A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 2: Modern PhilosophyCushman, Herbert Ernest
Philosophy
A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 2: Modern Philosophy
Cushman, Herbert Ernest
Philosophy -- History
Hobbes’s theory of words as counters to be used in conceptual reckoning,
the universal formulas of the Art of Lull and the pains which Bruno had
taken for its improvement, the Cartesian belief that the geometrical
method would prove to be an art of invention――all these were influences
upon Leibnitz, that committed him to the method of Spinoza and made him
pursue that method energetically. Leibnitz was part of the widespread
movement of the time to form a _Lingua Adamica_――a universal language,
which should discover fundamental philosophical conceptions and the
logical operations of their combinations. In brief, Leibnitz hoped to
form a philosophical calculus.
What, asked Leibnitz, are the highest truths which in their
combination yield all knowledge? What are the truths, so immediately
and intuitively certain, that they force themselves upon the mind
as self-evident and thereby form the ground for the deduction of all
knowledge? They are of two classes: (1) The universal truths of the
reason, and (2) The facts of experience. The truths of the reason are
forever true; the facts of experience have a truth for that single
instance. But both are true in themselves and not from deduction from
anything else. They are “first truths,” for a thing is true if it
can be deduced from the reason or tested as an experienced fact. The
two kinds of truth are the rational or _a priori_, and the empirical
or _a posteriori_. The difference between the starting point of the
Rationalism of Leibnitz and the Enlightenment of Locke appears here.
Locke said, “There is nothing in the mind that does not come from the
senses.” “Except the mind itself and its operations,” added Leibnitz in
comment.
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