In the `Preliminary Dissertation' of his Theodicy,  Leibniz declares himself an apologist for the compatibilist doctrines  of original sin, election and reprobation propounded by the  theologians of the Augsburg Confession. According to those  theologians, man's actions are determined but man retains the power to  act otherwise and therefore is responsible for his actions. Savage  argues that Leibniz, in formulating his apology, availed himself of  both his doctrine of possible worlds and his finite-infinite  analysis distinction (the latter being applied within the former).  Savage challenges the dogma that Leibniz's metaphysical principles  entail that individuals are powerless to act otherwise and that God  cannot conceive of them acting otherwise. He argues that interpreters  deduce the dogma from those principles with the aid of dubious  extra-textual premises, for example, that a Leibnizian individual has  only one complete concept or cannot be persons other than the person  it actually is.

Real Alternatives, Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Choice PDF

The list of books you might like