‘Whether any material being thinks, or no’: Leibniz’s critique of Locke on superaddition

Leibniz discusses the relationship between matter and mentality in two places in the New Essays. The first, which features his famous ‘mill argument’, is in the Preface. The second is in Book 4, where Leibniz responds to Locke on the issue of whether we could ever know “whether any material being th...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lodge, P
Other Authors: Li, W
Format: Conference item
Language:English
Published: Olms 2016
_version_ 1797066063859417088
author Lodge, P
author2 Li, W
author_facet Li, W
Lodge, P
author_sort Lodge, P
collection OXFORD
description Leibniz discusses the relationship between matter and mentality in two places in the New Essays. The first, which features his famous ‘mill argument’, is in the Preface. The second is in Book 4, where Leibniz responds to Locke on the issue of whether we could ever know “whether any material being thinks, or no” (ECHU 4.3.6). The mill argument aims to show that matter conceived as passive extended stuff cannot think through its natural powers. This is something Locke is happy to accept, noting explicitly at ECHU 4.3.6: “matter …is evidently in its own nature void of sense and thought”. However, he considers two additional ways in which matter might be said to think via superaddition at ECHU 4.3.6. I shall be concerned with these here.
first_indexed 2024-03-06T21:37:01Z
format Conference item
id oxford-uuid:469b3c4a-f526-4ab8-a381-12f730417ec6
institution University of Oxford
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-06T21:37:01Z
publishDate 2016
publisher Olms
record_format dspace
spelling oxford-uuid:469b3c4a-f526-4ab8-a381-12f730417ec62022-03-26T15:14:41Z‘Whether any material being thinks, or no’: Leibniz’s critique of Locke on superadditionConference itemhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794uuid:469b3c4a-f526-4ab8-a381-12f730417ec6EnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordOlms2016Lodge, PLi, WLeibniz discusses the relationship between matter and mentality in two places in the New Essays. The first, which features his famous ‘mill argument’, is in the Preface. The second is in Book 4, where Leibniz responds to Locke on the issue of whether we could ever know “whether any material being thinks, or no” (ECHU 4.3.6). The mill argument aims to show that matter conceived as passive extended stuff cannot think through its natural powers. This is something Locke is happy to accept, noting explicitly at ECHU 4.3.6: “matter …is evidently in its own nature void of sense and thought”. However, he considers two additional ways in which matter might be said to think via superaddition at ECHU 4.3.6. I shall be concerned with these here.
spellingShingle Lodge, P
‘Whether any material being thinks, or no’: Leibniz’s critique of Locke on superaddition
title ‘Whether any material being thinks, or no’: Leibniz’s critique of Locke on superaddition
title_full ‘Whether any material being thinks, or no’: Leibniz’s critique of Locke on superaddition
title_fullStr ‘Whether any material being thinks, or no’: Leibniz’s critique of Locke on superaddition
title_full_unstemmed ‘Whether any material being thinks, or no’: Leibniz’s critique of Locke on superaddition
title_short ‘Whether any material being thinks, or no’: Leibniz’s critique of Locke on superaddition
title_sort whether any material being thinks or no leibniz s critique of locke on superaddition
work_keys_str_mv AT lodgep whetheranymaterialbeingthinksornoleibnizscritiqueoflockeonsuperaddition