Acting: Between Freedom and Rationality. Leibniz, Crusius, and the Principle of Sufficient Reason

• Applicant: Dr. Sonja Schierbaum
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2015 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 280570409

The project aims at discussing a problem which is often neglected in contemporary discussions of free will by focusing on a historical debate. It is to see how the results apply within in the contemporary discussion. The latter debate tends to focus on the problem of compatibility of physical determinism and freedom, whereas the planned project concentrates on the problem of compatibility of rationality and freedom by asking to which degree it is possible to act both freely and rationally. This problem poses a serious threat to libertarian conceptions of freedom. According to the libertarian, freedom amounts to the possibility of real choice between actions. The question is what this amounts to, given that the agent is supposed to act rationally. Since voluntarism is the historical precursor of libertarism, the project will answer the question by discussing exemplarily the voluntaristic position of Crusius (1715-1775) and the rationalistic critic of Leibniz (1646-1716). Further, the projects aims at reconstructing the conception of ground involved here, since the historical debate takes place in the context of the debate concerning the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). It can thereby reconstruct the historical background of the debate concerning the very notion of ground in contemporary metaphysics.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants