Conference Agenda
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Daily Overview |
| Session | |
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S41: History of Philosophy 2 Location: 23.01 3C Session Chair: Kristina Engelhard | |
| Presentation 4 | |
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Kant on Leibniz's Law Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany Kant’s rejection of the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles is both explicit in his own writings and unanimously acknowledged by commentators. By contrast, Kant’s stance on the Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals, i.e. Leibniz’s Law, surfaces only sparsely in his writings and has escaped direct attention in Kant scholarship. Leibniz’s Law roughly states that if a and b are identical, then b has every property a has, and vice versa. In my talk I will present a comprehensive study of the scant writings pertinent to a reconstruction of Kant’s position. Prima facie these passages suggest two opposing lines of interpretation. According to the first, Kant approves of Leibniz's Law (Approval Reading). According to the second, Kant rejects Leibniz's Law (Rejection Reading). Yet the opposition of the Approval and the Rejection Reading is, as I will show, merely apparently exhaustive — an Ecumenical Reading is available: I will argue that, while Kant ,approves' of the truth of the proposition expressed by Leibniz's Law, he ,rejects' Leibniz's Law as a genuine principle. | |

