An essay on Leibniz's possible world-system

Abstract

The main reason why Leibniz talked about 'possible worlds' outside the actual world was to defend God's freedom to be able to choose the best among many. And the system was apparently described from God's point of view. Thus it appears the system was just for the modality concerned with God, not with us. But in the passage contained in his letter to Arnauld we can find a hint that his possible world-system was also established for the structual basis of 'our' modality. And the point there is, I think, some relativization of the actual world among other possible worlds. This can be done by discriminating two different levels of possible worlds, which requires also some structual change of the actual world.