PROLEGOMENA TO ONTOLOGY

...[a man] endowed [with such talent], who was greatly harassed because of his cultivation of the Cartesian philosophy (on which matter one should examine the treatise by Lentulus Cyriacus Lentulus (1520–1678) was a German philosopher and opponent of Descartes. titled: Descartes Triumphed Over and the New Wisdom Convicted of Folly and Blasphemy original title: "Cartesius triumphatus & Nova sapientia ineptiarum & blasphemiæ convicta", published in Frankfurt am Main in the year 1653 in quarto). He had attempted a reform of first philosophy in his Metaphysics of Being original: "Metaphysica de ente", the third edition of which appeared in Amsterdam in 1664 in quarto; but he was not entirely successful. For this reason, Leibniz, a candid herald of Clauberg’s merits, in the Leibnizian Miscellanies edited by Joachim Friedrich Feller at Leipzig in 1718 in octavo, Part 2, number 85, page 181, still reckoned "first philosophy" (in the place cited) among those things yet to be sought.

Nor is it so strange that this "sovereign science," as Leibniz rightly calls it (in the place cited), has not yet been freed from the contempt with which it struggles. Indeed, a scientific treatment of first philosophy is more difficult than that of Mathematics, since the things that correspond to metaphysical notions do not fall under the senses or the imagination in the same way that mathematical things do, nor are they as easily brought back to examination.

Even if the Scholastics Scholastics Scholasticism was the traditional method of philosophy and theology taught in European universities, often criticized by Enlightenment thinkers for its complexity and reliance on tradition. were unable to pour the desired light upon Ontology, their merits in this science are not for that reason nonexistent. For I have discovered that clear notions, however confused, correspond to the terms of the Scholastics; thus I understood that they are by no means empty, as is commonly thought (§ 38 Logic). Indeed, where I had found distinct notions of certain primary things, I learned that the very etymology of the terms often points the way toward finding the notions that should be joined with them (§ 914 Logic). Now, clear notions—even if confused—are the beginning of human knowledge (§ 80, 88 Logic); without them, no further progress can be hoped for, since the first distinct notions are obtained through the unfolding of confused ones acquired after the fact (§ 678, 682 Logic). In Wolff's logic, a "clear" notion allows one to recognize a thing, but a "confused" one means you cannot yet list its specific parts. A "distinct" notion is one where all the component parts are clearly understood and explained.

Since sharpness of mind is needed to see the abstract within the concrete (§ 110 Logic), it often happens that one who is able to progress successfully further cannot make the beginning. Cases not unlike this occur in Mathematics itself. Hence Leibniz, who excelled in sharpness, affirmed that he was performing the role of a whetstone. original: "se fungi vice cotis." This is an allusion to Horace’s Ars Poetica: "I shall play the part of a whetstone, which can make steel sharp, though it cannot cut itself." Leibniz meant he was sharpening the ideas of others even if he did not complete the work himself.

§. 8.

What is to be treated in Ontology.

Because Ontology deals with being in general (§ 1), it must demonstrate those things that belong to all beings, whether absolutely or under some given condition.

For example: Any two beings, A and B, are either similar or dissimilar. Therefore, the notions of similarity and dissimilarity must be explained in Ontology, and general principles of similarity and dissimilarity must be deduced from them.