Forms and the Scholastic Tradition

This chapter explores the scholastic background of Leibniz’s thought, and how he sought to reconcile his commitment to the mechanical philosophy with an equally firm commitment to the necessity of forms inherent in natural things. It proceeds from a thorough appraisal of themes in common with Gassendi’s philosophy and their common sources, through Boyle’s criticisms of Sennert’s philosophy of forms, to Leibniz’s defence of their necessity for a proper account of divine providence. It includes a thorough discussion of Leibniz’s construal of organic bodies as machines with inbuilt functionality, setting them in the context of medical and biological scholastic theories.