The foreword (here in pre-print version) introduces the scope of this special issue, that is, a re-interpretation of the development of 18th-century German philosophy. We aim in particular at identifying naturalistic and ‘scientific’ tendencies, which evolved alongside the well-studied mainstream currents. In our view, this long-overshadowed man…[Read more]

A plea for more generous modes of reading each other’s scholarship in order to arrive at a University that values productive dissensus within a framework of shared endeavor and solidarity. The essay also argues for new relational modes in which personal, professional and other identities would be rejected in favor of cruising each other’s thought and work.

An overview of the “state of the field” of critical post/humanist studies that also argues for the important intervention of premodern studies into contemporary post/humanist studies, and which serves as the Introduction (with chapter summaries) to “Fragments for a History of a Vanishing Humanism,” eds. Myra Seaman and Eileen A. Joy (Ohio State…[Read more]

André de la Vigne (1470?-1526?) in the manuscript of his “Mystère de Saint Martin,” performed in the town of Seurre in October 1496, also included a “moralité” and a “farce.” Although they are positioned at the conclusion of the “mystère,” these short plays were undoubtedly integral to the larger performance. At the same time they are via…[Read more]

André de la Vigne (1470?-1526?) in the manuscript of his “Mystère de Saint Martin,” performed in the town of Seurre in October 1496, also included a “moralité” and a “farce.” Although they are positioned at the conclusion of the “mystère,” these short plays were undoubtedly integral to the larger performance. At the same time they are via…[Read more]

Did it all begin with Tschirnhaus? This paper (here in pre-print version) discusses the exemplary role that Tschirnhaus could play in the reconstruction of an empirically oriented, scientific, somewhat radical and variously unorthodox current in 18th-century German philosophy, starting from 18th-century characterizations of his intellectual image.

From Spanish and Portuguese travelers to Maupertuis, the problem of albinos, or ‘white Negroes’, as they would be called, has been an epitome of strangeness, a disturbing and/or marvelous appendix to human essence, and has often been instrumental to various definitions of identity. Some major historical and cultural episodes concerning the int…[Read more]

Descartes’ Regulae are the first text in which the idea of ​​a universal mathematics is put in connection with algebra. Young Descartes thinks of geometrical figures as a representation of algebraic procedures so as to guarantee its feasibility: i.e., an epistemological foundation of analysis. The young Leibniz starts from a similar problem. He…[Read more]

The role of insensible appetitions (similar to insensible perceptions, or petites perceptions) in Leibniz’s theory of appetite and will is sketched. Since such insensible appetitions are the medium of interaction, through the body, between the individual and the physical world, and the form in which, at a microscopic level, environmental…[Read more]

IL REALE E L’IMMAGINARIO. Critica dell’infinito e dell’infinitesimo. Continuo reale e ideale. La metafisica del calcolo. Immaginario e immaginazione. Bibliografia

The paper addresses the first phase in the reception of Leibniz’s Monadology, starting with Johann Christoph Gottsched’s dissertation of 1721, until the publication of the essays presented for the prize question on monads proposed by the Berlin Academy of Sciences 25 years later. A critical edition of Gottsched’s “Dubia circa monades L…[Read more]

METAFISICA E MATEMATICA. Continuo e discreto. L’ambiguità dell’attimo. Il principio di continuità. Forza viva e forza morta. Tra Platone e Democrito

L’INTERPRETAZIONE DEL CALCOLO. Il nuovo secolo. La ripresa delle ostilità. La giustificazione del calcolo infinitesimale. Tra sé e sé. Interpretazione e immaginario. Regole e princìpi

LE PRIME CONTROVERSIE. Quantità incomparabilmente piccole. Il primo contendente. La disputa con Nieuwentijt. Irrealtà dell’infinitesimo. Ultimi strascichi polemici

LA PUBBLICAZIONE DEL METODO. Un nuovo algoritmo. La scuola concorrente. Flussioni nel tempo e nello spazio

LA NASCITA DEL CALCOLO LEIBNIZIANO: La geometria degli indivisibili. Infiniti indivisibili attuali. Gli anni d’apprendistato di Leibniz. L’aritmetica degli infinit.i Verso l’analisi infinitesimale. Il triangolo caratteristico. La fondazione del calcolo

INTRODUZIONE: Metafisica dell’infinitamente piccolo. L’analisi leibniziana. L’infinitesimo e il calcolo. La scomposizione del mutamento

Detlev Clüver (1645-1708) was among the first to criticize Leibniz’s new infinitesimal analysis. Although his criticisms were vague and his methods inconsistent, Leibniz had always for him a friendly sort of consideration. The article presents Clüver’s biography, writings, and thought, together with a detailed description of Leibniz’s relations t…[Read more]

Composting is a material labor whereby old scraps are transformed—through practices of care and attention—into nutrient-rich new soil. In this provocation, we develop “composting” as a material metaphor to tell a particular story about the environmental humanities. Building on Donna Haraway’s work, we insist “it matters what compostable…[Read more]