Missing the point: globalization, deterritorialization and the space of the world

This article provides a critique of a dominant strand of the literature on globalization – that which suggests it can be understood as deterritorialization. It argues that suggestions that we have moved away from territorial understandings of politics fail to conceptually elaborate the notion of territory itself. Drawing parallels between mathematics and politics in the seventeenth century, the paper claims that the notion of territory is dependent on a particular way of grasping space as calculable. This way of understanding space makes bounded territories possible, but also underlies new global configurations. In other words globalization is a reconfiguration of existing understandings rather than the radical break some suggest. The article concludes by making some comments on this reconfiguration, and suggesting that further historical and conceptual work on territory is necessary before it can be thought to be superseded.     

Raumvorstellungen und Erkenntnismodelle im 18. Jahrhundert

Since the late 17^th century, two physical concepts of space exist. Isaac Newton's theory of an immovable ‘absolute space’ made it possible to explain motion and force by the quality of material elements. Less influential was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's concept of space as an ‘order of coexistence’, which focuses, contrary to Newton, on the relationship between material bodies. The author argues that both concepts not only concern physical notions, but also include general models to explain cause, effect and relation. In an analogy to Newton's ‘absolute space’, theories of natural law employ the state of nature to explain society according to the anthropological quality of human beings. Leibniz's concept, in contrast, is used to elaborate theories of complex dynamic interactions and relationships. This essay attempts to illustrate the application of Leibniz's concept with examples of 18^th century natural history, demography, economic theory and Charles Bonnet's natural law.     

Can we share an us-feeling with a digital machine? Emotional sharing and the recognition of one as another*

ABSTRACT

To share an us-feeling means to acknowledge one another. Can we share such a feeling with an extreme form of the other, for instance with a digital machine? The answer that is given in this article is ‘no’. Relevant tests like the Turing Test are based on a third-person perspective, whereas a second-person perspective would be needed.     

Leibniz’s Kehre: From Ultradeterminism to the Philosophy of Freedom

Abstract

This article examines the rift in Leibniz’s conception of determinism after being rebuffed by the Parisian theologian Antoine Arnauld in their correspondence of 1686. As, in addition, his study of surds infracted his confidence in the “complete concept,” Leibniz embarked on a new, dynamic doctrine of substance or “law of the series.” In the literature, this strategy has been widely (mis)understood as “tweaking” the system to allow some self-assertion of free will. But as this article will show, it amounts to a revolutionary conception that culminates in the unmasking of determinism as an insupportable, indeed incoherent doctrine. As all forms of determinism are profoundly entangled with human self-perception, the Leibnizian Kehre invites us to a new engagement with human freedom and autonomy and the disentanglement from a philosophical position for which neither a metaphysical nor an empirical proof can be given.     

Three Paradoxes Concerning Causality and Time: Parmenides,Leibniz, Einstein/Schrödinger

Abstract

Parmenides’ Poem on Nature contains a proof that the world could not have come into being in time, because no explanation could be given for why it would do so at a given time. This same proof reappears in the Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, where it is directed against Newtonian absolute time. Newtonians, Leibniz explains, believe that time is homogeneous and absolute, but this makes it inexplicable how God could have chosen to create the world on a given day. Similarly, in his correspondence with Schrödinger in the 1930s, Einstein suggests that certain quantum mechanical occurrences, such as the spontaneous decay of a radioactive atom, are absurd, because they cannot be assigned a definite location in time. In Schrödinger’s version on Einstein’s argument, we must say that the cat dies twice: first, inside the box; yet, second, when we open the box. But both accounts cannot be true. Since each of the authors discussed was aware of the approach of his predecessors, they share a structure. In this article, I develop a unified account of all three.     

‘Selig wer auch Zeichen gibt’: Leibniz as Historical Linguist

Abstract

Leibniz’s philosophical and philological interests overlapped at many points, and some of his fundamental philosophical notions shaped his views on language, particularly his thinking about language history, in decisive ways. Although he is better known for his work on universal language, his writings on natural language and language history are worth consideration both for their subtlety and for the insight they give into the complex history of thought on this topic. The principles of sufficient reason, praedicatum inest subjecto, and his doctrine of marks and traces are echoed in his work on natural languages and in his account of their histories. He attempted to reconcile philosophical investigations of the natural languages with the Biblical accounts of the confusion of languages at Babel, and in his approach to etymology he participated in a long tradition of thinking about language and its essence as hidden or secret, the truth of which remains scattered in signs and which etymology alone may occasionally reveal.     

Between Leibniz and Kant: The Political Thought of Wilhelm von Humboldt

Abstract

In his early text, The Limits of State Action, Wilhelm von Humboldt raises the Kantian question of the permissibility and legitimate extent of political and juridical coercion, as his contribution to a debate amongst Kantians launched by the publication in 1785 of Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In arguing for a minimal state, concerned exclusively with internal and external security of its members but not at all with their felicity, Humboldt inflects Kantian political thought in the direction of a liberal laissez-faire state, in marked contrast to the strong interventionism that his fellow-Kantian Fichte derived from similar Kantian grounds. The article argues that the underlying conception of the individual retained by Humboldt has markedly Leibnizian traits, namely the notion of freedom as the spontaneous unfolding of a highly personal, monadic developmental trajectory toward perfection, which ought not to be impeded or homogenized by unnecessary state intervention. Humboldt thus represents not only a ‘rightist’ libertarian reading of Kant, but a particular appropriation of significant Leibnizian themes. His combination of these sources is compared with that of other contemporary theorists like Hufeland and Fichte.     

Japan in Early Modern Scholarly Journals, 1665–1750

This article aims at exploring Japan and its cultural and symbolic representation in the Republic of Letters from the end of the seventeenth century until the mid-eighteenth century. In order to do this, the article focuses on early modern scholarly journals, as they were the most comprehensive and up-to-date instruments of communication for the international community of scholars during that time. By analysing the journals’ content we will see which topics were more commonly connected to Japan and understand the role Japan played in the development of the increasingly comprehensive and methodical knowledge of the early modern savants. This article provides a picture of the heuristic and rhetorical role of Japan in the shaping of new, expanded representations of the world. On the one hand, connections between the cultural representations of Japan and other extra-European lands are highlighted; on the other hand, Japan's peculiar and unique features within the cultural and scientific discourses of the Republic of Letters are examined. Finally, how the representations of Japan relate to the divisions and identities within the Republic of Letters itself is considered.     

Leibniz,Locke, and the Early Modern Controversy over Legal Maxims

This article investigates the context of a side line in Leibniz's critique of Locke on maxims. In an enigmatic and little-explored remark, Leibniz objects that Locke has overlooked some legal maxims that fulfil the function of ‘constituting the law’. I propose to read this remark against the background of the divergence between conceptions of legal maxims in the common law tradition and conceptions of legal maxims in the Roman law tradition. In a few remarks, Locke seems to echo the common law emphasis on customs and conventions expressed by legal maxims. According to such a conception, reason would mainly fulfil the function of subsuming particular norms under more general conventional norms. By contrast, Leibniz uses the Roman law idea that some ‘rules of law’ express demands of natural reason and, thereby, express principles constitutive of natural law. This is why he proposes to reform vague and confused ‘brocards’ used by jurists in order to identify sound maxims that provide a natural-law foundation for legal institutions.     

Leibniz on Diplomacy and Discernible Art

Abstract

This article discusses Leibniz’s unique blend of aesthetics and diplomacy. While his art extended diplomacy beyond the bounds of political realism, his diplomacy gave occasion to his art. His identity of indiscernibles (objects with the same properties are identical) inspired philosopher Arthur Danto to define contemporary art in terms of a qualitative perceptual division between the world and the Artworld (objects with the same properties may or may not be art). Although Leibniz would have disputed Danto’s bifurcated artistic perspective, Danto vindicates Leibniz’s major contribution to contemporary aesthetic philosophy by defending his belief in the moral foundation of art. Leibniz was not only one of the pre-eminent men of German letters of his time, he also excelled in diplomacy on behalf of the Hanoverian court. His international relations (IR) theory of peace through grand global alliances is only just beginning to be understood, though his aesthetics and correct diplomacy continue to validate individual creativity, liberal freedoms, and universal enlightenment up to this very day.