Lezioni su Leibniz (1953-54)

Luigi Scaravelli. Lezioni su Leibniz (1953-54). Edited by Gianfranco Brazzini. Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2000. Pp. 260. 15.49.

Lectures on Leibniz publishes a series of lectures, edited by Gianfranco Brazzini, that were held by Luigi Scaravelli at the University of Pisa in the Academic year 1953/54. Scaravelli was a major ill-starred Italian scholar. Although probably the most significant philosopher in Italy after the death of Benedetto Croce, he nevertheless remained quite unknown. This collection of lectures offers an exceptional opportunity for insight into Scaravelli's philosophical approach. The volume is structured into two parts. The first studies the physical theory of Descartes, to which a single extensive chapter is devoted, while the second focuses on Leibniz's philosophy, and is subdivided into three chapters entitled "Physics," "Logic," and "Metaphysics."

The first part starts out from Descartes's modern philosophical revolution based on a conception of space as a discrete quantum. Leibniz sought to revise such a conception by developing his own physical theory, introducing the idea of continuity (lex continui) that allows reduction of space and movement to force (95). Accordingly, Leibniz dissolves the theoretical necessity of space, shifting from physical to metaphysical knowledge. Scaravelli emphasizes the role played by physics within the Leibnizian system of philosophy. Enquiry into the nature of space and movement brings the problem of the infinitesimal calculus to the fore, which Leibniz addresses by formulating a conception of the "simple" basically as an elementary unit. The main idea underlying Scaravelli's interpretation involves a transition from reality into the metaphysical dimension, which is accomplished by discarding the ontological character of space, time, and movement, and reducing these concepts to the idea of conatus (123). Scaravelli maintains that Leibniz has brought about a radical transformation of physics into psychology. Thus the idea of force becomes one of the two modes of metaphysical substance, whereas the other remains that of consciousness (128). Such a substance is the essence that logic studies as its own subject. Shifting into logic, Scaravelli points out that Leibniz was the reformer of the discipline, formulating the notion of substance as relation (relatio), which claims the role of the main category of the reason. According to Scaravelli's interpretation, Leibniz anticipates the concept of subjectivity as synthesis, which later will be developed by Kant in terms of the transcendental philosophy. For the Italian philosopher, Leibniz was the first author to establish a close link between logic and metaphysics, asserting that since logic constitutes objects, there is no difference at all between reality and thought (170). Scaravelli argues, however, that Leibniz totally failed in his endeavour to formulate a combinatorial logic since it was impossible to discover the basic elements with the tools of mathematics, a project which Leibniz defends starting from the early Ars combinatoria, continuing up to his late work Theodicy (157-8). Scaravelli contends that in the logical theory, Leibniz maintained two different definitions of substance: the traditional nominal and the new relational. Only by preserving the traditional idea of substance was it possible for him to build up a monadistic metaphysics while maintaining an analytical methodology. Analytic thinking was unable to provide a definitive solution to the problem of rationality that the author identifies within the restoration of identity in a separate and contradictory world. Scaravelli points that all these problems derive from the law of continuity.

The proper fallacy of the infinitesimal method comes to the fore in the breakdown of Leibnizian rationality as due to the intrusion of contradiction into the system of philosophy, with which Scaravelli deals in the final part of the volume. Scaravelli discerns the form of contradiction within the logical sorts of truth, necessity and contingency. He defines as contradictory the logical structure of the truth of reason, due to the need to postulate irrational numbers in order to respect the law of continuity. Contradictory also are the possible worlds, which have to maintain identity besides the principle of sufficient...