University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School April 2019 Reasoning of the Highest Leibniz and the Moral Quality of Reason Ryan Quandt University of South Florida, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the Philosophy of Science Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Scholar Commons Citation Quandt, Ryan, "Reasoning of the Highest Leibniz and the Moral Quality of Reason" (2019). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/7894 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Reasoning of the Highest Leibniz and the Moral Quality of Reason by Ryan Quandt A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy Department of Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Roger Ariew, Ph.D. Douglas Jesseph, Ph.D. Thomas Williams, Ph.D. Michael Morris, Ph.D. Lloyd Strickland, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 28, 2019 Keywords: ontology, perfection, love, goodness, formalism, criteria, God Copyright © 2019, Ryan P. Quandt Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................1 Chapter One: Securities of Reason ........................................................................................14 1.1. Rejecting Arbitrariness .......................................................................................16 1.1.1. Rules of Goodness ...............................................................................17 1.1.2. A Better World .....................................................................................27 1.2. Some Moderns ....................................................................................................39 Chapter Two: Descartes and the ens morale ..........................................................................43 2.1. Cartesian Substance ............................................................................................44 2.1.1. The Divine Will ...................................................................................47 2.1.2. A Perfect Archetype .............................................................................51 2.2. Indifference of God .............................................................................................71 Chapter Three: The Dangers of Cartesianism ........................................................................78 3.1. Criteria to end Dispute ........................................................................................82 3.1.1. The Natural Light of Truth ..................................................................83 3.1.2. Faith and Reason ..................................................................................92 3.2. Forced Patience ...................................................................................................98 3.2.1. God’s Moral Quality ............................................................................99 3.2.2. The Past and the Future ........................................................................102 3.3. Heresy of Spinozism ...........................................................................................105 Chapter Four: Leibniz’s Test .................................................................................................111 4.1. Criteria ............................................................................................................112 4.1.1. Cognitio ...............................................................................................113 4.1.2. Analysis................................................................................................129 4.2. Perfection ............................................................................................................136 4.2.1. A Top-Down Account ..........................................................................137 4.2.2. Beginnings ...........................................................................................143 4.3. Love of God ........................................................................................................149 4.3.1. Defining Love ......................................................................................149 4.3.2. The Same Good ....................................................................................152 4.3.3. A Rational Disposition .........................................................................156 Conclusion: Science and Prophecy ........................................................................................160 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................................195 ! i Abstract Loving God is our highest perfection for Leibniz. It secures our belief and trust in the Creator, which is integral to the sciences as well as faith. Those who love God have justification for reasoning, that is, they can rationally expect to arrive at truth. This is because love is a receptivity to the perfection all of things; loving God, then, is a disposition and tendency toward the most perfect being, the ens perfectissimum. Individuals who perceive the divine nature “do not merely fear the power of the supreme and all-seeing monarch,” Leibniz writes, “but are assured of his beneficence, and lastly—and what brings everything together—burn with a love of God above all else.”1 In my dissertation, I argue that Leibniz’s qualification should be taken seriously: love of God “brings everything together.” The subject of my dissertation can be stated schematically. It consists of two pairs of claims, one pair philosophical, the other theological. 1.! A moral quality is required to secure our reason. 2.! From a most perfect unity, a moral quality follows. 3.! Love of God is our highest perfection. 4.! Love of God secures our reasoning. Both concern the security of reason, by which I mean the rational motivation for reasoning itself. They are reasons we ought to expect reasoning to lead to truth. Yet they do not form a tight !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 A VI 4, 2357; SLT 202. All citations of Leibniz's writings refer to Academy of Sciences of Berlin, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Samtliche Schriften und Briefe, (Darmstadt, Leipzig, and Berlin: Akadamie Verlag, 1923-). ‘SLT’ refers to Leibniz, G.W., The Shorter Leibniz Texts: A Collection of New Translations. Trans. and ed. Lloyd Strickland (London and New York: Continuum, 2006). ! ii demonstration: while an inference is clearly at work in the first pair, there are no inferences in the second. Also, there is a distinction between a moral quality and love for God. Unless they are identified, Leibniz’s philosophy and theology secure reasoning apart from one another. In 1686, Leibniz wrote his well-known “Discourse on Metaphysics.” A few months after, he composed a theological treatise, Examination of the Christian Religion. These texts, I argue, should be read side by side, and the first chapter compares how divine perfection secures our reasoning in both texts. Some Moderns’ notion of perfection—namely, Descartes’, Spinoza’s, and Malebranche’s—fail to secure our reasoning because their views entail arbitrariness in the world and the divine nature. But a proper sense of perfection, one that includes a moral quality, secures our reasoning by ensuring that everything is amenable to reason. Descartes also sought to secure our reasoning, and for the second and third chapters I compare his account with Leibniz’s own, then draw out the latter’s criticisms. For Descartes, the deity’s moral quality is characterized by an indifferent will, which is eminently and formally revealed throughout creation. Although recognizing the infinite source of all things directs our attention appropriate in the Cartesian system, Leibniz criticizes Descartes’ detached and indifferent God. When our disposition toward God is not characterized by love, we are less rational than otherwise. Leibniz finds intolerable moral implications in the Cartesian system, and I work out these implications in chapter three. Descartes’ criteria of true and false ideas does not settle dispute, but relies on “interior testimony.” Proper reasoning, then, does not tend toward unity among persons, and this is especially problematic in religious debate. Descartes’ method is Stoic, which also leads to trouble when it comes to church unity: one remains in the church by a sheer act of ! iii will, which can violate reason. Leibniz views such a detachment of faith and reasoning as dangerous, besides impoverishing the concept of reason altogether. Leibniz’s notions of God and perfection secure our reason by engendering love for God. “Discourse” and Examen begin with a moral disposition and tendency. In the last chapter, I argue that this is the case by considering two criteria Leibniz adopts—his test for perfection and the kinds of knowledge—as well as the foundation of his logic at the time. Leibniz can tolerate provisional beginnings, hypothetical truths, and original sin because