Ohad Nachtomy

Living Mirrors (eBook, ePUB)

Infinity, Unity, and Life in Leibniz's Philosophy

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

In Living Mirrors, Ohad Nachtomy examines Leibniz's attempt to "re-enchant" the natural world-that is, to infuse life, purpose, and value into the very foundations of nature, a nature that Leibniz saw as disenchanted by Descartes' and Spinoza's more naturalistic and mechanistic theories. Nachtomy sees Leibniz's nuanced view of infinity- how it differs in the divine as well as human spheres, and its relationship to numerical and metaphysical unity-as key in this effort. Leibniz defined living beings by means of an infinite nested structure particular to what he called "natural machines"-and for him, an intermediate kind of infinity is the defining feature of living beings. Using a metaphor of a "living mirror," Leibniz put forth infinity as crucial to explaining the unity of a living being as well as the harmony between the infinitely small and the infinitely large; in this way, employing infinity and unity, we can better understand life itself, both as a metaphysical principle and as an empirical fact. Nachtomy's sophisticated and novel treatment of the essential themes in Leibniz's work will not only interest Leibniz scholars, but scholars of early modern philosophy and students of the history of philosophy and science as well.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, B, BG, CY, CZ, D, DK, EW, E, FIN, F, GR, HR, H, IRL, I, LT, L, LR, M, NL, PL, P, R, S, SLO, SK ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 256
• Erscheinungstermin: 29. März 2019
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780190907341
• Artikelnr.: 55980725

Autorenporträt

Ohad Nachtomy is Professor of Philosophy at Bar-Ilan University and a visiting member of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University. His recent books are The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy (OUP 2014) and Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz (2010), both coedited with Justin E. H. Smith; and Possibility, Agency, and Individuality in Leibniz's Metaphysics (2007).

Inhaltsangabe

* Acknowledgments
* Abbreviations
* Introduction: What Does Infinity Have to do with Life?
* Chapter 1: Introducing the Main Characters: A Conceptual Outline of
Leibniz's Approach to Infinity
* Chapter 2: Leibniz in Paris: Between Infinite Number and Infinite
Being
* Chapter 3: Leibniz Reads Spinoza: Different Senses and Different
Degrees of Infinity
* Chapter 4: Infinity and Unity: Mathematics and Metaphysics
* Chapter 5: Infinity and Life: A Sketch of Leibniz's Development
* Chapter 6: Animate and Inanimate Things, Natural and Artificial
Machines
* Chapter 7: Living Mirrors and Mites: Leibniz and Pascal
* Chapter 8: Created Beings as Infinite and Limited
* Chapter 9: Monads at the Bottom, Monads at the Top, Monads All Over
* Chapter 10: Life, Force, and Infinity
* Conclusion: The Re-enchantment of Nature
* Bibliography