Leibniz’s Modal Metaphysics: The Explanation of Contingency Towards 1686 and the Global Mature Conception

Abstract

If God is the sufficient reason for this world, then it seems to follow that every event is a necessary consequence of a necessary being. In order to avoid this conclusion, Leibniz states, during the 1670’s, a modal conception that grounds contingency on a logical feature which is intrinsic to the ideas of things: the possibility of conceiving the opposite idea without contradiction. Towards 1686, Leibniz complements this first conception with what he considered to be his definitive solution to the problem of contingency: the theory of infinite analysis. However, in other writings from the same year, he proposes two different ways to explain contingency. This paper suggests that this plurality of models converges in a global conception of modalities, which lies at the background of Leibniz’s modal thought.