Il «limite» e l’«illimitato» nella filosofia di Leibniz

In this paper I explore Leibniz’s concept of «limit» in his mature philosophy, showing its relationship not only with creatures’ essence – as several scholars have already remarked – but also with their nature. At first, I focus on the context and the general role played by original imperfection in Leibniz’s philosophy. Then, I discuss creatural limitation’s source and I explain to what extent we can define monads’ essential limit as non-being, and to what extent we can conceive it as privation. Finally, I present original imperfection as a means through which the infinite come into existence. For this reason, I focus also on natural limitation and its relation with the essential one. I show that while limited essence is one of monad’s existence condition, its natural limitation represents its effective situation. Nonetheless, substances always strive to new states, i. e. to change their current perceptions. Even though the source of activity is their perfection, I will argue that limit plays a fundamental role in perfection’s process of actualization and manifestation. From a leibnizian point of view, indeed, limits are means through which infinity of substances is proved.