ABSTRACT
Large portions of Gottfried Leibniz’s philosophical work aim at synthesis: instead of simply rejecting the theories of his predecessors and replacing them with something radically different, he wants to reconcile the old with the new. Leibniz famously differentiates between unconscious and conscious perceptions, which gives him an advantage over philosophers like Descartes, for whom all perceptions are conscious. Leibniz’s own favorite analogy for appetition and perception is of course not a computer. He uses an analogy from mechanics: he writes to Queen Sophie Charlotte that “as movement leads matter from one configuration to another, appetite leads the soul from one image to another”. Leibniz’s distinction between different types of appetitions as well as his account of the interaction between conflicting appetitions sheds light on several other issues, including his theory of reasoning, consciousness, freedom, weakness of will, and the difference between animal souls and rational souls.
