Possibilité et existentiabilité chez Leibniz

It is well-known that Leibniz’s ontology as it were traces the shortest path from possibility to existence. The fact is measured less that this line is covered by stages, the first of which is assuredly the existentiability of possibles. This article first examines Leibniz’s conception of possibility by means of five definitions. It then analyses the nature and role of this existentiability in its relations to possibility, on the one hand, and existence, on the other, and concludes finally with the existentialism of an author whose essentialism is usually emphasized. In this way possibility and existentiability make it possible to discover again a whole area of Leibniz’s thought (translated by J. Dudley).