Sciences Without a Name: Teleology, Perfection, and Harmony in the Leibniz-Wolff Debate

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Sciences Without a Name: Teleology, Perfection, and Harmony in the Leibniz-Wolff Debate
Favaretti Camposampiero, Matteo

From the journal StL Studia Leibnitiana, Volume 50, June 2018, issue 1

Published by Franz Steiner Verlag

essay, 9808 Words
Original language: English
StL 2018, pp 10-25
https://doi.org/10.25162/sl-2018-0002

Abstract

With regard to Christian Wolff’s invention of a new science of final causes that he called “teleology” this article examines the relationship between teleology and the science of perfection. On the one hand, it shows how an epistolary debate between Leibniz and Wolff in 1715 sheds light on the inherent teleological nature of the Leibnizian notions of perfection and harmony. On the other hand, it analyzes how Wolff eventually inverted priority relations between structure and function as a consequence of his doctrinal revision of the modal status of essences – a revision that was provoked by Leibniz.

Author information

Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero