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In Leibniz’s Wake: Rationalist Paradise Lost

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2022

Joe Stratmann Open the ORCID record for Joe Stratmann [Opens in a new window]
Joe Stratmann*
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Department of Philosophy, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States
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Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The eighteenth-century German rationalist tradition is, broadly speaking, committed to (what I call) ‘the principle of rational cognition’: the grounded must be rationally cognizable from its sufficient ground. Whereas the prevailing view takes the fundamental challenge to rationalist paradise to stem from the principle of sufficient reason, I argue that it instead stems from this principle: How is it possible to rationally cognize anything at all from its ground? By investigating the opposing responses of two of Leibniz’s most influential immediate successors, Christian Wolff and Christian Crusius, we find no easy way to remain in rationalist paradise.

Keywords

RationalismLeibnizWolffCrusiuscognitiongroundreason
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 52 , Issue 5 , July 2022 , pp. 517 - 539
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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