“De summa rerum”

Leibniz's Key Philosophical Writings ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198844983.003.0003 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 36-55

Author(s):

Mogens Lærke

Keyword(s):

First Principles ◽

Existence Of God ◽

Formative Years

This chapter is dedicated to a perplexing set of philosophical fragments today known as “De summa rerum”. Written by the young Leibniz in 1675–6, toward the end of his formative years in Paris, they deal with fundamental topics of philosophy including the first principles of philosophy, the nature of mind and perception, the nature and existence of God, the derivation of particular things from God, and modal philosophy. The “De summa rerum” fragments do not represent a unified philosophical attempt. Written at a time when Leibniz’s intellectual mindset had been both upset and profoundly stimulated by his encounter with the Parisian intellectual scene and his discovery of mathematics, they rather read like a set of philosophical test balloons flying in a great many directions. This chapter focuses on one particularly important strand of these reflections, informed by Spinoza and Spinozism via Leibniz’s exchanges with Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus.

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Guardian of the Enlightenment

Moses Mendelssohn ◽

10.3828/liverpool/9780197100158.003.0008 ◽

1984 ◽

pp. 638-759

Author(s):

Alexander Altmann

Keyword(s):

First Principles ◽

Existence Of God ◽

Major Work ◽

The Enlightenment ◽

Single Well ◽

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi

This chapter concludes the volume with Moses Mendelssohn's final years. It provides the culmination of his conflict with Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi and how such episodes influenced his later works. Indeed, Mendelssohn's last major work, the Morgenstunden, was brought about due to Jacobi's challenge. The Morgenstunden is the most systematic of Mendelssohn's major works. It has a single, well-defined theme—the existence of God—which it expounds step by step, starting from a discussion of the first principles of epistemology and culminating in the presentation of a novel argument in the last of the 17 lectures. None of his previous writings had been as compact and methodical as this one. The chapter ends with a discussion on Mendelssohn's retirement and his final works.

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WHERE DOES AVICENNA DEMONSTRATE THE EXISTENCE OF GOD?

Arabic Sciences and Philosophy ◽

10.1017/s0957423915000132 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 97-128 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Daniel D. De Haan

Keyword(s):

First Principles ◽

Careful Consideration ◽

Existence Of God ◽

Close Analysis ◽

Necessary Existence

AbstractThis study examines a number of different answers to the question: where does Avicenna demonstrate the existence of God within the Metaphysics of the Healing? Many interpreters have contended that there is an argument for God's existence in Metaphysics of the Healing I.6–7. In this study I show that such views are incorrect and that the only argument for God's existence in the Metaphysics of the Healing is found in VIII.1–3. My own interpretation relies upon a careful consideration of the scientific order and first principles of the Metaphysics of the Healing, paying attention to Avicenna's own explicit statements concerning the goals and intentions of different books and chapters, and a close analysis of the structure of the different arguments found in the relevant texts of the Metaphysics of the Healing. I conclude that Avicenna's explicit goal in I.6–7 is to establish the properties that belong to necessary existence and possible existence, which consists, not in a demonstration of God's existence, but in a dialectical treatment of the first principles of metaphysics.

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