Kant and Russell on Leibniz’ existential assertions
Abstract
Leibniz believed in a God that has the power to create beings and whose existence could be a priori demonstrated. Kant (KrV, A 592-602/B 620-630) objected that similar demonstrations all presuppose the false claim that existence is a real property. Russell (London and New York: Routledge, 1992) added that if existence were a real property Leibniz should have concluded that God does not actually have the power to create anything at all. First, I show that Leibniz’ conception of existence is incompatible with the one that Russell presupposes. Subsequently, I argue that on Leibniz’ conception of existence Russell’s objection is immediately undermined.
Citation
Rossi , A 2021 , ' Kant and Russell on Leibniz’ existential assertions ' , Sophia , vol. First Online . https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-021-00831-x
Publication
Sophia
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0038-1527Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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