Leibniz e i futuri contingenti

Journal title RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Author/s Massimo Mugnai
Publishing Year 2013 Issue 2013/1
Language Italian Pages 20 P. 191-210 File size 497 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2013-001010
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Leibniz discusses the theme of future contingents on the basis of a theory of possible worlds centered on the notion of complete concept and on the idea that a proposition (of the subject-predicate form) is true when the concept corresponding to the predicate is "contained" among the conceptual notes that make up the concept of the subject. This idea of truth as "containment", wedded to the assumption of the so-called principle of sufficient reason (everything that happens has a reason for its happening), raises the problem of how to justify contingency in a world of individual substances which are fully described by a series of compossible complete concepts. Leibniz’s metaphysics of possible worlds, however, has the effect of simplifying the problem of future contingents as it was discussed at the time, making unnecessary the recourse to socalled middle knowledge (scientia media).

Keywords: Leibniz, future contingents, divine prescience, middle knowledge (scientia media), principle of sufficient reason, possible worlds

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Massimo Mugnai, Leibniz e i futuri contingenti in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 1/2013, pp 191-210, DOI: 10.3280/SF2013-001010