firm consent of the mind;... it can only be given on a rational basis and therefore cannot be opposed to reason. He who believes without having grounds for belief is carried away by his own fantasies; but he does not seek the truth, as he is obliged to do, and does not fulfill the duty of obedience to his creator, who wants man to use his powers of discernment” (1: 2, 168). His position in matters of religion suggests the unsuitability of government coercion in matters of religion and salvation, which makes the separation of the church reasonable

from the state and the proclamation of maximum religious tolerance. “Catholics say that it is best for people... to have an infallible judge on earth in controversial issues, and that is why there is such a judge (meaning the pope - Yu. S.). For my part, on the same basis, I maintain that it is better for people that everyone should be infallible... And I have no doubt that it is possible to show that with the proper use of his natural abilities, a person can, without any innate principles, achieve the knowledge of God and others things that are important to you” (1: 1, 141). Thus, Locke’s theory of knowledge, which assigns the leading role to the independence of the mind of each person individually, is in full accordance with his political philosophy, which provides the broadest rights to an adult, full-age person in the exercise of his natural rights and freedoms, as well as with his religious views, allowing for significant differences between people in matters of religion and requiring tolerance of the views of others that differ from our own.

Literature

1. Locke J. Works: In 3 vols. M., 19851988.

2. Locke J. Pedagogical works. M., 1939.

3. The Works of John Locke. 10 vol. L., 1801.

4. Zaichenko G. A. John Locke. M., 1988.

5. Narsky I. S. The Philosophy of John Locke. M., 1960.

6. Russell B. History of Western Philosophy. Rostov n/d., 1998. pp. 684 - 731.

7. Sokolov V.V. Western European philosophy of the XV - XVII centuries. M., 1984. S. 402-426.

8. Philosophy of the era of early bourgeois revolutions. M., 1983.

9. Ayers M. Locke: Epistemology and Ontology. 2 vol. L., 1991.

10. Dunn J. The Political Thought of John Locke. Cambridge, 1969.

11. Jolley N. Locke, His Philosophical Thought. Oxford, 1999.

12. Mackie J. Problems from Locke. Oxford, 1976.

13. Yolton J. John Locke and The Way of Ideas. Oxford, 1956.

Chapter 8. LEIBNITZ

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig in 1646. From a young age he showed an interest in science. After finishing school he continued his education in Leipzig (1661

1666) and the University of Jena, where he spent one semester in 1663. In the same year, under the leadership of J. Thomasius, Leibniz defended the scientific work “On the Principle of Individuation” (in the spirit of nominalism and anticipating some ideas of his mature philosophy), which brought him bachelor degree. In 1666 in Leipzig, he wrote a dissertation on philosophy, “On Combinatorial Art,” which outlined the idea of ​​creating mathematical logic, and at the beginning of 1667 he became a doctor of law, presenting a dissertation “On Convoluted Judicial Cases” at the University of Altdorf.

Abandoning his career as a university professor, Leibniz in 1668 entered the service of the Elector of Mainz. In this service, he mainly carried out assignments of a legal nature, without, however, stopping scientific research. In 1672, Leibniz arrived in Paris on a diplomatic mission and remained there until 1676. Here he communicated a lot with scientists and philosophers, studied mathematical problems and designed a computer, improving Pascal's calculating machine. In 1675, Leibniz created differential and integral calculus, publishing the main results of his discovery in 1684, ahead of I. Newton, who even earlier than Leibniz had arrived at similar results, but did not publish them (although some of them, apparently, were known to Leibniz privately). Subsequently, a long dispute arose on this topic about the priority of the discovery of differential calculus.

History of philosophy:

IN 1676 Leibniz, forced to look for permanent sources of income, entered the service of the Hanoverian dukes, which lasted about forty years. Leibniz's range of responsibilities was wide - from preparing dynastic materials and searching for a basis for uniting different Christian denominations to designing pumps for pumping water out of mines. Most of his projects, however, were not completed.

IN 1686 Leibniz creates “Discourse on Metaphysics,” which became an important stage in his work, since it was here that for the first time he quite fully and systematically outlined the principles of his philosophical teaching, although this work does not yet have terminological completeness, and it was made public only after the death of the author . The last fifteen years of Leibniz's life turned out to be extremely fruitful in philosophical terms. In 1695, he published a programmatic article “A new system of nature and communication between substances, as well as the connection that exists between soul and body,” without leaving

ignored by the philosophical community. In 1705, Leibniz completed work on “New Essays on Human Understanding” (first published in 1765), a unique commentary on J. Locke’s “Essay on Human Understanding,” and in 1710 he published “Essays on Theodicy,” a summation of an optimistic worldview , writes Monadology (1714), a short treatise containing a summary of his metaphysics. His correspondence with N. Remon and the Newtonian S. Clarke is also important for understanding Leibniz's later ideas.

During Leibniz's lifetime, not many of his works were published (he wrote mainly in French and Latin). Nevertheless, he was a very famous person in scientific and political circles. He corresponded with hundreds of different people and did a lot of organizational work, participating in the creation of a number of European academies of sciences. However, his death in 1716 caused little response from scientific societies, partly due to the consequences of his litigation with Newton.

Leibniz was an exceptionally erudite man in philosophy and in many scientific fields. The greatest influence on him was made by the philosophical ideas of Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Weyl and others. By adopting some ideas from them, Leibniz sharply dissociated himself from others. Leibniz also showed great interest in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, which was atypical for a modern philosopher. He especially appreciated the scholastic concept of substantial form, which goes back to Aristotle's doctrine of entelechy, with which Leibniz became acquainted as a child. But when he was about 15 years old, under the influence of modern philosophy, he reoriented himself towards fashionable mechanistic views and mathematics. However, having begun “to search for the ultimate foundations of mechanism and the laws of motion itself,” he “was surprised to see that it was impossible to find them in the field of mathematics and that it was necessary to turn to metaphysics” (1: 1, 531). This returned him to the Aristotelian entelechies and the dynamic interpretation of existence, which became the core of his mature metaphysics.

Philosophical calculus.

Philosophical calculus. Another specific feature of Leibniz’s philosophizing, which manifested itself already in his early period, was this thinker’s desire to mathematize human knowledge by constructing a universal “philosophical calculus” that allows solving even the most complex problems through simple arithmetic operations. When disputes arise, philosophers “would only have to pick up their pens, sit down at their counting boards and say to each other (as if in a friendly invitation): let’s count!” (1:3, 497). Philosophical calculus should help both in the formalization of existing knowledge (Leibniz paid special attention to the mathematization of syllogistics), and in the discovery of new truths (drawing a parallel with Bacon’s inductive logic, he believed that this calculus could become a “New Organon”), as well as in defining degrees of probability of empirical hypotheses. The basis of philosophical calculus is the “art of characterization,” i.e., finding symbols (Leibniz thought of them in the form of numbers or hieroglyphs) corresponding to the essences of things and replacing them in knowledge.

Methodology.

Methodology. Leibniz combined his innovative search for the foundations of philosophical calculus, which, however, did not bring real results, with the construction

History of philosophy: Textbook for universities / Ed. V.V. Vasilyeva, A.A. Krotova and D.V. Bugaya. - M.: Academic Project: 2005. - 680 p.

more traditional methodology. In methodological issues, he sought to take a balanced position, trying to reconcile the opposing

positive approaches. He considered it necessary to combine experimental knowledge with rational arguments, analysis with synthesis, the study of mechanical causes with the search for target reasons. Leibniz’s attitude to the empiricist position of J. Locke that all human ideas come from experience, and the famous principle “there is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses,” is indicative. Leibniz supplements it with a rationalistic clause: “except for reason itself.” The mind contains innate truths, not in a ready-made form, but as certain predispositions or dispositions, which can be compared to the veins in a block of marble, along which an artist might carve a sculpture.

Descartes interpreted the nature of innate ideas in a similar vein. But his rationalist line is also modified by Leibniz. He considers the Cartesian concept of self-evidence heuristically unsuitable as a criterion of truth and proposes to rely in knowledge on the logical principles of identity (or contradiction) and sufficient reason.

The principle of “contradiction, or identity, that is, the proposition that a proposition cannot be true and false at the same time, that, therefore, A is A and cannot not be = A” (1:1, 433), is, according to Leibniz, the general formula of “truths of reason,” an example of which is the law of identity itself, geometric axioms, etc. The truths of reason are such that the opposite of them is impossible, that is, it contains a contradiction and cannot be clearly thought. They express "absolute" or "metaphysical" necessity. Truths of fact, for example, “the sun will rise tomorrow,” are associated with “physical” or “moral” necessity and can be explained from the principle of “sufficient reason,” “by virtue of which we perceive that no phenomenon can be true or true.” valid, not a single statement is fair without sufficient reason why things are this way and not otherwise” (1: 1, 418). In fact, since the truths of a fact are not self-authentic and the opposite can always be thought of in relation to them, their truth must rest on some external basis. Such a basis may be, for example, contemplation of the current state of affairs or, if we are judging not about the present, but about an event that is not actually observed, the conformity of this event with some laws of nature or the principle of the best, which, in turn, can be explained more high foundation, namely God, the all-perfect being. One of his perfections is goodness, and if God created a world that did not meet the criteria of the best, he would do so contrary to his good will. However, he cannot have any reason not to follow this will. Therefore, the world as the creation of a good God can only be the best of possible worlds.

Leibniz's doctrine of our world as the best of possible worlds has always caused a lot of controversy and objections. To clarify it, it is necessary to clarify several fundamental points. First of all, by a possible world, Leibniz understands a certain set of things, the thought of which does not contain contradictions. Anything that is not contradictory is possible. The number of possible worlds is incalculable. These worlds may differ from each other in two main parameters - order and diversity. These options are not mutually exclusive. The best world is the one in which the greatest diversity is combined with the highest order. Such a world contains expediency and universal harmony. This world chooses an all-good being, God, for creation.

But is our world really the creation of God? The answer to this question involves proof of the existence of God. To do this, Leibniz again resorts to the principle of sufficient reason and argues that God is the sufficient reason of our world. The world exists, but its existence is not necessary, which means it must have an external basis, which turns out to be God. Leibniz also expresses a willingness to support the revised ontological argument. He accepts the logic of this proof, which deduces from the concept of God as an all-perfect being the thesis that such a being cannot but exist,

History of philosophy: Textbook for universities / Ed. V.V. Vasilyeva, A.A. Krotova and D.V. Bugaya. - M.: Academic Project: 2005. - 680 p.

since otherwise it is deprived of all-perfection, but notes that a necessary condition for the correctness of this conclusion is the consistency of the concept of God. After all, if it is contradictory, then it can completely depreciate. Leibniz, however, does not see any great difficulties in this matter. In his opinion, the consistency of the concept of God is evidenced by the fact that this concept consists of only positive predicates. It is curious, however, that while fully aware of the inconsistency of such limiting concepts as “the greatest number” or “the fastest movement,” Leibniz does not emphasize the fact that the concept of an all-perfect being can no less be fraught with contradictions. Actually, Nicholas of Cusa clearly showed that in the Absolute opposites coincide, A turns out to be identically not = A. Nicholas himself, however, was not afraid of these conclusions, which were indeed more or less acceptable within the framework of his doctrine of “scientific ignorance.” But they pose a real threat to Leibniz's cataphatic and anthropomorphic theology.

However, some of Leibniz’s contemporaries believed that in order to undermine his doctrine of the existence of God and the best world there is no need to go into such metaphysical subtleties. Life itself, they said, full of disasters and suffering, testifies against Leibniz. Can a world where there is so much evil be called the best? In response to such objections, Leibniz put forward a whole battery of arguments. Firstly, our world is indeed imperfect, but this does not contradict its optimality. After all, even an all-perfect being cannot create a world devoid of imperfections. Such a world would simply reproduce God, and would not be his creation. Secondly, the imperfections of the world ultimately benefit all things and “the best choice is not always associated with the elimination of evil, for it is possible that evil is accompanied by the greatest good” (1:4, 402 - 403). Thirdly, when talking about disasters and suffering, people tend to place themselves at the center of the universe, which is not entirely justified. When looking at the world from a more general perspective, it does not look so terrible. Fourthly, we must not forget that the world does not stand still, but develops and moves towards perfection. Fifth, God is not responsible for evil in any case. Evil can be metaphysical, physical and moral. Metaphysical evil is an ontological imperfection; it cannot be avoided, although it can be minimized, which is what God does. Physical evil is pain and suffering. Moral is sin. People often bring them on themselves.

Thus, people themselves are partly responsible for evil and suffering; this is the payment for the freedom that God has endowed them with. Leibniz is a consistent opponent of fatalism and the doctrine of metaphysical necessity in the determination of human will. He explains in detail that although a person’s volitional decisions cannot be groundless and subject to “moral necessity,” this does not mean that his will is not free. After all, for

Freedom requires that a person have the opportunity to act differently, and this opportunity is found in voluntary actions.

By choosing in favor of good, that is, maximally contributing to the improvement of oneself and others, thereby showing love for God and elevating the human to the divine, a person, according to Leibniz, is not left without reward. After all, in our world there is a “pre-established harmony” between virtue and bliss. This concept of “pre-established harmony” became a kind of calling card of Leibnizian philosophy. Leibniz considered it an exceptionally successful invention. The main area of ​​application of the concept of such harmony was initially a psychophysical problem. At that time, as indeed in our days, there were heated debates about how the mental could correspond to the physical. Particularly popular was the occasionalist theory of N. Malebranche, according to which the soul and body cannot directly interact, and psychophysical correspondence is ensured by God, who monitors bodily and mental changes. Leibniz criticized this concept, arguing that God's continuous intervention in nature led to the absurd situation of a permanent miracle. He proposed replacing occasionalism with a theory suggesting that God, even at the creation of the world, coordinated souls and bodies so that they naturally correspond to each other without any additional intervention on his part. This theory is called the doctrine of pre-established harmony. Leibniz contrasted it not only with occasionalism, but also with the concept of “physical influence”, according to which the soul can

History of philosophy: Textbook for universities / Ed. V.V. Vasilyeva, A.A. Krotova and D.V. Bugaya. - M.: Academic Project: 2005. - 680 p.

PLACE YOUR ORDER

In order to make an online purchase at the ROSPHOTO bookstore,Select the product, indicate the quantity and click the “Add to cart” button. Go to the “Trash” (upper right corner or bottom of the page). The page will display a list of the products you have selected, quantity and total cost.

Select the method of receiving your order: pickup from the museum and exhibition center (free) or delivery by SDEK courier service (300 rubles within the Ring Road, free for orders over 2500 rubles). Shipping costs will be added to the order total. Click the "Place an order" button.

At the “Checkout” stage, enter your information, check the order details and check the box next to “I have read the Terms and Conditions and agree to them.” Click the "Confirm order" button. You will be redirected to the PSKB Online payment service page.

PAYMENT ORDER

The online store operates only on 100% advance payment of the order.

Payment for orders on the website is made using the PSKB Online service, which allows you to make paymentsbank cards VISA, MasterCard, Maestro and NPS "MIR".

To pay for an order by credit card, you must enter data on the secure page of the processing center of JSC Bank PSKB. After entering your bank card details, click on the “Pay” button. For additional identification of the cardholder, 3D Secure technology can be used. If you use 3D Secure, you will be redirected to the issuing bank page to enter an additional one-time password.

Bank cards issued by banks in the CIS countries are accepted for payment. All payments are processed by the processing center of JSC Bank PSKB.

SECURITY OF PAYMENTS

The PSKB Online payment service processes bank card data in accordance with the requirements of the international security standard PCI DSS 3.0. Information is transferred using SSL encryption technology.

The ROSPHOTO online store does not collect, process or store bank card data. Confidentiality of information is guaranteed by JSC Bank PSKB.

DELIVERY

• Pickup (St. Petersburg)

You can pick up your order in the building of the State Museum and Exhibition Center ROSPHOTO at the address: St. Petersburg, Bolshaya Morskaya St., 35; Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 to 19:00, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 12:00 to 21:00. The bookstore is located on the second floor of the Front Building. When receiving the goods, you must provide your order number.

• Delivery of goods by courier (in St. Petersburg)

Delivery is carried out on weekdays from 10:00 to 18:00. The cost of delivery in St. Petersburg within the Ring Road is 300 rubles. When ordering over 2500 rubles, delivery within the Ring Road is free.

Once your order is collected and ready to ship, a bookstore employee will contact you to confirm delivery time. Orders are delivered within 2 business days from the date of placing.

The goods are released personally into the hands of the person specified as the recipient when placing the order (an identification document must be presented). Upon receipt of your order, you must check the package contents and presentation. Returns and exchanges of products are carried out only in case of manufacturing defects.

Terms of use

By joining this Agreement and leaving your data on http://www.site (hereinafter referred to as the Site) by filling out the fields of the online application (registration), the User:

• confirms that all the data he provided belongs to him personally;
• confirms and acknowledges that he has carefully read the Agreement in full and the terms of processing of his personal data indicated in the fieldsonline applications (registrations)), the text of the agreement and the conditions for processing personal data are clear to him;
• gives consent to the processing by the Site of the personal data provided as part of the information for the purpose of concluding this Agreement between it and the Site, as well as its subsequent execution, and also consents to the transfer of his personal data to third parties
• expresses agreement with the terms of processing of personal data without reservations and restrictions.

The user gives his consent to the processing of his personal data, namely the performance of actions provided for in clause 3, part 1, art. 3 of the Federal Law of July 27, 2006 N 152-FZ “On Personal Data”, and confirms that by giving such consent, he acts freely, of his own free will and in his own interest.

The User's consent to the processing of personal data is specific, informed and conscious.

This consent of the User is recognized as executed in simple written form for the processing of the following personal data: last name, first name, patronymic; the year of birth; place of stay (city, region); telephone numbers; email addresses (E-mail).

The User grants the Site the right to carry out the following actions (operations) with personal data: collection and accumulation; storage for the periods of storage of reports established by regulatory documents, but not less than three years from the date of termination of the use of services by the User; clarification (update, change); usage; destruction; depersonalization; transfer at the request of the court, incl. to third parties, in compliance with measures to ensure the protection of personal data from unauthorized access.

This consent is valid indefinitely from the moment the data is provided and can be withdrawn by you by submitting an application to the site administration indicating the data specified in Art. 14 of the Law “On Personal Data”.

Withdrawal of consent to the processing of personal data can be carried out by sending the User a corresponding order in simple written form to the email address (E-mail) admin@site

The Site is not responsible for the use (both legal and illegal) by third parties of the Information posted by the User on the Site, including its reproduction and distribution, carried out in all possible ways.

The site has the right to make changes to this Agreement. When changes are made to the current edition, the date of the last update is indicated. The new version of the Agreement comes into force from the moment it is posted, unless otherwise provided by the new version of the Agreement.

The current edition is always located on the page at

This Agreement and the relationship between the user and the Site arising in connection with the application of the Agreement are subject to the law of the Russian Federation.

The payment is refunded based on the Client’s application under the terms of the User Agreement (clause 7.7).

Completed application must be sent to the email address: buh@site

If for some reason the Client does not receive the Tickets for the Order at the museum box office within the established time frame (clause 7.2.5 of the User Agreement), this event is sufficient grounds for ROSPHOTO to terminate its obligations under the User Agreement unilaterally and consider its obligations to the Client completed in full.

The doctrine of “possible worlds” is one of the most influential ideas on philosophy Leibniz. Without exaggeration, in our opinion, the most authoritative American researcher of Leibniz’s work, Benson Mates, said about it: “... The history of the creation of the world according to Leibniz influences modern philosophy just as much as the biblical history of the creation of the world influences theology.” According to German sources, Leibniz's concept of "possible worlds" was even set to music and performed by a baritone accompanied by a choir and orchestra before a learned audience. It is unlikely that any other philosopher has received such an honor.

The general scheme of Leibniz's concept is this: the existing actual world is only one of an infinite number of possible worlds that could exist. But this is the best of all possible worlds, in the sense that any fundamental change in it, considered in the light of a change in its premises and consequences, is a change for the worse, and therefore God chose this world from all the possibilities available to Him.

Among the possibilities, Leibniz includes, for example, the following: non-actualized possible worlds in which there is no sin or no people, or everyone is saved, or the righteous are damned and the unrighteous will be saved, or bodies do not have inertia, or in general.

The understanding of the world by such mortal beings as people is limited, therefore the obvious manifestations of evil make the world in human eyes far from perfect. However, although there are terrible types of evil, evil itself, when combined with good, can even improve the final result, like chiaroscuro in a painting or dissonance in music. Regarding the latter, Leibniz writes: “Just as a musician does not need dissonances in themselves, but only to improve the melody, since without them it sounds worse, so God allows sins as props for the general improvement of the world.”

The position of A. Schopenhauer is curious in this regard. Grade A. Schopenhauer Leibniz's "theodicies" are well known. He saw the only merit of this work in the fact that “it served as an occasion for the immortal “Candide” of the great Voltaire; This, unexpectedly for Leibniz, can serve as confirmation of his so often repeated flat argument, with the help of which he justifies the presence of evil in the world, namely: that evil sometimes leads to good.” In response to Leibniz's proof - our world is the best of all possible worlds - A. Schopenhauer offers his own: our world is “the worst of all possible worlds.” For the possible is not what can be imagined, but what can actually exist and remain. And this world is designed in such a way that it can only somehow be preserved; if he were even a little worse, he could no longer exist and, thus, our world is the worst possible world.” Necessary premise in evidence A. Schopenhauer- the possible is not what can be imagined, but what can exist and remain,” i.e. The logical modality is swept aside from the threshold in favor of the physical. “The world is as bad as it can be” in the physical sense, all the examples given in the work “The World as Will and Idea” are of the same kind - earthquakes, epidemics, and other cataclysms. “Fossils of completely unknown animals that once lived on our planet provide us as an example of documentary evidence of worlds whose existence has become impossible,” writes A. Schopenhauer. The world and man, from his point of view, are arranged in such a way that they seem to balance at the boundaries of their own physical existence. The theodicy of G. Leibniz is built on completely different modalities. […]

Leibniz believes that among possible worlds there must objectively be a better one. But in addition to the ethical parameter (good - evil), Leibniz is examined three ontological criterion. Best - in the sense of containing the largest number of entities. “The best in the sense of producing the maximum effect with the minimum expenditure of effort, and the best in the sense of having the simplest laws from which the greatest wealth of phenomena follows.”

Fatiev N.I., The concept of “Possible worlds” of Leibniz and modern logic, in Collection: Logical and Philosophical Studies, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg University Publishing House, 2001, p. 157-158.

Joint publishing program of Garage Museum of Contemporary Art and Ad Marginem Publishing House

An original story by Jean-Paul Monguin and vibrant illustrations by Julia Vauter - in a new book in a children's series about famous thinkers.

This time we find ourselves in Vienna at the beginning of the 18th century, where, already in his old age, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz was engaged in scientific and philosophical research. Every evening, little Theodore sneaks into his office, located at the top of an ancient tower, to philosophize with the great old man or listen to another story before going to bed.

And today, finishing the description of the Universe and sipping beer from a mug, the genius is waiting for his young interlocutor to visit, which means that ahead there are conversations about God, justice and faith and stories about a variety of worlds. The author invites young readers to join Theodore on his unusual journey into the space of ideas outlined more than 200 years ago by the genius of Leibniz.

about the author

Jean-Paul Monguin- specialist in German philosophy, writer and publisher, author of the idea for the Plato and Co. series.

Julia Water- fabric designer, illustrator, graduate of the Higher School of Decorative Arts. Co-founder of Ecarquillettes magazine. Works in the field of commercial and graphic design, author of illustrations for children's books.

Strictly speaking, Leibniz should have been put first in the question, because Schopenhauer’s phrase is a direct answer to it.

In principle, everything is quite simple and logically follows from everyone’s philosophical systems. Leibniz more or less belonged to the Enlightenment project, a significant feature of his philosophical views: the desire for universality of methodology. What else can you expect from the person who invented the binary number system? And Leibniz attempted “Theodicy” - the justification of God. Why, if God exists and is good, do terrible things happen in the world and evil exist? Leibniz sums up his philosophical system to express the thought “everything is God’s will.” Evil exists in three forms: metaphysical (imperfection), moral (sin) and material (suffering). God doesn't particularly like any of them, but he allows them to exist to exercise free will, and also because moral and material evil can prevent greater evil. Since God is not a fool, he thought through all this in advance, established an exact correspondence between good and evil, his will and man’s ability to choose. Therefore, evil in this exists not just to exist, but out of necessity. That’s why everything is arranged so smoothly and smoothly, by God’s will, in this best of worlds (And thanks to Leibniz for computers, the Internet and in general, that’s all).

From Leibniz the thread stretches to Kant, who closed the Enlightenment project and created a philosophical system that was extremely pessimistic in relation to man’s ability to comprehend the world. Although he was strongly influenced by Leibniz, Kant was very skeptical of such philosophical extravagances, since it is all dictated by the view from the point of view of eternity, and Kant established that there is no other point of view than the concrete person. If you are talking about something, then you are talking about what is given specifically to you and is due to you.

From Kant we go to Schopenhauer, who considered himself a true Kantian, the most faithful exponent and successor of his ideas (he did not suffer from modesty). For Schopenhauer, the world is will and idea. Everything we know about the world is given to us in the idea, through which we discover that the basis of the world is will. It is unconscious, illogical and united. But it manifests itself in all living beings as a pure desire and therefore inevitably leads to conflicts. The struggle for existence, the endless squabble of all against all for the right to own a larger piece of this world (Yes, it is Schopenhauer’s ears that stick out from Freud’s concept of the unconscious). Leibniz's God had a plan, Schopenhauer's will does not and cannot have any plan, this is the inevitability that everyone who is born experiences, and therefore is doomed to suffer in this struggle of all against all. Will is stronger than intellect, will is stronger than morality, will is stronger than everything and never stops. The pleasure is fleeting, and then you want more and for this you have to go and do something bad to someone. History is a bloody farce without meaning, built on accidents generated by evil, which originates from the clash of manifestations of will in human beings. And although Schopenhauer had ideas about individual salvation of a person (aesthetic insight, asceticism and compassion), this did not make the world a better place in his eyes. So, it’s unlikely that such a world should be called the best.

Who is right? With all due respect to the great philosophers, this is too radical a formulation of the question. So, both are assholes. Leibniz openly plunges into scholasticism, putting philosophy at the service of religious dogmas. Schopenhauer largely starts from purely subjective things and is sometimes too inconsistent. But without prevarication, I would bet on Schopenhauer, because he is more about what to do with all this and how to act in such a world.

People