부산대학교 도서관

Leibniz uses the adjective “blind” in various texts to characterise a type of thought or knowledge. This concept is sometimes associated with the adjective “symbolic”. In his famous 1684 article, “Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis”, he introduces the cogitatio caeca vel symbolica as one of the types of knowledge methodically classified in the text. Generally, the focus has been placed on the symbolic nature of this knowledge, since this is seen as a determining element in understanding the Leibnizian theory of knowledge based on the mediation of signs subject to rules of composition. In the background are the various Leibnizian projects of characteristica universalis. This is the angle from which we tend to approach the Leibnizian distinction, contrasting blind or symbolic knowledge, which is essentially mediate in nature, with intuitive knowledge, which depends on immediate vision of its objects. But how are we to accurately interpret the relationship to the act of seeing? Is this act not yet required in the Leibnizian conception of knowledge by signs? In other words, can such knowledge be deployed without the effective act of seeing? If this is the case, it seems that we need to re-examine the “blind” nature of this knowledge in the hope of shedding light on the real conditions of its effectuation, and, ipso facto, on some cognitive properties attributed to sight.