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Rationalism, Platonism and God

nested individuality proposed in the final chapters relates to his former considerations about the programme of action, because nestedness implies levels of action in living things. Relations among nested individuals result from degrees of activity and passivity that explain their organization and the domination of some monads over others. The programme of action of an individual may entail an infinite number of sub-programmes that explain its nested relation to other individuals (246). Considered metaphysically, the notion of nested individuals thus implies both mechanistic and finalist elements of Leibniz’s conception of bodies. Nachtomy’s book is interesting in many respects. Several recent interpretations are discussed and challenged, and most in a very persuasive way. Some criticisms may, however, be made: first of all, the texts on which the interpretations are based are not always well contextualized in the corpus of Leibniz’s work. In recent years, many efforts have been made to understand conceptual changes in Leibniz’s metaphysics. For example, the concept of individual substance that appears in the 1680s cannot be entirely assimilated into the concept of monad that belongs to a later stage of Leibniz’s metaphysics (see Michel Fichant, L’invention métaphysique, 2004). It would, perhaps, have been important to consider these components more seriously since individuality is one of the main topics of the book. Also, comparisons with other doctrines, mainly with Descartes’ and Spinoza’s, do not always appear relevant to the argumentative course. For instance, in Chapter 7, Nachtomy takes several pages to analyse Spinoza’s conceptions of necessity and agency (169–78), which lead to few conclusions in his comparison with Leibniz’s position. Nevertheless, these minor reservations must not in any way detract from the value of this study. Nachtomy’s work is well-documented and the theses he defends are consistently and clearly explained. This book should certainly be read by scholars interested in Leibniz’s philosophy, but also by those interested in metaphysical topics in the history of modern philosophy.