ABSTRACT
According to a recent interpretation by Samuel Newlands, not only Leibniz, but already Spinoza embraced a version of the Principle of Plenitude (POP), which posits that the maximal number of (com)possible entities exists. On this interpretation, Spinoza’s endorsement of POP is in tension with another important feature of his account, namely, his commitment to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). Whereas POP embraces plenitude, PSR opts for sparsity. This chapter takes this characterization, with which the authors largely agree, as background to a discussion of Leibniz’s rehabilitation of divine will in his early philosophy. In the authors’ view, while Leibniz agrees with Spinoza that both POP and PSR obtain, he thinks that a commitment to the former is not well-grounded if there is no distinction between intellect and will in God. This is, the authors claim, part of the reason why he restored divine will, even though he ultimately subordinates it to divine intellect.
