Though Leibnizs views about perception and representation go to the heart of his philosophy,
they have received surprisingly little attention over the years and in many ways continue to
be poorly understood. I aim to rectify these shortcomings. The body of the work begins
with an exploration of Leibnizs proposed analysis of representation (Chapter 2). I
argue that on this analysis representation consists in a kind of structural correspondence--
roughly an isomorphism--between representation and thing represented. Special attention
is given to the application of this analysis to the challenging cases of linguistic and mental
representation. The next two chapters concern what I take to be the central issue of the
work: the nature of distinct perception. I explain the multifarious ways in which this concept figures into Leibnizs system, and argue that the three most prominent accounts of distinct perception proposed in recent decades fall short of what we should expect from an adequate theory (Chapter 3). Then, building on the account of representation defended in Chapter 2, I propose and develop an alternative theory, which I call the explicit content account (Chapter 4). It not only enjoys significant textual support, I contend, but
sorts well with and sheds considerable light on the various uses to which Leibniz puts the
concept of distinct perception. Finally, I argue that the explicit content account of perceptual
distinctness also provides us with the correct account of the sense in which concepts (or ideas)
are distinct, that is, with the correct account of conceptual distinctness (Chapter 5). In doing
so I set myself against the received view that concepts are not distinct (or confused) in the
same sense as perceptions. Taken together, these points paint a simpler, more comprehensive,
and more enlightening picture of the Leibnizian mind than those suggested by previous work.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04242006-131346 |
| Date | 05 June 2006 |
| Creators | Puryear, Stephen Montague |
| Contributors | Nicholas Rescher, Robert Brandom, Stephen Engstrom, J.E. McGuire |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04242006-131346/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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