«Таинственный критерий различения необходимых и случайных истин», или трудность решения: Лейбниц и вопрос о наилучшем из возможных миров

С. 67–113.

Оливо Ж.

Translator: Karpenko E. K.

As Leibniz himself confessed, identifying the root of contingency raised a difficulty which concealed the distinction between necessary and contingent truths. The definition of truth based on the inherence of predicates seemed indeed to be a paradoxical and embarrassing solution to the question of the root of contingency since it began, by virtue of the sufficiency of the complete notion, by making all the predicates necessary. It is our contention that the Generales Inquisitiones provide us both with the clearest formulation of the difficulty and with its resolution. The distinguishing criterion which arises from the analogy with the mathematical infinite but includes from the start a risk of confusion has required of Leibniz a painstaking elaboration. The actual stake appears all the more clearly : liberating the principle of sufficient reason which, from being an axiom--inferred from the principle of contradiction--gains the status of architectonic principle --which is irreducible to the principle of contradiction. We will ask ourselves finally if the contingency of the best possible worlds which can then be construed from the "claim of existence" has truly been "saved" by the principle of sufficient reason.

Keywords: возможные миры, история философии, Лейбниц

In book

Возможные миры. Семантика, онтология, метафизика

М.: Канон+, 2011.