The grounding of phenomenal continuity: Re-evaluation of Whitehead's criticism of Leibniz

This paper offers a new look at Whitehead's criticism of Leibniz's metaphysics and at the role this criticism plays in the broader context of Whitehead's philosophy. A re-evaluation of Whitehead's reading is called for since he takes his own system as an elaboration of the Leibnizian one, and as an effort to overcome what he deemed its major difficulties. Whitehead's alternative, which is formulated in terms of real connectivity among basic constituents, is aimed at solving what he takes to be the most problematic issue within Leibniz's system, namely, the analysis of phenomenal continuity. However, I claim that Whitehead's criticism obscures the fact that he is much closer to Leibniz than he is willing to admit.