Leibniz

Ok, I promised myself to write this after I read up on Descartes and Spinoza. However, I've delayed for several months now, and I think it's probably because some primal, intuitive part of me screamed 'Do Not Go There!'

Oh well, no more procrastinating!

From:

- Roger Scruton's A Short History of Modern Philosophy: From Descartes to Wittgenstein, 2nd ed.
- The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Leibniz

The starting point: Spinoza & the individual
- Recall Spinoza's argument that individuals are mere expressions of God (modes of the substance).
- Spinoza also argued that therefore, immortality for humans means "[surviving] in part, and [dispersing] in the infinite mind of God." (Scruton, 65)
- Leibniz thought that if individuals are mere expressions of God, then they are
not truly individuals, and immortality has no meaning if the human does not remain an individual.
- Problem: how to reconcile the notion of the 'individual' with the notion of the 'divine substance'?


Ok, now let's start with certain principles first:
Principle of Contradiction
- If something is self-contradictory, then it is false
- Anything that is the opposite of the false is true.
- The Principle of Contradiction identifies truths of reason.
- Truths of reason are necessary.
- A necessary truth/truth of reason is true in all possible worlds.
- A necessary truth/truth of reason is knowable a priori by finite minds.

Principle of Sufficient Reason
- We can find no truth without there being a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise, even though most of these reasons can't be known to us.
- The Principle of Sufficient Reason identifies truths of fact.
- Truths of fact are contingent.
- A contingent truth/truth of fact is only knowable a posteriori by finite minds, through experimentation and investigation.
- Only God knows contingent truths a priori.
- While acknowledging the existence of contingent truths, Leibniz still wanted to base these truths on reason, avoiding 'pure' contingency.

The Predicate-in-Subject Principle
- In every necessary or contingent truth, the concept of the predicate is included in that of the subject.
- In other words, one who understands the subject perfectly would also know that the predicate belongs to it.

Ok, now we move on.

Monads
- Entities are either composite or simple.
- Composite entities are divisible and extended.
- Simple entities are Monads.
- Monads:
- are indivisible (true substances)
- cannot be extended
- can be distinguished from each other by their predicates (properties)
- can't be created/destroyed by the natural course of things -- can only be created/destroyed by a miracle
- Every monad has a Complete Notion.
- A complete notion is a complete list of its predications.
- Each monad's complete notion is unique -- while it might share some of its predications with other monads, no monad shares a complete list of predications.
- A living force (vis viva) generates monads' perceptions.
- The living force also allows us to individuate monads even if we do not know their complete notions.
- An example of a monad is the human soul.

Leibniz "rejects the dualist position that the universe must therefore be bifurcated into two different kinds of substance, thinking substance, and material substance. Rather, it is his view that the world consists solely of one type of substance, though there are infinitely many substances of that type. These substances are partless, unextended entities, some of which are endowed with thought and consciousness, and others of which found the phenomenality of the corporeal world." (S1, para. 15, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/)

God
- God is a monad.
- God is a perfect being.
- Therefore God's complete notion can contain no negative predications. (would violate Principle of Contradiction)
- God has to exist because the existent of contingent things cannot be found in other contingent things (first cause argument - God as an entity that 'carries the reason for existence within itself')
- This world is the best of all possible worlds - God being perfect, cannot create a world that not as good as it could have been.


Problem: Contingent vs Necessary Truths
- Consider the statement 'Caesar crossed the Rubicon'
- The complete notion of 'Caesar' includes the predicated 'crossed the Rubicon' (Predicate-in-Subject Principle)
- One who did not cross the Rubicon cannot be Caesar.
- 'Caesar crossed the Rubicon' is a necessary truth. (Principle of Contradiction)
- In that case, all statements that are not illogical satisfy the Principle of Contradiction, and become necessary truths.
- How do we distinguish between contingent and necessary truths then?
Leibniz:
- If Caesar's existence was a necessary truth, that Caesar crossed the Rubicon would be a necessary truth.
- But since Caesar's existence is contingent on God creating him, there is the possibility that Caesar might not have existed and therefore might not have crossed the Rubicon, and therefore, that Caesar crossed the Rubicon is not a necessary truth.

Leading to the next problem...

Problem: Divine Freedom
- Since God is by nature perfect, he has to create the best possible world.
- Therefore God has no freedom to create a world other than this world.
- If this is so, why should humans thank God for making a decision in which he has no choice?
The crux: 2 conceptions of freedom:
1. Freedom as being free from external interference - no one intervened in God's decision to create this world and therefore, God freely made this world.
2. Freedom as being free to choose one decision or the other - God would not have been able to choose a lesser world without retaining his complete perfection and therefore, God did not freely make this world.
The implications for Caesar: (this is my extrapolation, so pls pls pls tell me if something is wrong)
- That God created the best possible world is a necessary truth.
- This best possible world contained Caesar, so Caesar's existence is necessary.
- Since Caesar's existence is necessary, Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon is necessary.
- Therefore we return to the same quagmire of distinguishing between necessary and contingent truths.

[Note: Leibniz's phrase that God's motives 'incline without necessitating' means that although God's nature makes his actions necessary, but this doesn't mean his actions are necessary (as opposed to contingent - see above Principle of Contradiction and Principle of Sufficient Reason).]

Living Organisms: Mind and Body
- A living organism is an aggregate of many monads.
- "For something to be a genuine unity, it must be a simple, indivisible entity. [ie. monads]" ( S1, para.11, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-mind/)
- Therefore while a living organism is an aggregate, it is a 'well-founded phenomena' in that it is constituted of monads (genuine entities).
- Leibniz believed that mind and body are separate, but also believed that they were created by the same sort of entity (different types of monads).
- Leibniz rejected Descartes' claim that the mind can influence the body, or that the body can influence the mind.
- Since an individual is an aggregate and not a true unity, and individual cannot have a perception/consciousness.
- Hence, Leibniz rejects any causal relations between mind and body.
- Leibniz recognizes that our minds and bodies seem inter-related.
- But he suggests that a state of mind is caused by a previous state of mind, and a state of body is caused by a previous state of body.
- Leibniz posits that at our creation, our monads (in both mind and body) were programmed to coordinate with each other.
- Hence, the appearance of causal relations between the mind and body is merely the result of God's Pre-Established Harmony of all monads.
- Because all monads evolve in harmony with each other, each monad is like a mirror of the universe.

Perception and Appearance
- Monads cannot be extended, and therefore they do not occupy time or space.
- The physical objects appear to follow natural laws of time and space, but these natural laws don't operate at the 'genuine' level of monads.
- Therefore, the appearance of the world is organised and understood in ways that don't represent the underlying reality. (Scruton)
- But the world of appearance is a by-product of activities of monads (which act according to the pre-established harmony).
- Hence, the world of appearance is not just mere appearance. It is systematic appearance, the result of the harmonious activities of monads.

Back to the Beginning
- Leibniz tries to address the problem of the disappearance of individuals.
- He ends up saying that most of what looks like a unity (an individual) is not truly a unit but an aggregate.

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I'm not at all sure of any of the above. I nearly killed myself trying to get this far. I left out the stuff on whether there IS a best possible world, or whether there're worlds that are neither better nor worse nor equal to each other etc.

Anyone out there, please, if I've made an mistake or if you think anything can be clarified, please please please tell me.