlockeonulOOIasc This is an authorized facsimile, made from the microfilm master copy of the original dissertation or master thesis published by UMI. The bibliographic information for this thesis is contained in UMI's Dissertation Abstracts database, the only central source for accessing almost every doctoral dissertation accepted in North America since 1861. ® T TA/TT Dissertation U 1VJLI Services From:Pro(^vuest COMPANY 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106-1346 USA 800.521.0600 734.761.4700 web www.il.proquest.com Printed in 2006 by digital xerographic process on acid-free paper LEIBNIZ AND LOCKE ON THE ULTIMATE ORIGINATION OF THINGS A Dissertation Presented by MARCY P. LASCANO Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2006 Philosophy UMI Number: 3206205 Copyright 2006 by Lascano, Marcy P. All rights reserved. UMI UMI Microform 3206205 Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 © Copyright by Marcy P. Lascano 2006 All Rights Reserved LEIBNIZ AND LOCKE ON THE ULTIMATE ORIGINATION OF THINGS A Dissertation Presented by MARCY P. LASCANO Approved as to style and content by: Vere Chappell, Chair Eileen O'Neill, Member Robert C. Sleigh. Member Donald Maddox, Outside Member Phillip Bricker, Department Head Department of Philosophy LEIBNIZ AND LOCKE ON THE ULTIMATE ORIGINATION OF THINGS A Dissertation Presented by MARCY P. LASCANO Approved as to style and content by: l (OQ- Vere Chappell, Chair Phillip Bricker, Department Head Department of Philosophy DEDICATION For Connie L. Lascano, Jason R. Raibley, and Edna J. Crow ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are many people who have helped me along the way. I would like to acknowledge each of them, but space forbids. Let me mention a few. First, I want to thank my mother, Connie Lascano for many years of support and unwearied confidence. 1 also must thank my grandparents, Edna Crow and Hugh Crow for doing more than was required on my behalf. 1 thank Robert Coburn, at the University of Washington, for introducing me to metaphysics and for being such an adept guide, mentor, and friend. Also at the University of Washington, a special thanks is due to the Educational Opportunity Program Counseling Center, whose support and employment was invaluable to me. A special thanks goes to Candy Kantekona, for being a brilliant and tolerant boss, and to Ruth Shigemi, for being a surrogate mother to all. At the University of Massachusetts, 1 would like to thank every member of the faculty and my fellow graduate students for what 1 really believe was the best training and most congenial environment one could hope for in a graduate education. 1 would especially like to thank Phillip Bricker. for continuing my education in metaphysics, and Fred Feldman, for his advice and humor. My dissertation committee is second to none. Thank you to Donald Maddox for agreeing to be my outside member and for taking such a great interest in my work. Special thanks to Bob Sleigh for allowing me to sit in on his Yale Leibniz seminar, help edit and index his Confessio Philosophi volume, and for advice on all things Leibnizian. I would like to express my gratitude to Eileen O'Neil for giving me insightful comments on my work, sage advice about our field, and for being an exemplary role model. Finally, I want to thank my Chair, Vere v Chappell, for editing, encouraging, instructing, and criticizing - all in the right way at the right time, bringing out the best in me and my work. Vere's congenial manner makes work seem like the most delightful sort of play, both in the classroom and in the office ( est singularis argutiae mens et qualis). There are several people at UMass who have made my tenure here more than just educational. Thanks to Kris McDaniel for loads of advice, laughter, and friendship. Thanks to Kristen Hine for many hours of conversation (both philosophical and non), and much needed hilarity. I wish that her laughter would always echo down my hall. 1 would also like to thank Jason Raibley, colleague, friend, and husband, who could not be more to me or better. vi ABSTRACT LEIBNIZ AND LOCKE ON THE ULTIMATE ORIGINATION OF THINGS FEBRUARY 2006 MARCY P. LASCANO, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON SEATTLE M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Ph D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Vere Chappell This dissertation examines Locke's and Leibniz’ explanation of the origin and nature of the world. As Leibniz writes in his “De Rerum Originatione Radicali,” which is used as a guide to the issues addressed, this project involves answering two questions “Why is there a world at all?” and “Why is the world the way it is?” Both Leibniz and Locke answer the first question by way of a cosmological argument for the existence of God as the first cause of the world. I explicate and criticize these arguments. I also examine the metaphysical and theological presuppositions of the arguments. Leibniz’s and Locke's views on the structure and intelligibility of the world answer the second question. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v ABSTRACT vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi CHAPTER 1: THE ULTIMATE QUESTION 1 Introduction 1 Why is there Something Rather than Nothing? 2 Leibniz and Locke on the World's Existence and Structure 9 Historical Methodology 13 2: LEIBNIZ ON WHY THERE IS ANYTHING AT ALL 17 Introduction 17 The Short Answer? 18 Possible Worlds as Collections of Concepts 20 Necessary and Contingent Existents 22 The Status of Eternal Truths 24 Can The World Explain Itself? 28 Against Striving Essences 32 Explanation 34 Does God Create Freely? 41 Rescher on the Contingency of the World 43 Why Create at All? 52 3: LEIBNIZ ON WHY THE WORLD IS THE WAY IT IS 55 Introduction 55 God’s Freedom and The Principle of Perfection 55 Why Not Indifference? 56 The Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Principle of Perfection 60 Parkinson on The Principle of Perfection 63 viii Necessitarianism 65 How Do We Know the World? 72 Final Causes and Efficient Causes 73 The Structure of the World 77 The World with the Most Essences? 78 Compossibility, Expression, and Harmony 82 The Moral Perfection of the World 91 The Striving of Possibles for Existence 98 4: LOCKE ON WHY THERE IS A WORLD AT ALL 100 Introduction 100 Locke's Cosmological Argument 100 Ex Nihilo Nil Fit 104 Giving Flesh to the Bare Bones 108 Problems and Objections 127 Locke’s Cogito Reasoning 127 The Causal Principles 128 The Problem with Eternity 133 The Powers of Matter 1 33 The Unity of God 1 34 A Valid Attempt 138 5: LOCKE ON WHY THE WORLD IS THE WAY IT IS 139 Introduction 139 Our Knowledge of the World 139 Knowledge of the External World 141 The Extent of All Our Knowledge 148 Could the World Have Been Different from the Way It Is? 151 The Eternal Truths 154 Conceivability as a Guide to Possibility 161 What Is the World Like? 165 The Plentitude of the World 165 IX The Great Concernment of Our Lives 167 BIBLIOGRAPHY 170 x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS A Samtliche Schriften und Briefe. Darmstadt and Berlin: Berlin Academy, 1923-2005. Cited by series, volume, and page. AG Philosopical Essays. Ed. And trans. by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989. B Die Leibniz-Handschriften der koniglichen offentlichen Bibliothek zu Hannover. Ed. By Eduard Bodemann. Hannover and Leipzig: Hann'sch Buchhandlung, 1895. C Opuscules et fragments inedits de Leibniz. Ed. by Louis Couturat. Paris: Felix Alcan. 1903. Reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966. CP Confessio Philosophi: Papers concerning the Problem of Evil, 1671 -1678. Ed. and trans. by R.C. Sleigh. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005. CSM The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Cited by volume and page number. DM Discours de metaphysique [Discourse on Metaphysics], Ed. by Henri Lestienne. New edition. Paris: Vrin, 1975. Cited by section number. DSR De Summa Rerum: Metaphysical Papers , 1675-1676. Ed. and trans. by G.H.R. Parkinson. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992. Essay An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. John Locke. Edited by Peter Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. FC Nouvelles lettres et opuscules inedits de Leibniz. Ed. by A. Foucher de Careil. Paris: Auguste Durand, 1857. G Die Philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Ed. by C.I. Gerhardt. Berlin: Weidman, 1875-1890. Reprint, Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965. Cited by volume and page. GLW Briefwechsel ZM'ischen Leibniz und Christian Wolf Ed.