The need for the body. Perspectives on expression

Abstract

Despite its centrality to Leibniz’ philosophy, the concept of expression has received partial and insufficient treatment in the academic literature. The treatment is partial, since the concept of expression is either interpreted only in the key of metaphysics, without specifying the nature of expressive relations as such; or, on the contrary, expression is treated only by analyzing the expressive relation in terms of isomorphism, without taking into consideration the metaphysical content of expression. These interpretative approaches not only exclude each other, but they also fail to consider a fundamental aspect of expression, i.e. the role of the monad’s own body as the place for its expressive point of view. The present paper both offers a reconstruction of the concept of expression that reconciles both of the interpretative approaches noted above, and highlights the need of the body for expressive actions.