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Tales of Destiny

Logic and Rhetoric in Leibniz’s Myths for Theodicy

Stefano Di Bella    Università di Milano    

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abstract

Leibniz’s theodicean arguments also make room for narrative structures such as stories or fables. Does this move simply meet the rhetorical needs of a popular exposition, or does it express some deeper constraint to illustrate through a narrative structure what cannot be wholly captured by the resources of demonstrative reason? A comparative analysis of two relevant texts – the fable of Sextus at the end of Theodicy and the less-known tale in De libertate, fato, gratia Dei – reveals the variety of images (music, books, buildings etc.) used by Leibniz to represent the original choice among different series of things, or worlds. These narrative texts actually provide valuable indications about Leibniz’s view on such crucial topics as counterfactuals, world-bound individuals, the structure of individual and universal history, and its representation.    

Lingua
EN
ISBN (PRINT)
978-88-6969-084-6
ISBN (EBOOK)
978-88-6969-083-9

Keywords: Divine ChoicePossible WorldsFables

Copyright: © 2016 Stefano Di Bella. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.