The Monadology (Monadologie, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz’s works that best define his philosophy, monadism. Written toward the end of his life in order to support a metaphysics of simple substances, the Monadology is thus about formal atoms which are not physical but metaphysical.
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Ground
The rational ground given by Leibniz to the monads in his works is quintuple:
- Mathematical, through infinitesimal calculus and its antiatomistic conclusions (against materialists like Epicurus, Lucretius and Gassendi). Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and Titus Lucretius Carus (ca 99 BC- ca 55 BC was a Roman Poet and Philosopher.
- Physical, through the living forces theory and its implicit criticism to Cartesian dynamics, whose experimental errors were shown by Leibniz himself.
- Metaphysical, through the principle of sufficient reason, which, like Ockham’s Razor, cannot be infinitely multiplied and needs a start in every action. Metaphysics is the branch of Philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular science The principle of sufficient reason (also called the Causal Doctrine) states that anything that happens does so for a definite Reason. Occam's razor (sometimes spelled Ockham's razor) is a principle attributed to the 14th-century English Logician and Franciscan Friar,
- Psychological, through postulation of innate ideas, especially in the New Essays on Human Understanding, which inspired Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg The Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is one
- Biological, through the theory of preformation or encasement of the bodies and its functional subdivision in its organic development. Foundations of modern biology There are five unifying principles
Text
The Monadology is written in ninety short logical paragraphs, each generally following on from the previous. Its name is due to the fact that Leibniz, imitating Marsilio Ficino, Giordano Bruno and Anne Conway, wanted to keep together the meanings of “monas” (in Greek, “unity”) and “logos (λογος)” (“treatise” or “science”, literally "word" or "reason"). Marsilio Ficino ( Latin name Marsilius Ficinus; October 19 1433 - October 1 1499) was one of the most influential humanist Giordano Bruno (1548 – February 17, 1600) was an Italian Philosopher best-known as an early proponent of Heliocentrism and Anne (nee Finch Conway Viscountess Conway ( 14 December 1631 – February 18, 1679) was an English Philosopher whose work in the Therefore, the Monadology came to be the monad’s treatise or the science of the unity.
The text is reasoned in a dialectical way, facing questions and problems that help the reader to advance in his learning. Thus, for instance, it can be accepted that composed bodies are something derived, extended, phenomenical or repeated according to simple substances (which will be later expressed by Kant in his dichotomy phenomena-noumena). Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg Is the soul a monad? If the answer is affirmative, then the soul is a simple substance. If it is an aggregate of matter, then it cannot be a monad.
What is a monad?
- See Monad for uses outside of Monadology.
Monads are non-extended, soul-like, metaphysical simples. Every body at the phenomenal level is a representation of a monad. These monads have no causal relationship to one another, or to any other monads, and the intrinsic properties of each Monad unfold in accordance with their 'Appetitions. ' The bodies that the monads represent at the phenomenal level have the appearance of causal interaction through what Leibniz called pre-established harmony.
Our souls are of a special kind of monad, termed dominant, or rational, monads. These dominant monads give us consciousness, which is a reflection on what happens to us, and which Leibniz terms apperception. All other simple monads have two basic qualities, appetite and perception, while some monads also have memory.
Monads are eternal, having existed since God created each one, indestructible, and immutable.
Controversy in Rationalism
When it was written, the Monadology tried to put an end from a monist point of view to the main question of what is reality, and particularly to the problem of communication of substances, both studied by Descartes. Thus, Leibniz offered a new solution to mind and matter interaction by means of a pre-established harmony; in other words, he drew the relationship between “the kingdom of final causes”, or teleological ones, and “the kingdom of efficient causes”, or mechanical ones, which was not causal, but synchronous. Causality (but not causation) denotes a necessary relationship between one event (called cause and another event (called effect) which is the direct consequence Synchronicity is the Experience of two or more events which are causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner So, monads and matter are only apparently linked, and there is not even any communication between different monads, as far as they act according to their degree of distinction only, as they were influenced by bodies, and vice versa.
Leibniz fought against the Cartesian dualist system in his Monadology and tried to surpass it through a metaphysical system considered at the same time monist (since only the unextended is substantial) and pluralist (as far as substances are disseminated in the world in an infinite number). In Philosophy of mind, dualism is a set of views about the relationship between mind and matter which begins with the claim that mental phenomena are in some For that reason the monad is an irreducible force, which makes it possible for the bodies to have the characteristics of inertia and impenetrability, and which contains in itself the source of all its actions. Monads are the first elements of every composed thing.
Paradoxes
Monads are manifest, since they are everywhere, and there is no extension without monads. They are, then, the plenum, that is to say, the condition of an infinitely dense universe, but nevertheless they are unextended. However, this doesn’t mean that they lack of any function (as far as they project and reflect force), matter (since they come with it) or that they are extended (considering that they don’t interact with anything in the world).
Extended matter would be the impenetrable quality of the unextended—the monad, without any doors or windows—as passively transmitted according to movements which, together with perception and apperception, compose action. In spite of that, monad cannot remain placed in matter, which follows the monad itself, previously to the generation of matter in time. So, extension and monads coexist acausally by the means of a timeless creation, although they are reciprocally bound according to the appearances.
In brief, Leibniz states that matter is extended, but not only extended. It is, in addition, formed by unextended monads. Then, is matter both extended and unextended? No, accepting that, as far as monad constitutes matter, matter is nothing in itself, as an isolated being.
Philosophical conclusions
This theory leads to:
1. Idealism, since it denies things in themselves (besides monads) and multiplies them in different points of view. Monads are “perpetual living mirrors of the universe”.
2. Metaphysical optimism, through the principle of sufficient reason, developed as follows:
a) Everything exists according to a reason (by the axiom "Nothing arises from nothing");
b) Everything which exists has a sufficient reason to exist;
c) Everything which exists is better than anything non-existent (by the first point: since it is more rational, it also has more reality), and, consequently, it is the best possible being in the best of all possible worlds (by the axiom: "That which contains more reality is better than that which contains less reality"). The principle of sufficient reason (also called the Causal Doctrine) states that anything that happens does so for a definite Reason. Optimism The phrase " the best of all possible worlds " (le meilleur des mondes possibles was coined by the German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz
The “best of possible worlds”, then, is that “containing the greatest variety of phenomena from the smallest amount of principles”.
External links
- English translation (1898), by Robert Latta
- English translation and commentary (1999), by George MacDonald Ross
- French, Latin and Spanish edition (1981), with facsimil of Leibniz's manuscript, and introduction by Gustavo Bueno
- A Computational Model of Monadology, by Eric Steinhart
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