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Leibniz’s Idealism and the Problem of Extension
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In this talk, Martin Lin argues that there is a significant strand in this thinking that combines both an idealistic and a realistic view of the physical world according to which the only substances are mind-like, and yet matter and the bodies it constitutes are nonetheless real because they themselves are constituted by the mind-like substances. Although this interpretation enjoys significant textual support and holds considerable philosophical interest, it faces serious difficulties as well. One of these concerns is the nature and status of the extension. As experienced by us and as theorized by the natural sciences, the physical world and its constituents are spatially extended. But if the monads are mind-like and therefore are unextended, how then can they constitute extended things? The standard answer to this question among scholars who support the substance idealist/matter realist interpretation is to claim that when we ascribe many properties to bodies, including extension, we do so erroneously. That is, Leibniz is committed to a kind of error theory with respect to extension and other physical properties. Lin argues in this talk that such an error theory would pose severe problems for Leibniz, given some of his other central philosophical commitments.
In particular, Lin will argue that his theory of universal expression and its role in sense perception and mental representation generally requires him to hold that all perception is veridical. If this is true, then any interpretation that imputes massive error to the perceptions of the monads is untenable. But this is not a reason to reject substance idealism and matter realism as an interpretation of Leibniz. Instead, Lin will argue that a proper understanding of Leibniz’s theory of ideas points the way to an interpretation on which extension can be veridically attributed to aggregates of unextended monads.
*AUC is a tobacco-free community. Smoking is only permitted in designated areas.
**A photo ID is required for entry. Facial recognition is required at all times.
Speakers
Martin Lin
Professor of Philosophy
Rutgers University, New Brunswick
Ph.D. University of Chicago. Martin Lin works primarily on Early Modern philosophy, with emphasis on the rationalists. Alternatively, one could say he works on metaphysics with the rationalists as his principle interlocutors. His publications include: Being and Reason: An Interpretation of Spinoza’s Metaphysics (OUP), “Rationalism and Necessitarianism,” Noûs; “Teleology and Human Action in Spinoza,” The Philosophical Review; and “Spinoza’s Arguments for the Existence of God,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Mario Hubert
Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy
AUC
Before joining the Department of Philosophy at The American University in Cairo (AUC), Mario Hubert was the Howard E. and Susanne C. Jessen postdoctoral instructor in the philosophy of physics at the California Institute of Technology from 2019 to 2022. Hubert also received an Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation for conducting research as a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University and New York University between 2018 and 2019.
His research focuses on the ontology and epistemology of modern physics, such as classical mechanics, electrodynamics, and quantum mechanics. He is particularly interested in the following questions: What exists according to our best physical theories? and How can we know and understand what exists?
Hubert’s article When Fields Are Not Degress of Freedom, co-written with Vera Hartenstein, has received an honorable mention in the 2021 BJPS Popper Prize Competition, which is awarded to the article judged to be the best published in that year’s volume of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
Hubert is an ordinary trustee of the Philosophy of Physics Society and a Fellow at the John Bell Institute for the Foundations of Physics.