Page:Mary Whiton Calkins - Kant's Conception of the Leibniz Space and Time Doctrine (The Philosophical Review, 1897-07-01).pdf/1



ANT’S doctrine of space and time is formulated with such constant reference, expressed or implied, to Leibnizian theory, that it is important to discover the exact nature of the doctrine of Leibniz. Such an investigation, however, seems to me to show clearly that Kant, looking to be sure through Wolffian glasses, as he himself admits, yet, with occasional support from exceptional statements of Leibniz himself, has thoroughly misread and misunderstood him.

The clearest introduction to the discussion of Kant's criticism is an independent consideration of the doctrine of Leibniz. Such a study is, of course, greatly hampered by the fragmentary, occasional character of Leibniz’s philosophical writings. The most sustained treatment of this specific question is found in the correspondence with Clarke, and suffers from the polemical nature and aim, which of necessity shape the argument and lend over-emphasis to the points especially under discussion. The account which follows of the Leibnizian doctrine draws its material from the Nouveaux Essais, the correspondence with Clarke, some of the letters to Des Bosses, the Examen des principes de Malebranche, and a few other of the shorter writings.

It is important to clear the way for an independent consideration of Leibniz’s positive doctrine, by pointing out that his space and time are no abstractions from extra-mental monads. There are, it is true, certain ambiguous statements, which are most naturally interpreted in this way, and which formed the starting-point of the post-Leibnizian theory of space and time. Such an expression occurs in the second letter to Des Bosses: “assert that there is no part of matter which does not contain