Harvard History of Philosophy Workshop

Anat Schechtman (University of Texas at Austin), Leibnitz (and Aquinas) on Qualitative Infinity.

Leibniz holds that God is the ens perfectissimum, an absolutely perfect being, who possesses all perfections to the highest degree. He also holds that perfections are simple, positive, maximal, and metaphysically prior to imperfections. It follows that their infinity cannot be that of quantities, whose infinity is “formed by the addition of parts” (New Essays II.vxii). In what sense, then, are perfections infinite? This paper attempts to answer this question by drawing on a historical precedent: Aquinas’s account of qualitative degrees. At its core is a relation Aquinas calls ‘participation,’ which holds between a simple, positive, maximal quality (e.g., unqualified whiteness) and a subject (e.g., snow). A reconstruction of Aquinas’s account shows that it fits with Leibniz’s views about perfection, and can be used to formulate Leibniz’s theory of the infinity of perfections (as well as the finitude of imperfections) and, concomitantly, the infinity of God.