Rationalism and speculation: Method and *repetition in Leibniz and Hegel

This dissertation explores the emergence of repetition as a methodological concept in G. W. Leibniz's philosophical writings and G. W. F. Hegel's Science of Logic. I suggest that (1) a confrontation with Leibniz's explicit reliance on the concept of repetition transforms our understanding of Early Modern philosophical methodology, (2) a grasp of this transformation was an essential element in the formulation of Hegel's method and thus constitutive for the development of central aspects of German Idealism, and (3) this conjunction between Leibnizian metaphysical principles and Hegelian method is a decisive moment for the conceptual history of repetition. In Chapter 1, I argue that Leibniz's articulation of the distinction between organic and aggregational substances defines and depends on a particularly powerful sense of ontological repetition. In seeking to constitute a coherent notion of singularity, I demonstrate, Leibniz explicates individuality in terms of its repetition of totality. In Chapter 2, I defend the position that Leibniz's obsession with the constitution of encyclopedic categorical structures for the totality of human knowledge offers one of the clearest formal developments of repetition as a methodological principle. In Chapter 3, I give an account of the importance of Hegel's reception of Leibniz and of the philosophical role of Leibnizian figures in the Logic. By distinguishing Hegel's theory of philosophical refutation and from Kant's, I demonstrate that Hegel subjects the principles of repetition implicit in Leibniz to a method constituted through systematic return and conceptual circularity. My final chapter uses Leibniz's impact on Hegel to suggest that the latter's notion of an immanent, self-developing method should be understood as more than the progressive unfolding of a series of logical moments and stances. It is also, I argue, the permutation of methodological standpoints in and through a strong form of structural repetition.