Leibniz - A Freedom Libertarian

Abstract

Leibniz s views about human freedom are much debated today. While traditionalists hold that Leibniz was a compatibilist about freedom, some commentators are now suggesting that Leibniz can be read as an incompatibilist. This exciting new reading is often based on Leibniz's "Necessary and Contingent Truths" (AVI, 4 B, 1514-1524; henceforth: NCT). This paper shall argue that NCT supports not only an understanding of Leibniz as a freedom incompatibilist, but more radically, as embracing a particularly intriguing kind of libertarianism. On this Leibnizian brand of libertarianism, a human action may be both free and unavoidable (in the sense that the agent could not have acted otherwise).