Sensation and Resistance: Leibniz on Passivity and Confused Perception

This paper will start from some youthful Leibnizian reflections on sense per- ception, in which his early account of corporeal resistance plays a central role. By showing the evolution of these ideas in his writings of the subsequent decades, I will argue for an account of the connection between passive power and confused perception that acknowledges materia metaphysica as a real constituent of monads, pointing towards a reading of Leibniz’s later philosophy that is coherent with the principles of his Dynamics.