The Leibnitii animadversiones. The matter of the soul

Abstract

In 1854, A. Foucher de Careil published in Paris a booklet titled Réfutation inédite de Spinoza par Leibniz. It contains the Latin original and the French translation of the notes that Leibniz composed while reading Johann Georg Wachter's book Elucidarius Cabalisticus sive Reconditae Hebraeorum Philosophiae Brevis & Succincta Recensio (Romae 1706). Count Foucher de Careil discovered these notes in the Hannover Library (Animadversionen ad Joh. Georg Wachteri librum de recondita Hebraeorum philosophia), and prefaced the translation with an ample introduction. Animadversionen contain the most comprehensive of Leibniz's remarks known today on Spinoza's views on the soul, God, and the creatures, as well as freedom and necessity. Their subject matter was dictated by the contents of Wachter's book. Leibniz's opinions on Spinoza's philosophy presented in them have a different overtone from his earlier writings. Animadversionen put the matter of the simple substance, presented in Monadologia (1714), in an interesting light, and they show also  that Leibniz did not grasp the sense of the Spinozian concept of the human mind.