Topoi
DOI 10.1007/s11245-016-9422-z
Judgement in Leibniz’s Conception of the Mind: Predication,
Affirmation, and Denial
Christian Barth1
 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
Abstract The aim of the paper is to illuminate some core
aspects of Leibniz’s conception of judgement and its place
in his conception of the mind. In particular, the paper
argues for three claims: First, the act of judgement is at the
centre of Leibniz’s conception of the mind in that minds
strive at actualising innate knowledge concerning deriva-
tive truths, where the actualising involves an act of
judgement. Second, Leibniz does not hold a judgement
account of predication, but a two-component account that
distinguishes between predication and alethic evaluation.
Third, Leibniz understands the act of affirmative judgement
in terms of establishing active dispositions, i.e. strivings, to
make reasons available for future reasoning that aims at
answering whether-questions (whether a proposition p is
true or not). Correspondingly, he understands the act of
negative judgement in terms of establishing dispositions to
ban propositions from future reasoning that aims at
answering whether-questions. In the final analysis, the acts
of affirmative as well as of negative judgement turn out to
be acts of changing memory dispositions.
Keywords Leibniz
Mind
Judgement
Predication

Innatism
& Christian Barth
christian.barth@philosophie.hu-berlin.de
1
Institute of Philosophy, Humboldt University Berlin, Unter
den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Judgement is a neglected topic in the Leibniz scholarship.
At least, this is true with respect to the metaphysics and
epistemology of judgement.1 The monographs on Leibniz’s
conception of the mind and his general epistemology touch
the topic only peripherally.2 Scholars working on Leibniz’s
logic are mostly interested in his conceptions of predication
and of proposition, but not in his metaphysics and episte-
mology of judgements.3 The concept of judgement is also
central to Leibniz’s legal writings. But scholars investi-
gating Leibniz’s legal works focus on his application of
logic to law and his conception of natural law, but not on
Leibniz’s general conception of judgement.4
The aim of the paper is to illuminate some core aspects
of Leibniz’s conception of judgement and its place in his
conception of the mind. In particular, I will argue for three
claims:
1. The act of judgement is at the centre of Leibniz’s
conception of the mind in that minds strive at
actualising innate knowledge concerning derivative
truths, where the actualising involves an act of
judgement (Sect. 1).
2. Leibniz does not hold a judgement account of pred-
ication, but a two-component account that distin-
guishes between predication and alethic evaluation
(Sect. 2.1).
3. Leibniz understands the act of affirmative judgement
in terms of establishing active dispositions, i.e. striv-
ings, to make reasons available for future reasoning
that aims at answering whether-questions (whether a
1
An exception is Losonsky (2001, ch. 7).
2
See Kulstad (1991) and McRae (1976).
3
See Burkhardt (1980), Couturat (1901), Kauppi (1960), Lenzen
(1990, 2004), and Parkinson (1965, esp. ch. 1).
4
See Armgardt (2001) and Berkowitz (2005).
123

proposition p is true or not). Correspondingly, he
understands the act of negative judgement in terms of
establishing dispositions to ban propositions from
future reasoning that aims at answering whether-
questions. In the final analysis, the acts of affirmative
as well as of negative judgement turn out to be acts of
changing memory dispositions (Sect. 2.2).5
1 The Place of Judgement in Leibniz’s Conception
of the Mind
1.1 Aristotelian and Platonist Elements in Leibniz’s
Conception of the Mind
According to Leibniz, the history of philosophy is a trea-
sure chest. He believes that philosophical traditions contain
important insights that philosophers are expected to iden-
tify and to integrate into one view—a view that should also
cohere with theological doctrines and reflect the empirical
and theoretical insights of the new physics. Thus, proper
philosophy is necessarily historical and integrative. Far
from being a matter of mere cherry picking, the task of
integration is a constructive task in that it requires the
development of new ideas and innovative lines of thought
in order to overcome obstacles of integration. In addition,
philosophy proper also includes the tasks of broadening the
view that results from integration and of applying it to new
problems.6
Leibniz’s account of souls in general and of the rational
soul or mind7 in particular takes up aspects from the Aris-
totelian as well as from the Platonist tradition. In a broadly
Aristotelian fashion, Leibniz distinguishes between three
types of souls: simple souls, animal souls, and rational
5
Note that this paper is concerned with Leibniz’s general conception
of judgement. Hence, I will abstract from the differences Leibniz
might recognise between theoretical, practical, aesthetic etc. judge-
ments and merely be concerned with features that are, for Leibniz,
characteristic of the activity of judging in general.
6
This view of Leibniz’s method comes close to the ‘conciliatory
eclecticism’ Christia Mercer attributes to the early Leibniz (see
Mercer 2001, 49–59).
7
I use the terms ‘rational soul’ and ‘mind’ interchangeably in this
paper.
123
C. Barth
souls.8 From the Platonist9 tradition he takes up the idea that
souls are thoroughly self-moving, i.e. spontaneous, entities.
This goes hand in hand with the idea that—if we neglect the
dependence on divine conservation and concurrence—all
souls are causally autonomous. This conception of souls as
spontaneous and causally autonomous entities implies that—
speaking with metaphysical rigor—all inner acts and their
contents come from the soul’s own ground.10
Simple souls and animal souls are only capable of non-
conceptual representations,11 whereas rational souls do not
only possess non-conceptual, but also conceptual repre-
sentations. I will call the non-conceptual representations
‘perceptions’ and the conceptual ones ‘thoughts’.12
8
In his monadological metaphysics he calls them ‘simple monads’,
‘animal monads’, and ‘rational monads’ (see Leibniz’s Principles of
Nature and Grace (henceforth referred to by ‘PNG’), sections 4–5
and his Monadology (henceforth referred to by ‘M’), sections 18–30).
It needs to be pointed out, however, that Leibniz’s understanding of
souls in general and of the three types of souls in particular very much
differs from the Aristotelian scheme. For one, Leibniz understands all
souls to be engaged in cognitive activity. More precisely, all souls—
including simple monads—exhibit states (so-called ‘perceptions’) that
represent outer things (in fact, they represent their own bodies
perfectly and by virtue of representing their own bodies they represent
the whole universe); and the inner activities of all souls are propelled
by inner strivings (so-called ‘appetites’) that are sensitive to the
contents of these representational states (the appetites strive at
increasing the represented goods and at diminishing the represented
evils). Furthermore, Leibniz rejects Aristotelian hylomorphism and
accounts for the unity of soul and body in terms of the infamous
doctrine of pre-established harmony.
9
Following Stephen Menn, I distinguish between Platonic and
Platonist views. The former can be found in Plato’s writings, the latter
in Platonist writers, i.e. writers who do philosophy on the basis of
mainly Platonic doctrines (see Menn 1998, xii).
10
At an early stage of Book I of the New Essays on Human
Understanding, Leibniz points out that ‘all the thoughts and actions of
our soul come from its own depths and could not be given to it by the
senses’. Having put his metaphysical cards on the table, Leibniz
hastens to add that he will engage with Lockean views from the
perspective of ‘accepted ways of speaking’ according to which ‘the
outer senses can be said to be, in a certain sense, partial causes of our
thoughts’; Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe (henceforth referred to by
‘A’) 6.6.74; see also A 6.6.6 and A 6.6.392. Leibniz applies here his
methodological doctrine according to which, for reasons of persua-
siveness, one should discuss positions from the opponent’s
standpoint.
11
Leibniz believes that souls essentially are engaged in representa-
tional activity. The inner states of all souls—not only of animal and
rational souls—are representational states.
12
Leibniz’s usage of the Latin ‘perceptio’ and the French ‘percep-
tion’ on the one hand and of ‘cogitatio’ and ‘pensée’ on the other is an
intricate matter. He uses the former terms in three different ways: In a
generic sense, they denote all inner representational states of all souls
(see, for instance, PNG 2 and M 17). But apart from their generic
sense, Leibniz also uses them in two slightly different contrastive
ways. In the first contrastive use, he contrasts perceptions with
apperceptions (see A 6.6.134, PNG 4, and M 14). In the second
contrastive sense, perceptions are contrasted with thoughts (see
Leibniz’s Discourse of Metaphysics (henceforth referred to by ‘DM’),
Judgement in Leibniz’s Conception of the Mind: Predication, Affirmation, and Denial
Thoughts convey propositional contents and are made
possible by ideas. Referring again to the Platonist tradition,
Leibniz understands ideas as innate.13 He conceives them
as active dispositions, i.e. as strivings,14 that aim at pro-
ducing true acts of thought.15 Concepts are parts of acts of
thinking that take subject or predicate position in them.16
1.2 Rational Souls: Striving at Actual Knowledge
In line with the Aristotelian tradition, Leibniz sees rational
souls in top position of a tripartite hierarchy of souls. Fur-
thermore, in line with both the Aristotelian and the Platonist
tradition he considers rational souls to be marked out by pos-
session of an intellect. But Leibniz understands the intellect in a
Platonist fashion as containing innate ideas and thoughts in
virtue of which rational souls come much closer to divine
omniscience than non-rational souls. According to the Dis-
course on Metaphysics, created souls are omniscient in the
sense that they non-conceptually represent the created universe
completely with respect to all past, present, and future events.17
We might call this the ‘perceptual omniscience’ of created
substances. But due to possession of an intellect, rational
substances also conceptually represent divine thoughts, i.e. the
true propositions of divine thinking. In fact, rational substances
conceptually represent all divine truths. They do so in virtue of
the fact that all ideas, i.e. the ideas of all possible entities, are
innate to them.18 Since Leibniz understands the idea of an
entity X as the set of active dispositions to think all truths
about X,19 we are not only perceptually, but also conceptually
Footnote 12 continued
section 14). Similarly, Leibniz uses ‘cogitatio’ and ‘pensée’ in a
broad and in a narrow sense. In the broad sense, the terms denote all
inner representational states of all souls, i.e. they are used equiva-
lently to ‘perceptio’ and ‘perception’ in the generic sense (A 6.6.161
and A 6.6171). In the narrow sense, the terms denote only proposi-
tional acts in rational souls (see A 6.6.173, A 6.6.210, and A 6.1.286
revision note 16). In this paper, I use ‘perception’ in the second
contrastive sense and ‘thought’ in Leibniz’s narrow sense.
13
Leibniz is famous for his innatism of ideas and truths. Primarily,
ideas are innate to us. But since truths are merely relations of
containment between ideas, with innate ideas come innate truths.
14
When I talk of dispositions in the following, I will mean active
dispositions in the Leibnizean sense of strivings, not in the
contemporary sense of passive dispositions that require a stimulus
in order to get actualised.
15
See A 6.6.52 (innate ideas are dispositions) in combination with A
6.6.110 (there are no passive dispositions). From A 6.4.1370 we learn
that ideas are faculties to think and since ideas are given to us by God
(see DM 28), they must be faculties to think truths rather than
falsehoods. False thoughts result from defective actualisations of
ideas.
16
See DM 27.
17
See DM 9.
18
See DM 26, DM 28, and A 6.6.300.
19
Ideas represent natures (see DM 26) and the nature of a thing
contains all predicates truly predicable of the thing (see DM 8 for the
omniscient. But whereas the perceptual omniscience regards
the representation of what was, is, and will be actual, the
conceptual omniscience also concerns what is possible and
necessary. However, our conceptual omniscience is largely
merely virtual omniscience. Since most active dispositions
remain impeded and never get fully actualized, only few innate
truths ever come to our awareness.20
In the New Essays on Human Understanding and related
writings, Leibniz distinguishes between different conceptions
of innateness with respect to truths. According to what he
regards as a customary understanding, truths are innate if and
only if we affirm them immediately when they come to our
awareness.21 Leibniz, however, prefers a different notion of
innateness. First, he restricts the term to truths that we can
come to actually22 know to be true a priori, i.e. independently
of the senses.23 These truths consist in all and only necessary
truths.24 Accordingly, in contrast to the earlier Discourse on
Metaphysics, Leibniz here excludes contingent truths from the
innate truths. The reason for this is that in the New Essays,
Leibniz is willing to discuss Locke’s empiricism on the basis of
the vulgar assumption that not all thoughts stem from our own
soul, but are caused by external impact on the senses. Second,
he distinguishes between a narrow and a wide understanding of
this notion of innateness. The difference between the narrow
and the wide understanding is related to Leibniz’s distinction
between primitive and derivative truths. Leibniz’s draws this
distinction as follows: Primitive necessary truths comprise the
principle of identity and its instances.25 Primitive contingent
Footnote 19 continued
case of substances). Hence, ideas as strivings must be understood as
including active dispositions to actualise all true thoughts about the
thing in question.
20
See Die philosophischen Schriften von Leibniz (henceforth referred
to by ‘GP’) IV 469–470 and IV 395. The notion of impediment is
central to Leibniz’s metaphysics of substances as forces. I will not go
into Leibniz’s conception of impediment in this paper, but restrict my
focus on logical and epistemological questions.
21
See A 6.6.12 and 6.6.84.
22
Actual knowledge contrasts with virtual knowledge. A subject
possesses the latter just in virtue of the possession of innate ideas;
possession of the former requires actualisation of the virtual
knowledge (see A 6.6.52, A 6.6.77, and A 6.6.86).
23
See GP III 291, A 6.6.12, A 6.6.76, A 6.6.84, and A 6.6.392.
24
See A 6.6.77.
25
The principle of identity comes in two different forms: affirmative
A = A, and negative A = non-A and A = B, where B is an object of
an idea that is different from the idea of A (A 6.4.1644 and A
6.6.361–362). As Leibniz explains, in order to become aware of
primitive necessary truths in contexts of knowledge-seeking activity
they only need to be ‘distinguished’ rather than ‘formed by the intellect
and by the reason’ (A 6.6.12). This refers to Leibniz’s view that (true or
supposed) instances of the principle of identity are involved in all our
thinking in that thoughts express containment relations between ideas
(see DM 8). Becoming aware of them only requires distinguishing
them from the other elements involved (see A 6.6.84 for distinguishing
‘general principles [that] enter into our thoughts’).
123

truths are contents of acts of inner sense, i.e. acts of registering
the occurrence of thoughts in us.26 They consist in propositions
of the form ‘I think’ and ‘Various things are thought by me’.27
Both types of primitive truths share the feature that minds do
not recognise their truth in light of further reasons.28 They do
not recognise their truth through reasoning, but immediately by
infallible acts of intuition.29 Derivative necessary and contin-
gent truths, in contrast, are propositions whose truth is recog-
nised through further reasons. With the exception of those
derivative truths that we affirm by innate natural instinct,30 the
recognition of their truth results from reasoning.31 Now,
according to the narrow sense of Leibniz’s conception of
innateness only primitive necessary truths count as innate.
Leibniz favours, however, the wider conception according to
which also the derivative necessary truths are innate. Hence,
the truths that we can come to actually know to be true a priori
comprises primitive as well as derivative necessary truths.32
Leibniz’s conception of innatism is epistemically loaded
since, for him, it is essential to innate truths that, in prin-
ciple, we can come to know them to be true. This applies to
the metaphysically rigorous notion of innateness from the
Discourse on Metaphysics as well as to the vulgar notion of
innateness from the New Essays on Human Understanding.
It means that innate ideas do not merely consist in active
dispositions to bring truths to awareness. Instead, they must
also include dispositions to acts through which we come to
know them to be true. Since coming to know them to be
true requires taking a stance on their truth-value, innate
ideas must include dispositions to affirm the innate truths.
Furthermore, the affirmation must be justified since only
justified affirmation can lead to the acquisition of actual
knowledge. Furthermore, as Leibniz points out, we have to
conduct our epistemic endeavours with proper attention
and in proper order in order to succeed in finding innate
truths and in coming to know them to be true.33 For
instance, innate primitive truths are immediate truths in the
sense that we affirm them immediately when they come to
awareness.34 Since immediate affirmation rests on infalli-
ble intuitive recognition of the proposition’s truth, innate
26
Leibniz variously characterises the acts of inner sense as acts of
conscientia (GP IV 357 and A 6.6.238), of reflection (A 6.6.14 and A
6.6.238), and inner sentiment (A 6.4.1830 and A 6.6.236).
27
See A 6.4.1500 and GP IV 357.
28
See A 6.4.1655.
29
See A 6.6.361–367 and A 6.6.434.
30
See A 6.6.89–94 and 101.
31
See A 6.4.1655 and A 6.6.361–368.
32
See A 6.6.12 and A 6.6.78.
33
See A 6.6.86.
34
See A 6.4.1655, A 6.6.361, and A 6.6.434. Hence, Leibniz
includes the customary understanding of innateness in terms of
immediate affirmation in his characterisation of innate primitive
truths as immediate truths.
123
C. Barth
ideas must contain active dispositions to such infallible
intuitive acts. In the case of innate derivative truths,
coming to know them to be true requires reasoning. For
instance, innate derivative necessary truths are capable of
demonstration, i.e. we can come to know them to be true
through a finite sequence of deductive steps. This requires
not only proper attention, but also proper order of reason-
ing. But if we reason properly, we will finally come to
affirm the truths justifiably and, thus, come to know them
to be true. Thus, innate ideas are active dispositions not
merely to bring truths to awareness, but to cognitive
activities that aim at coming to actually know the innate
truths to be true.
In sum, the intellect comes with innate ideas that enable
rational souls to actualise innate knowledge, i.e. to come to
actually know the innate truths to be true. Since this
actualisation essentially involves justified affirmation,
innate ideas include active dispositions to cognitive activity
that aims at justified affirmation of innate truths. The jus-
tification rests either on infallible intuition or on reasoning.
1.3 Judgement as Affirmation or Denial
of Derivative Truths
Surveying Leibniz’s uses of the Latin term ‘iudicium’ and
the French ‘jugement’ as well as their cognates reveals that
Leibniz regularly uses these terms in characterizing the
method of analysis. Analysis starts from questionable
propositions and attempts to answer questions concerning
them. Leibniz distinguishes between two types of ques-
tions35: Whether-questions ask for whether a given
proposition is true or false. In this case, analysis aims at
proving a proposition’s truth or falsehood. This happens by
means of tracing the proposition back to known principles.
What- and how-questions ask for explanations. In the New
Essays on Human Understanding, where Leibniz sets out
his account as opposed to Locke’s account of judgement,
Leibniz claims that judgement as a capacity aims at
answering whether-questions rather than what- and how-
questions.36 Indeed, it is the capacity to answer whether-
questions in the light of reasons: ‘[…] judgement consists
in the examination of propositions in accordance with
reason’.37 In fact, judgements result from the recognition of
a connection of the questionable proposition to ‘known
truths’ or reasons.38 We might thus say that judgement
results from an examination of reasons in favour of and
against the truth of a proposition p in response to the
35
See A 6.6.368.
36
See A 6.6.368 and Opuscules et Fragments inédits de Leibniz
(henceforth referred to by ‘C’), 495.
37
A 6.6.141.
38
See the quote from A 6.6.475 to be discussed in Sect. 2.1.
Judgement in Leibniz’s Conception of the Mind: Predication, Affirmation, and Denial
question as to whether p is true or not. This characteriza-
tion reveals that, for Leibniz, not all acts of affirming
propositions are judgements. As we have seen above,
affirmation of primitive truths does not result from an
examination of reasons with respect to a given proposition
whose truth-value is in question. Instead, if we are atten-
tive, we immediately affirm primitive truths when we
become aware of them. Judgements are then the termini of
strivings at justified affirmation only of derivative and not
of primitive truths. In judgements we affirm or deny
derivative rather than primitive propositions. In contrast,
the termini of strivings concerning knowledge of primitive
truths are non-judgemental affirmations.39
2 Leibniz on the Act of Judgement
In the previous section we have seen that judgements play a
central role in Leibniz’s conception of the mind. They are
essential for coming to actually know derivative truths to
be true. But what does the act of judgement itself consist
in?
2.1 Judging is not predicating
Gottlob Frege famously claimed that acts of judgement
consist of two components: an act of grasping a thought
(content aspect) and an act of recognising the thought’s
truth (evaluative aspect).40 Frege understands thoughts as
abstract entities. They do not need to be formed by the
judging subject, but exist independently of individual
minds and are up for grasp.41
With the notable exception of Malebranche (and argu-
ably also Descartes and Spinoza), early modern thinkers
commonly claim that the contents judged need to be
formed by composition and, thus, depend for their exis-
tence on the judging mind. The act of content formation is
39
However, in some places Leibniz seems to apply a wider notion of
judgement that also denotes affirmation of primitive truths. This
seems to be the case in the piece On the Method of Distinguishing
Real from Imaginary Phenomena (1683–1685/1686?) in which
Leibniz explains: ‘I judge without proof, from a simple perception
or experience, that those things exist of which I am conscious within
me. There are, first, myself who am thinking of a variety of things and
then, the varied phenomena or appearances which exist in my mind’
(A 6.4.1500/Philosophical Papers and Letters (henceforth referred to
by ‘L’), 363). Here, Leibniz characterises affirmation of primary
contingent truths as judgement. According to the wider notion,
judgements are co-extensive with acts of affirmation and denial.
However, the epistemically more significant notion of judgement is
the narrow notion because it picks out those cases in which
affirmation is given in light of reasons and in response to a
whether-question.
40
See Frege (1956, 294).
41
See Frege (1956, 302).
usually understood along the lines of the Platonic-Aris-
totelian tradition as an act of predication, i.e. as an act of
(affirmatively or negatively) saying something (predicate)
of something (subject).42 The result is a content that is
truth-evaluable and, thus, propositional in virtue of its inner
predicative structure.
Especially the Port-Royal logicians and John Locke are
commonly believed to hold the view that predication and
alethic evaluation are one and the same act.43 According to
this position, content formation happens by way of alethic
evaluation. The idea is that the act of affirmatively saying
predicate B of subject A just is the act of taking B to be true
of A which, in turn, is nothing else than taking to be true
that A is B; and the act of negatively saying B of A just is
the act of taking B not to be true of A which is nothing else
than taking to be false that A is B. But this judgement
account of predication faces notorious problems.44 One
bunch of problems derives from the fact that according to
the judgement account all propositionally contentful acts
are judgements. But it seems obvious that there are
propositional acts that are neither affirmative nor negative
judgements. Typical examples are ‘optative’ acts such as
wishing that p. And even if we restrict attention to truth-
evaluable acts, problems arise: assuming that p and imag-
ining that p are not acts of judgement since they do not
include taking a stance on whether p is true or not.
What is Leibniz’s view of predication? Does he distin-
guish between predication and alethic evaluation? There
are passages in Leibniz’s texts that seem to provide evi-
dence for the claim that he does not draw the distinction at
issue. In the text Metaphysical Definitions and Thoughts
from the period 1678–80/1, for instance, Leibniz writes:
Judgement is affirmation or negation, and this is true
or false. (A 6.4.1394)
Furthermore, in revision notes Leibniz added in the
period 1697-1700 to his early work A New Method for
Learning and Teaching Law we read:
Every act of thinking [cogitatio] is conveyed [fertur]
by an enunciation, i.e. a proposition, i.e. an affirma-
tion or negation […]. (A 6.1.284)
42
This goes back to Plato’s Sophist and Aristotle’s De Interpreta-
tione (see Soph. 262c–d and 263e; De Int. 16b26–17a26).
43
See Owen (2007, 412–418) and Buroker (1996, 8). Jennifer
Marusic agrees that Locke does not distinguish between proposition
formation and evaluation, but argues extensively that this does not
have the devastating consequences generally thought it would have
(see Marusic 2014). Gabriel Nuchelmans and Walter Ott, in contrast,
claim that Locke in fact distinguishes between proposition formation
and evaluation (see Nuchelmans 1983, 139–147; Ott 2002).
44
The locus classicus of this critique is Geach (1962, 24).
123

The revision note suggests that every act of thinking—at
least every act that gets expressed linguistically by an
enunciation45—is conveyed by an affirmative or negative
enunciation. But if acts of thinking get expressed by either
an affirmative or negative enunciation, then it seems that
acts of thinking must be acts of mental affirmation or
denial. And if one understands the first quotation as
expressing an identification of judgement with affirmation
and denial, this seems to imply that Leibniz holds a
judgement account of predication.
But passages such as these do not decide the issue
because Leibniz uses the terms ‘affirmatio’ and ‘negatio’
ambiguously. Both terms can refer to affirmative and
negative judgings in the mental realm and assertions in the
linguistic realm. However, they can also refer to acts of
merely conceiving or merely saying that p rather than acts
of judging or asserting that p. For example, in a piece from
1678/1679 Leibniz characterises affirmatio in the mental
sense as follows:
Affirmation is a thought of two [concepts], insofar as
the one concept is contained by the other concept. (A
6.4.141)
Here, Leibniz describes an affirmative thought as one of
two concepts that are related by containment. He does not
mention any act of evaluating the thought’s truth-value.
This indicates that he uses ‘affirmatio’ here in the sense of
‘merely conceiving’ and that the term ‘affirmation’ merely
indicates that a concept is thought of as containing rather
than as not containing another concept. In other words,
Leibniz uses the term ‘affirmatio’ merely in order to indi-
cate the logical form of the thought, namely that it is of the
form ‘A is B’ rather than ‘A is not B’.46 But it does not
indicate the occurrence of an affirmative evaluation. In
general, due to the mentioned ambiguity, passages that
suggest that Leibniz identifies thinking with affirming or
denying do not show that he holds a judgement account of
predication. He might merely express the view that all acts
of thinking either have an affirmative or a negative logical
form.
Furthermore, there is ample evidence that Leibniz does
not hold a judgement account of predication. We find a
telling passage in Leibniz’s response to Locke’s objections
45
I understand the terms ‘enuntiatio’ and ‘propositio’ in the
quotation as referring to linguistic acts. However, this is not self-
evident. While ‘enuntiatio’ usually stands for a linguistic entity, this is
not true of the term ‘propositio’. Leibniz uses ‘propositio’ in order to
refer to linguistic as well as mental items. However, in the passage at
hand, Leibniz’s use of the verb ‘ferre’ indicates that the reference is to
linguistic items. It would not make much sense to think of acts of
thinking as being conveyed by other mental acts. But it makes good
sense to think of acts of thinking as being conveyed by linguistic acts.
46
Cf. Nuchelmans (1983, 220).
123
C. Barth
to innatism in his New Essays on Human Understanding
(the translation by Remnant and Bennett is henceforth
referred to by ‘RB’). At one point of the dispute, Leibniz’s
spokesman Theophilus says:
I have already replied (§5) to the objection (§22)
which maintains that when it is said that innate
notions are ‘‘implicitly’’ in the mind, that should
signify only that the mind has a faculty for knowing
them; for I have pointed out that it has in addition a
faculty for finding them in itself, and the disposition,
if it thinks of them as one should, to approve of them.
(A 6.6.84/RB 84; translation modified)
Subjects can ‘find’ innate notions in themselves, i.e.
under proper circumstances they can bring innate truths to
their awareness. But, for Leibniz, finding the proposition
must consist in an act of merely conceiving or entertaining
the proposition rather than in an act of alethic evaluation.
Otherwise, we would not only approve the proposition ‘if
[one] thinks of [it] as one should’, but we would already do
so in forming the proposition and independently of how we
think of the proposition formed. Hence, Leibniz separates
the predicative act of proposition formation from the
evaluation of the proposition’s truth-value.
A second passage from the New Essays on Human
Understanding presents further evidence for the view that
Leibniz distinguishes between predication and alethic
evaluation. Here is what his spokesman Theophilus says:
A reason is a known truth whose connection with
some less well-known truth leads us to give our
assent to the latter. (A 6.6.475/RB 475)
We affirm a found derivative truth (‘a less well-known
truth’) in light of known truths or reasons. Hence, to think
of a found derivative proposition ‘as one should’ so as to
come to justifiably affirm it is to think of it in the light of
reasons that speak in favour of its truth. Leibniz indicates
here that finding a derivative truth is different from
approving it, i.e. different from evaluating it as true.
Finding the derivative truth that p consists in merely con-
ceiving that p, not in judging that p. Again, Leibniz sepa-
rates the act of predication from the act of alethic
evaluation.
In sum, while the considered textual evidence for a
conflation of predication and evaluation in Leibniz does not
turn out to be decisive, at least in the New Essays on
Human Understanding there is considerable textual evi-
dence in favour of the view that Leibniz keeps predication
separate from evaluation and that he thus does not hold a
judgement account of predication.47 Instead, Leibniz holds
47
Leibniz also talks about judging what one represents, indicating
that these are distinct acts, see Opera Philosophica Omnia I, 419–420.
Judgement in Leibniz’s Conception of the Mind: Predication, Affirmation, and Denial
a two-component account of judgement that does not fall
prey to conflating predicating and evaluating.
2.2 The Acts of Affirmation and Denial
Having seen that Leibniz holds a two-component account
of judgment, let us deepen our analysis and take a closer
look at his account of the acts of alethic evaluation. In
Sect. 1.3 we have learned that, for Leibniz, judgement
results from an examination of reasons in favour of and
against the truth of a proposition p in response to the
question as to whether p is true or not. Hence our question
is: what are the evaluative acts like that result from an
activity of examining reasons in favour of or against the
truth or falsehood of a proposition p in response to a
whether-question concerning p? Although in one list of
definitions Leibniz acknowledges that it is difficult to
explain what it is to affirm and to deny,48 other texts at
least suggest a particular view on these two acts.
One conception of affirmation and denial understands
them as a special form of predicating. According to it, the
acts of affirming and denying consist in the acts of predi-
cating truth and falsehood. Affirming that p would then
come down to thinking that p is true; and denying that
p would come down to thinking that p is false. The pred-
icative account of affirmation and denial faces a problem,
though. Once predication is distinguished from alethic
evaluation so as to make room for acts of merely con-
ceiving, the acts of affirmation and denial no longer allow
for explanation in terms of specific types of predicating,
not even in terms of predication of truth and falsehood.
Predicating just is not evaluating truth, no matter what is
predicated of what. Predicating as such only leads to an act
of merely conceiving; and merely conceiving that a
proposition is true or false is not affirming it or denying,
i.e. evaluating it as true or evaluating it as false.
But Leibniz might be unaware of this problem and
nevertheless understand the act of judgement as an act of
predicating truth. Does he? In a short logical text from
1686 entitled De Vero et Falso, Affirmatione et Negatione,
et de Contradictoriis he characterises affirmation as
follows:
Affirmation is enunciation of an enunciation, saying
that the latter is true. (A 6.4.737)
Here, an affirmation is meant to be a linguistic act of the
form ‘p is true’ or ‘It is true that p’. If we understand
Leibniz in this passage as not referring to an act of merely
saying, but to an act of asserting, the passage suggests that
he holds a predicative account of affirmative assertion
according to which to assert affirmatively that p is to say
48
See C 497.
that p is true. And one might think that the same must then
hold true on the mental level of judging as well. But a few
lines later Leibniz implicitly rejects this view. He writes:
Enunciation and affirmation of the enunciation are
equivalent, i.e., the enunciation itself commands
[jubet] by itself that its truth is to be affirmed. (A
6.4.737)
Leibniz states here that an enunciation of p and the
affirmation that the enunciation that p is true are equiva-
lent; they are substitutable salve veritate. More important
for our concern is the second part of the sentence, in which
Leibniz says that the enunciation of p commands (‘jubet’)
the affirmation of its truth. As so often, it is not fully clear
whether Leibniz is referring to an act of merely saying or
an act of asserting that p. But his talk of ‘commanding’ the
affirmation of the enunciation’s truth suggests that he has
an assertion in mind and that he wants to claim that
assertive force does not consist in predicating truth or
falsehood. In any case, the latter passage shows that the
former passage is not an expression of a predicative
account of affirmation and denial. Assuming that he is
concerned with acts of asserting in this document, then
assertive force does not require predication of truth or
falsehood. Nor would ‘judgemental force’ require mental
predication of truth or falsehood. The act of affirmation
that Leibniz defines here as an enunciation of an enuncia-
tion does not provide assertive force, but only makes lin-
guistically explicit a feature that is already incorporated in
the original enunciation.
But what do acts of alethic evaluation then consist in for
Leibniz? To my knowledge, passages in which Leibniz
elaborates on this question are scarce. Yet, even if some-
what speculatively, I would like to propose a suggestion as
to what Leibniz’s position could be like in view of the way
in which he characterizes judgements as a result of an
examination of reasons. We have seen above that Leibniz
considers substances to be immaterial forces. They are
permanently active in that they exhibit at each moment of
their existence an infinite manifold of strivings. These
strivings aim at bringing about accurate non-conceptual
perceptions and in the case of minds also true conceptual
thoughts.
How do acts of affirmation and denial fit into Leibniz’s
metaphysical picture of minds as forces? As we have seen,
acts of affirmation and denial do not consist in predications
of truth and falsehood; nor can they be explained in terms
of other kinds of predication. Against the backdrop of his
metaphysics of minds, according to which minds only
exhibit strivings and representational states (perceptions
and thoughts), Leibniz thus seems to be committed to
accounting for these acts in terms of strivings. How might
this work? To begin with, we have seen that acts of
123

judgement have their home in the context of an examina-
tion of reasons in response to whether-questions. Now,
posing a whether-question—asking oneself internally
whether p is true or not—and addressing this question are
manifestations of cognitive attention. This cognitive
attention is constituted by strivings eventually aiming at
answering the whether-question. I will call these strivings
‘judgement strivings’. By means of sub-ordinated epis-
temic strivings they effect that the cognitive activity of the
mind is focused on answering the whether-question and
engages in the examination of reasons.
Consider the case of a subject who has heard of
Pythagoras’ theorem for the first time. For Leibniz, this
proposition would count as an innate truth. This means that
there is an innate disposition—a judgement striving—to
find and to justifiably affirm the theorem. However, cog-
nitive effort (reasoning) is required in order to enter the
frame of mind in which these active dispositions become
unimpeded and a justified act of affirmative judgement
occurs. At the beginning, the subject neither affirms nor
denies the theorem she has heard of or found in herself.
Next, if the subject wills to find out whether the theorem is
true or not and poses a whether-question to herself, the
judgement striving that aims at answering the question in
the affirmative turns effective. As a result, the cognitive
activity that examines reasons concerning the theorem gets
started. If the resulting reasoning is successful, a justified
affirmative judgement concerning the theorem occurs and
the subject comes to actually know the theorem’s truth.
The examination of reasons begins with a search for
relevant reasons from memory and acts in which these
reasons come to consciousness. Now, the reasons searched
for are propositional contents the subject believes to be
true. These beliefs are active dispositions in memory; they
are active dispositions to bring the believed proposition to
awareness under appropriate conditions. But where do
these dispositions come from? How are they established?
The answer put forward here is, of course: through acts of
affirmation. By affirming a proposition, the subject
acquires the belief that the proposition is true, i.e. a new
memory disposition gets established. Or more precisely:
The memory disposition the actualisation of which brings
the proposition p to consciousness in an act of merely
conceiving that p changes into a belief. This implies that
the actualisations of the disposition are allowed to play the
role of premises in reasonings that respond to whether-
questions. And since Leibniz understands dispositions as
strivings, affirmation establishes strivings that aim at
bringing premises to consciousness for further knowledge-
expanding reasoning. Now, we have seen that affirmation
can rest on intuition (primitive truths) or on reasoning
(derivative truths). Affirmations that rest on reasoning and
concern derivative truths are judgements. Hence,
123
C. Barth
affirmative judgements are acts that establish dispositional
beliefs concerning derivative truths and, in doing so, make
derivative truths available as reasons for future reasoning
in response to whether-questions. The upshot is that the act
of affirming a proposition as a result of an examination of
reasons comes down to an act of establishing a disposi-
tional belief stored in memory; and in virtue of this belief, a
further reason—the content of the belief—has become
available for future reasoning. Acts of affirmation then are
acts of changing the structure of memory dispositions. Acts
of merely thinking that p, in contrast, do not establish
beliefs in memory and, thus, do not make new reasons
available for future reasoning.
And what about denying? Again, negative judgement
is the consequence of an examination of reasons in
response to the question whether p is true or not. But
what does the act of denial consist in? We said that
affirmation consists in an act of establishing a belief in
memory to the effect that a further reason is available for
future reasoning. This belief consists in a striving that
aims at bringing the proposition to consciousness in order
to be employed as a premise. This striving will mostly be
impeded, but might be realised in some future reasoning.
And, importantly, once the affirmed proposition is ren-
dered conscious in the context of an examination of
reasons, it has the potency—usually in cooperation with
other reasons—to bring new conclusions to conscious-
ness, i.e. to ‘un-impede’ judgement strivings that have
been impeded so far. In this sense, affirmed propositional
contents contribute to the augmentation of the subject’s
actual knowledge. Denied propositions, by contrast, are
contents that do not possess this potency of contributing
to reasoning and of broadening the subject’s knowledge.
In Leibniz’s framework, this need not mean that denied
propositional contents might not come to consciousness
in an examination of reasons at all. However, if they do
so they do not play the role of a premise in reasoning
that aims at answering a whether-question. Denied
propositional contents are expelled from this epistemic
role. Hence, acts of denial also lead to an establishing of
active dispositions in memory. They establish active
dispositions to bring to consciousness propositional con-
tents, but—in contrast to acts of affirmation—they do not
function as fodder for inferences in contexts of answering
whether-questions. They establish ‘disbeliefs’ rather than
beliefs. This is the major mark that distinguishes acts of
denial from acts of affirmation in Leibniz’s framework.
The characteristic role Leibniz attributes to acts of
judgement can then be described as follows:
(a) Affirmative judgements make propositions available
as premises for future reasoning in response to a
whether-question. This means that reasoning that
Judgement in Leibniz’s Conception of the Mind: Predication, Affirmation, and Denial
aims at answering a whether-question now provides
a context in which the proposition can come to
consciousness in order to be employed as a premise.
In this context, the striving to bring this proposition
to consciousness can now get unimpeded.
(b) The act of denial in negative judgements bans
propositions from playing the role of premises in
reasoning that aims at answering a whether-question.
It might still be that negatively judged propositions
occur as premises in hypothetical reasonings that
start with counterfactual or even counterpossible
premises. But reasoning in response to a whether-
question starts with premises that are believed to be
true, and negatively judged propositions do not fall
into this category. Hence, the disposition to bring a
proposition, which is negatively judged, to con-
sciousness in order to employ it as a premise, will be
impeded in the context of reasoning with the aim of
answering a whether-question.
Apart from judging affirmatively or negatively, a subject
can also withhold judgement. Withholding judgement
should not be understood as an act in its own right, but
rather as absence of judgement. A subject withholds
judgement as long as the examination of reasons in
response to a whether-question has not been successful or
has not yet started. Such propositions are also not available
for playing the role of premises in reasoning that is sup-
posed to answer a whether-question. However, in contrast
to negatively judged propositions, they are potential objects
of whether-questions.49
3 Conclusion
In this paper I have argued that acts of judgement are
central to Leibniz’s conception of the mind. For Leibniz,
minds permanently strive for actualising innate knowledge.
The actualisation of virtual knowledge concerning deriva-
tive truths happens by means of judgements. Acts of
judgement result from reasoning in response to a whether-
question concerning a derivative proposition p, i.e. a
question that asks whether p is true or not. Furthermore, I
have argued that Leibniz neither understands predication in
terms of the evaluative acts of affirmation and denial nor
49
Once propositions have become the object of a whether-question
they are allowed to play the role of a premise in indirect proofs
(reductio ad absurdum) in which their falsehood is revealed by
deducing a contradiction. One reviewer raised the point that
negatively judged propositions can be reconsidered. For instance,
one can check the reasons for the previous negative judgement or
search for new reasons that might speak in favour of the proposition’s
truth. However, in such cases the question is not whether p, but
whether the denial that p is well-founded.
does he understand the evaluative acts of affirmation and
denial as predications of truth and falsehood. Leibniz nei-
ther holds a judgement account of predication nor a pred-
icative account of (the evaluative aspect of) judgement.
Instead, he holds a two-component account that distin-
guishes between predication and alethic evaluation. Fur-
thermore, according to this account the evaluative acts of
affirmation and denial are understood as acts of changing
the structure of memory dispositions, i.e. of the strivings
that compose memory. They group propositions into those
that are licensed to play a role as a premise in reasoning in
response to whether-questions and those that are not
licensed to play this role. Affirmation and denial are acts of
disposition change.
Acknowledgments I would like to thank the participants of the
conference ‘Perception and Negative Beliefs—from Plato to Kant’
(Hamburg, August 28–29, 2014) for helpful discussions on the
paper’s topics. I would also like to thank the editors and the reviewers
for their comments on the text.
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