ABSTRACT
Writing to a correspondent Leibniz criticized his great contemporary Locke for having an inadequate appreciation of ‘the dignity of our mind’.1 In context it is reasonably clear what Leibniz means by this charge; he is thinking above all of Locke’s famous denial of innate knowledge: as Leibniz puts it, Locke fails to recognize that the principles of necessary truths are latent in our mind. But it is also clear that, for Leibniz, there is a metaphysical dimension to a proper appreciation of our mind’s dignity: it involves the recognition that the mind is an immaterial substance, and that it is as causally self-sufficient as is consistent with its status as a creature. In all these respects the human mind is, as Leibniz is fond of expressing it, ‘like a little divinity’ (Monadology 83, WF 280). In this chapter we shall explore how Leibniz develops this theme in his metaphysics and epistemology. We shall also take up the question of how far Leibniz’s ontological claims about the human mind have implications for his famous theory of innate ideas and knowledge.
