Princípio de individuação e infinito em Tomás de Aquino e Leibniz

Abstract

It is a known fact that Leibniz is one of the few and more famous modern defender of scholastics. In paragraph 9 of his Discourse on Metaphysics, for example, he mentions that his philosophy will appropriate Aquinas’ concept of specie infima; a key notion to understand the concept of substance, his new way of understanding the troublesome issue of the principle of individuation and a solution to the puzzle of liberty versus divine omniscience. In this way, indeed, it is worth asking where does Leibniz’s philosophy depart from Aquinas’ and to highlight the break between medieval scholastic thought and modern thought. From our point of view, it is indeed the understanding of the notion of infinity that defines the main terms of the break. We seek to corroborate the interpretative hypothesis of Leibniz’s concept of God, strongly influenced by scholastics, that has as a consequence the elaboration of a quite specific modality of previous knowledge – but all encompassing – of the nature of singular and free agents, irrespective of how infinite it is or how infinite are the relations that it involves; which, in turn, goes against the scholastic notion – or at least Aquinas’ – of possible knowledge about infinity.