Philosophy 471

Leibniz and Spinoza

Spring 2006

 

Tuesday and Thursday 2:40-3:55 pm in ICC 118

 

Instructor: Alexander Pruss, office 202-687-4148, e-mail: ap85@georgetown.edu

Office hours: Monday and Wednesday 2:35-4:00 pm

 

Texts:

1. Nicholas Rescher, G.W. Leibniz’s Monadology

2. G.W. Ariew and D. Garber (ed. and trans.), G.W. Leibniz: Philosophical Essays

3. Baruch Spinoza, Ethics, Treatise … and Selected Letters, trans. S. Shirley

 

Some useful additional literature:

1. N. Rescher, Leibniz: An Introduction to His Philosophy, Blackwell, 1979

2. R. M. Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist, Oxford, 1994

3. H. G. Frankfurt (ed.), Leibniz: A Collection of Critical Essays, Anchor Books, 1972

4. J. Bennett, Learning from Six Philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Clarendon Press, 2001

5. E. Curley, Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza’s Ethics, Princeton, 1988

6. J. Bennett, A Study of Spinoza’s Ethics, Hackett, 1984.

7. L. E. Loemker (trans. and ed.), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, vols. 1 and 2, Chicago, 1956.

 

Expectations from students:  Students will do the assigned reading before every lecture, attend class, participate in discussion (online and in class), and write the assigned papers.  Two specific requirements are Papers and Online Discussion.

           Papers:

·        A short (1.5-3 pages) exegetical / philosophical paper every second week, which you are expected to be ready to present in class. (You will be allowed once to combine two successive papers into a 4-6 page paper.)  In the paper you will carefully explain an argument and position held by the author we are discussing in a text that was assigned for the class when the paper is handed or for the preceding class.  Then you will critically philosophically analyze the argument or position, either finding an interesting weakness and discussing how and whether it can be improved on, or by defending the argument or position in an interesting way.  Thus, there are two components of the grade for each paper: exegetical and philosophical.  Originality is expected in both sections of the paper—you should not just repeat what was said in class.  Particular originality is needed in the exegetical portion if you choose to write about a text that was discussed in the preceding class.  You may choose to write on a text that was not assigned but is deeply relevant to material assigned for a given class or the preceding class, as long as you can orally summarize the text and bring in copies of a handout with any passages you want people to look at while you read your paper.

o       When you come into class with a paper, please have two copies.  One for yourself to present from, and one for me to write comments on the margins of.

·        Graduate students will additionally write a 7-10 page final paper.  This will be due on May 5.

Online Discussion: 

·        The Blackboard page for the course (https://campus.georgetown.edu) has a discussion board.  At least one philosophical posting (a paragraph long at least) must be made by each student in each of January, February, March and April.  In the posting you might respond to someone else, pose an interesting philosophical question tied to the reading, offer an interpretation, argue against something I said, etc.

 

Academic integrity:  Plagiarism is one of the most serious of the violations of academic integrity and consists in presenting the work of another as one’s own.  When you use ideas or words that are not your own (whether from a friend, the internet, a book, a paper, graffiti under a bridge, etc.), you need to indicate their source (name of friend, URL of website, standard bibliographic information for books and papers, location of bridge and date of graffiti, etc.;  the choice of format does not matter, but be consistent)  The standard outcome for all violations of academic integrity in this course is an automatic failing grade in the course and further disciplinary proceedings with the Honor Council.  Georgetown policy gives me no discretion with regard to Honor Council proceedings—all credible suspicions must be tracked down.

 

Course plan:  We want to reconstruct the systematic metaphysical views of Leibniz and Spinoza with an aim of seeing whether they are true and what we can learn from them, paying particular attention to the concepts of substance, causation and God.  Therefore, a significant part of the discussion will be philosophical and not exegetical.

Specific reading assignments will be given in each class for the next class.  The Leibniz segment will be organized around the Monadology in Rescher’s edition, together with the excerpts from supplementary texts as given by Rescher and from Ariew and Garber.

The Spinoza segment will be organized around the Ethics, with greatest emphasis on parts I, II and V, and will be supplemented with letters.

There will also be a lecture on Parmenides’ poem On Nature.  We will find this fifth century B.C. work to be philosophically relevant to the work Leibniz and Spinoza did twenty-one centuries after Parmenides.

 

Tentative syllabus:

 

Dates

Subject

Tentative reading assignment

Jan. 12

Introduction, puzzles

 

Jan. 17

Parmenides of Elea

Parmenides’ Poem

Jan. 19

Leibniz’s life

Monadology 1-2

Jan. 24

Introducing the monad
  • Monadology 3-6 (in Rescher, with additional texts)
  • Principles of Nature and Grace 1-2
  • Discourse 8
  • Letters to Burnet: Ariew-Garber, 285-290

Jan. 26

What do the monads do?
  • Monadology 7-22
  • Letters to Des Bosses: Ariew-Garber, 198-206

Jan. 31

How do they differ?
  • Letters to Clarke, II.1, III.5-8, IV.1-24
  • “On the Method of Distinguishing Real From Imaginary Phenomena” (Loemker, 602-607)
  • Black, “The Identity of Indiscernibles”

Feb. 2

 

"A New System..." (Ariew-Garber, 138-145)

Discourse on Metaphysics, sections 13-14 (Ariew-Garber, 44-47)

Monadology (Rescher, with additions) up to section 32

Feb. 7

 
  • Monadology (Rescher, with additions) up to section 36
  •  "On Copernicanism..." (Ariew-Garber, 90-94)
  • "On What Is Independent of Sense and Matter" (Ariew-Garber, 186-192)

Feb. 9

 
  •   Monadology (with additions) up to section 45
  •   "On the Ultimate Origination of Things" (Ariew-Garber)

Feb. 14

 
  • Monadology (with additions) up to section 52
  • Letter to Countess Elizabeth(?) (Ariew-Garber, 235-240)
  • Saint Anselm's ontological argument (online)

Feb. 16

 
  • Monadology (with additions) up to section 61

Feb. 21

 
  • Monadology (with additions) up to section 68
  • Appendix to Monadology (pp. 305-308)
  • "Dialogue on Human Freedom and the Origin of Evil" (Ariew-Garber)
  • "The Source of Contingent Truths" (Ariew-Garber)

Feb. 23

 
  • Monadology (with additions) up to section 79
  • "Against Barbaric Physics"

Feb. 28

 
  • canceled

March 2

 
  • Letters to Clarke, #3, and #4 (should have included #5 in full edition);  read only those sections of the letters that deal with the nature of space
  • "A Specimen of Dynamics", excerpt, Ariew-Garber, pp. 123-138

March 14

 Begin Spinoza
  • Finish Monadology
  • Ethics, up to Proposition I.12 (including translator's introduction)
March 16 Spinoza's metaphysics
  • Ethics, up to Proposition I.29
  • Letters 2 and 12
March 21 Spinoza's metaphysics
  • Ethics, finish reading part I
  • Letters 9, 64, 83
March 23 More Spinoza
  • Letter 56
  Spinoza on mind and physics
  • Treatise, up to section 52
  • Letter 32

 
April 4 Spinoza on mind and physics
  • Ethics, up to Proposition II.16, including Corollaries
  • Finish Treatise

 
April 6 Spinoza on mind and physics
  • Ethics, up to Proposition II.43, including Scholium

 
April 11 Spinoza on mind and physics
  • Ethics, finish reading part II

 
April 18 Spinoza on emotions
  • Ethics, Part III
April 20

Spinoza on emotions
  • Ethics, Part IV
April 25

Spinoza on freedom and power
  • Ethics, up to Proposition V.20 (including Scholium)
  • Letters 19, 21, 58
to be rescheduled Spinoza on freedom and power
  • Ethics, finish
  • Letters 78, 81