PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES OF LEIBNIZ'S THEORY OF NATURAL LAW
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17721/2523-4064.2025/12-7/23Keywords:
natural law, rationalism, voluntarism, philosophy of law, metaphysics, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Hugo Grotius, Samuel Pufedorf, Thomas Hobbes.Abstract
B a c k g r o u n d . The paper is devoted to the study of the philosophical principles of Leibniz's philosophy of law and their influence on the formation of the main ideas of his metaphysics. The author holds that the young Leibniz's interest in the philosophical principles of law was from the very beginning determined by his plan to develop such an incontrovertible system of law that could become the basis of all-German legislation.
M e t h o d s . In the paper, the main attention is paid to the confrontation of two crucial directions in the philosophy of law of the Modern Age – rationalist (Hugo Grotius) and voluntarist (Thomas Hobbes and Samuel Pufendorf). To clarify Leibniz's philosophical position and his attitude to these concepts, the author turns to the analysis of Leibniz's critical arguments. The purpose of the article is to clarify how the basic principles of Leibniz's philosophy of law were formed and how they influenced the formation of his metaphysics.
R e s u l t s . Based on a comparative analysis of these arguments, it is argued that Leibniz's transition to the positions of rationalism and idealism already in the early 1770s is explained primarily by the shortcomings of the voluntarist conception of law. When developing his first draft of metaphysics (1686), Leibniz uses the same arguments that he elaborated in the process of criticizing the voluntarist approach to law. These arguments formed the basis of both his philosophy of law and his metaphysics.
C o n c l u s i o n s . It has been established that Leibniz's philosophy can be called the philosophy of freedom, and his philosophy of natural law – liberal. Leibniz had a negative attitude towards the philosophy of law of Pufedorf, who rejected the teleological justification of the principles of the philosophy of law and tried to build his system of law on an axiomatic, naturalistic and voluntaristic basis. Leibniz's philosophy of law should be attributed to the rationalist tradition, which goes from the Stoics to Hugo Grotius, but radically improved by the principles of Plato's philosophy.
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