Benson М. The Philosophy of Leibniz
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200
The
Philosophy
of
Leibniz
In
short,
for
Leibniz
the
rational man's perceptions
do
give
him
informa-
tion about
a
world external
to
himself,
but
this
is not
because
the
world
is
qualitatively
similar
to his
perceptions; rather,
the
information
is
only
gleaned
via
scientific
laws that allow
us to
conclude,
from
the
features
of the
phenomena,
the
structure
of the
world they express.
Our
problem,
in
short,
is
to
discover
the
laws that relate appearance
to
reality. This view
is
related
to,
but
still quite
different
from, Russell's thesis
(as
found
in
Human Knowledge
and
elsewhere) that
our
perceptive experiences
give
us
knowledge only
of the
structure,
and not the
qualities,
of the
physical
world.
40
Although each monad
in the
universe perceives every other monad
at all
times,
the
perceptual states
of the
different
monads
differ
in
their "point
of
view"
as
well
as in the
degree
of
clarity with which they represent
a
given
portion
of the
whole.
Just
as the
same city viewed
from
different
sides
appears
to be
different
and to be,
as it
were, multiplied
in
perspectives,
so the
infinite multitude
of
simple substances,
which
seem
to be so
many different universes,
are
nevertheless only
the
perspective
of
a
single universe according
to the
different points
of
view
of
each
monad.
41
It
is not
obvious
how
monads
can
have
a
"point
of
view," since
it is
expressly
stated that they
do not
exist
in
space.
Our
model
in
chapter
4,
how-
ever,
shows that there
is
nothing particularly puzzling about
how
different
monads
can
express
or
"mirror"
the
same monad without themselves being
exactly
alike.
42
Indeed,
it
seems that this mirror feature automatically results
in
any
model that satisfies
the
other conditions specified
by
Leibniz.
By
contrast,
the
postulation
of
different
degrees
of
clarity
in the
percep-
tions
of
monads appears
to be
completely
ad
hoc. Despite
its
obvious utility
for
his
system, Leibniz's only explicit argument
for it is
that "otherwise each
monad would
be a
divinity."
The
nature
of the
monad being
to
represent, nothing
can
limit
it to
representing
only
a
part
of
things, though
it is
true that
its
representation
is
merely confused
as to the
details
of the
whole universe
and can be
distinct
for a
small part
of
things only, that
is,
for
those which
are the
nearest
or the
greatest
in
relation
to
each individual monad.
Otherwise each monad would
be a
divinity.
43
The
utility, however,
is
clear enough. Leibniz needs
to
account somehow
for
the
obvious
fact
that
our
perceptions
of
bodies,
that
is, of
certain monadic
aggregates,
appear unitary although
his
doctrines imply that each monad
in
the
aggregate
is
perceived individually.
He
also needs
to
explain
how it can
4(1
Russell
(1948),
256.
41
G
VI
616
#57
(L
648).
42
Vittorio
Mathieu
states that
if it
were
not for the
relative confusion
and
obscurity
in the
perceptions
of the
various
monads,
these monads could
not
differ
from
one
another
(Mathieu
1969,
11).
But our
model shows that this
is not the
case.
43
G
VI
616-17
#60 (L
648-49).
From
the
"Metaphysical Discussion with
Fardella"
(Stein
1888, 323):
"...
when
I
perceive
one
thing
or one
state
of a
thing,
I
always confusedly perceive
the
whole universe,
and the
more
perfectly
I
perceive
one
thing,
the
more properties
of
other
things
thereby become known
to
me."
Leibnizian
Substances
2
01
be, on his
theory, that
we are
more clearly aware
of our own
bodies than
of
the
rest
of the
world
and
that
in
general
we are
more clearly aware
of
bodies
that
are
relatively close
to us
than
of
things relatively
distant.
44
And, finally,
he
needs
to
explain
how his
theory
of
monadic perception
is
compatible with
the
observed
fact
that people
and
other living creatures
differ
greatly among
themselves
in
their knowledge
of the
world—not
to
mention
the
postulated
fact
that only
one
monad, namely, God, knows everything.
These
needs con-
stitute
the hoc of the
aforementioned
ad
hoc.
Thus,
by
positing monadic confusion, Leibniz endeavors
to
account
for
our
perception
of
physical objects
via the
claim that
we
confuse into single
phenomena
all our
"petite"
or
unconscious perceptions
of the
individual
monads
in the
underlying aggregates.
We
fail
to
distinguish
the
individual
perceptions,
he
says,
"in
much
the
same
way as
when
I
hear
the
noise
of the
sea,
I
hear
all of the
particular waves which make
up the
noise
as a
whole,
though without discerning
one
wave from
the
other."
45
(If he
were alive
today,
he
could illustrate
the
same point with
a
plethora
of
more graphic
examples, ranging
all the way
from
van
Gogh paintings
to
motion pictures
and
television images.)
That
we
perceive some things more clearly than
others,
as
well
as
that some souls
are
better informed
and
wiser than
the
rest,
is
"explained" similarly.
No
doubt
the
most striking
way in
which Leibniz
has
anticipated modern
theories
of
perception
is in his
insistence,
as
against Locke, Berkeley,
Descartes,
and
many others, that there
are
unconscious
perceptions.
46
He
argues
for
these
on
abstract grounds,
but he
also endeavors
to
give empirical
evidence
for the
hypothesis. Abstractly,
he
reasons that
a
monad cannot exist
without
having some
affects,
and the
affects
of
monads
are
their perceptions;
therefore, every monad
is
perceiving
at all
times.
47
To
this hardly convincing
pronouncement
he
adds
the
following empirical considerations, using
the
term
"perception"
in its
more familiar
sense.
48
1.
Whether
or not we are
conscious
of our
perceptions depends
on our
attention. After
we
have lived near
a
mill
or a
waterfall
for
some time,
we
no
longer take notice
of the
sound even though
our
sense organs
continue
to be
affected
as
before;
the
independent evidence
for
general psychophysical parallelism supports
the
conclusion that
in
such
a
situation
we are
still, though unconsciously, perceiving
the
sounds.
49
44
C
13,
G
VI
617
#62
(L
649).
45
GV16(NE
15).Cf.A.6.6.54,
G VI 534 (L
557),
G II 91, 113 (M
114,
145).
46
Thus sensation
(sensio)
is
only
one
kind
of
perception
(perceptio):
"sensation
is
per-
eeption that
involves
something distinct
and is
conjoined with attention
and
memory"
(G VII
330).
He
goes
on to say
that
to be in a
stupor
is to be
experiencing
a
confused
aggregate
of
many
petite
perceptions, with none that stands
out to
excite
the
attention.
47
G VI 610 #21 (L
645).
At
A.6.6.118
he
offers
the
further
a
priori argument that there
must
be
some thought that
is not
thought
of,
else there would
be an
infinite
regress.
48
A.6.6.112:
The
petite perceptions
manifest
themselves through their consequences.
49
A.6.6.53-54,
116.
202 The
Philosophy
of
Leibniz
2.
Sometimes
we let a
perception pass
by
unnoticed,
but if
someone calls
our
attention
to it
immediately
afterwards—for
example, makes
us
notice some
noise
that
was
just
heard—we
remember
it and are
con-
scious
of
having perceived
it
earlier.
50
3.
"The loudest
noise
in the
world would never waken
us if we did not
have some
perception
of its
start, which
is
small, just
as the
strongest
force
in the
world would never break
a
rope unless
the
least force
strained
it and
stretched
it
slightly, even though
the
little lengthening
which
is
produced
is
imperceptible."
In
other words,
if we
hear
abso-
lutely
nothing when
we are
asleep,
we
cannot
be
wakened
by a
loud
sound.
51
4.
Similarly, since
on
being wakened
from
a
stupor
we
feel
ourselves
becoming aware
of our
perceptions,
we
must have
had
them imme-
diately
beforehand although
we
were unconscious
of
them.
52
Leibniz concludes:
In
short, insensible
perceptions
are as
important
to
pneumatology [psychology]
as
insensible corpuscles
are to
natural science,
and it is
just
as
reasonable
to
reject
the one
as
the
other
on the
pretext that they
are
beyond
the
reach
of our
senses.
Nothing takes
place suddenly,
and it is one of my
best-confirmed maxims that nature never
makes
leaps—
It
implies that
any
change
from
small
to
large,
or
vice versa, passes through
something which
is, in
respect
of
degrees
as
well
as of
parts,
in
between;
and
that
no
motion ever springs immediately
from
a
state
of
rest,
or
passes into
one
except through
a
lesser motion.
...
All of
which
supports
the
judgment that noticeable
perceptions
arise
by
degrees
from
ones
which
are too
minute
to be
noticed.
53
Leibniz regarded
the
doctrine
of
petite perceptions
as an
important
element
in his
overall philosophy.
He
specifically
mentions
at
least
four
ways
in
which
it
contributes:
(1) By
virtue
of it he is
able
to
hold "that
the
present
is
big
with
the
future
and
burdened
with
the
past, [and] that
all
things harmon-
ize."
(2)
"These
insensible perceptions also indicate
and
constitute
the
same
individual,
which
is
characterized
by the
vestiges
or
expressions which
the
perceptions preserve from
the
individual's former states, thereby connecting
these with
his
present state."
(3) "It is
also through insensible perceptions that
I
account
for
that marvelous preestablished harmony between
the
soul
and
the
body,
and
indeed amongst
all the
monads
or
simple substances, which
takes
the
place
of an
untenable influence
of one on
another...."
(4)"...
it is
these minute perceptions which determine
our
behavior
in
many situations
without
our
thinking
of
them,
and
which deceive
the
unsophisticated with
an
appearance
of
indifference
of
equilibrium—as
if it
made
no
difference
to us,
for
instance, whether
we
turned
left
or
right."
54
50
A.6.6.54.
51
Ibid.
Obviously,
he is
relying
here
on his
principle
of
Continuity;
the
change
from
sleep
to
waking,
as
well
as
that from silence
to a
loud sound, cannot
be
instantaneous.
52
G
VI
610
(L
645).
53
A.6.6.56.
54
A.6.6.55-56.
Leibnizian
Substances
203
Although,
as we
have mentioned above, Leibniz
was
familiar
with
Berkeley's
Principles,
it is all too
evident that
he
nowhere attempts seriously
to
meet Berkeley's point that
we
cannot even imagine what
a
sound that
is not
heard,
a
color that
is not
seen,
an
odor that
is not
smelled, would
be
like—so
that
the
hypothesis that there
are
such things
is
scarcely intelligible. Super-
ficially
it may
seem that Leibniz need
not
quarrel
with
such
an
argument,
for
he
does
not say
that there
are
sounds that
are not
heard,
but
only that there
are
sounds that
are not
consciously heard.
But
clearly, what Leibniz means
by
"consciously
heard"
is
what Berkeley means
by
"heard"; hence Berkeley's
point
is not
met. Leibniz's opponents
will,
of
course,
not
grant
his
assumption
that whenever there
are
sensory processes resembling those that normally
accompany
perception, there must
be
some sort
of
perception whether
the
perceiver
is
aware
of it or
not.
Finally,
in an
essay entitled
"On the
Method
of
Distinguishing Real
from
Imaginary
Phenomena"
(date
unknown),
55
Leibniz tackles, without success,
the
sempiternal philosophical problem
of how to
distinguish veridical per-
ceptions
from
nonveridical.
His
proposed
criteria
are the
same
as
those
relied
on by
Berkeley
and
Hume:
force,
vivacity,
and
coherence
with
antece-
dent
and
consequent phenomena. But, alas, Leibniz
is
unable
to
offer
any
good reason
why the
phenomena
satisfying
these criteria should
be
just
those
phenomena that
are
bene
fundata.
Indeed,
in a
letter
to
Simon
Foucher
he
shows
in a
graphic example
how the use of
these criteria could lead
one to
take
a
real situation
for a
vision,
and he
asks rhetorically,
"Since
reality
has
thus passed
for a
vision, what
is to
prevent
a
vision
from
passing
for
reality?"
56
Thus, while resisting
the
simple Cartesian explanation that otherwise
God
would
be a
deceiver, Leibniz seems unable
to
produce anything essen-
tially
better.
57
This puts
him in a
much worse
position
than that
of
Berkeley
and
Hume,
for he is
endeavoring
to
distinguish among phenomena
in
terms
of
their correspondence,
or
lack
of it,
with
an
external world, while they
can
define
a
veridical perception
as one
characterized
by the
aforementioned
perceptible features. Thus,
in the
Theodicy
he is
driven back
to a
Santayana-
style
"animal faith":
"We do not
comprehend
the
nature
of
[for example]
odors
and
savors,
and yet we are
persuaded,
by a
kind
of
faith
which
we owe
to the
evidence
of the
senses, that these perceptible qualities
are
founded
upon
the
nature
of
things
and are not
illusions."
58
55
G
VII319ff.
(L
363ft'.).
Cf.
LHIV
iii 5e 2
(Fasz.
2,
#83, 296), where dreaming experience
is
distinguished
from
waking experience
by its
"incoherence."
56
GI
373
(L
154).
57
GII496
(L
611);
cf.
GIV
493.
GII496
(L
611):
"Not
from
necessity,
therefore,
but by the
wisdom
of God
does
it
happen that
judgments
formed
upon
the
best appearances,
and
after
full
discussion,
are
true.
..."
G IV 367 (L
391-92):
"Through previous
sins,
moreover, souls have
deserved...
such
a
life
of
deception,
in
which they snatch
at
shadows instead
of
things."
58
G
VI
74
(H
97).
204 The
Philosophy
of
Leibniz
4.
Bodies
The
physical
world
consists
of
bodies
existing
in
space
and
time.
Occasion-
ally
Leibniz
speaks
as
though
bodies
were
aggregates
of
monads,
59
in the way
that
a
herd
is an
aggregate
of
individual animals (where
the
relation
of
ingre-
dient
to
aggregate
is the
part-whole
relation
and not
that
of
member
to
class).
This
account
of the
relation
between
monads
and
bodies
fits
in
with
a
little
story
told
by
Michael
Gottlieb
Hansch:
I
remember that once, when Leibniz
and I met in
Leipzig
and
were drinking
caffe
latte,
a
beverage which
he
greatly savored,
he
said that
in the cup
from which
he was
drinking
there might
be, for all we
know, monads that
in
future
time would
become
human
souls.
60
But
Leibniz's
considered
view
is
that "strictly speaking,
matter
is not
composed
of
monads
but
results from them,
since
matter
or
extended
mass
is
nothing
but a
phenomenon,
like
the
rainbow
or
parhelia."
61
Monads
are not
truly
ingredients
of
corporeal
substances,
he
says,
but are
only
"requisites."
62
They
are not
parts
of
bodies;
63
a
part
must
be
homogeneous
with
the
whole,
"
C
13-14
(PM
174-7
5).
GII
301:
There
is no
part
of
matter,
or
part
of a
part, that does
not
contain
monads.
60
Hansch
(1728),
135.
Voltaire,
in a
critique
Elements
dephilosophic,
pt.
l,chap.
8)
that
has
been
justifiably
neglected, goes
further
with
this thought,
in a
direction characteristic
of
him,
by
ascribing
to
Leibniz
the
claim that even
a
drop
of
urine
or a bit of
excrement contains
an
infinite
number
of
monads, each
of
which
is
perceiving,
from
that point
of
view,
the
entire
universe.
See
also
n.
12
to
chap.
13.
61
G II 268 (L
536).
G IV 559 (L
577-78):
Compound things
are
"merely
the
results"
of
monads;
cf. G III
363.
G II
118
(L
343):
Bodies
are
only well-founded
phenomena.
G
III
567n.:
Material things
and
their motions
are
only phenomena.
G II
436:
A
body
is an
actualization
of
phenomena proceeding beyond mere congruence (which dreams would have).
GMII537:
"Mat-
ter
per
so,
or
moles,
which
one can
also
call
materia
prima,
is not a
substance; indeed,
it is not
even
an
aggregate
of
substances,
but
something incomplete. Materia
secunda,
or
massa,
is not a
substance
but
substances;
thus,
not the
herd,
but the
animal,
not the
fishpond,
but the
individual
fish
is one
substance.
Cf.
A.6.6.434:
"...
secondary matter, i.e.,
the
heap
or
mass
of
bodies."
G II
626: Bodies
are no
more true substance than
are
rainbows
and
parhelia.
On the
rain-
bow,
see n. 34.
Parkinson
(1982,
5)
cites
G IV 495 as
showing that Leibniz came
to
regard
physical
things
as
entities that
are
independent
of the
existence
of
minds,
but I
find
nothing
in
that
text
to
imply that
the
world contains anything other than monads.
As
regards this whole issue,
it is
possibly
significant
that
in the
chart
at G II 506 (L
617)
it is
indicated
that
some aggregates
of
substances
are
phenomena,
so
that perhaps
we
should
not be
attempting
to
distinguish
(1)
the
individual
substance,
(2) an
aggregate
of
individual substances,
and (3) the
phenomenon arising when
the
individuals
in the
aggregate
are
confusedly
perceived.
Finally,
there
is the
following
peculiar statement
at
GII
435 (L
600):
"If
this substantial chain
of
monads were
absent,
all
bodies along with
all
their qualities would
be
nothing
but
well-
founded
phenomena, like
a
rainbow
or an
image
in a
mirror—in
a
word, continued dreams
in
perfect
agreement with each other
...."
I am
inclined
to
agree with Broad
(1975),
124, when
he
suggests
that Leibniz
did not
himself
hold
the
vinculum
substantiate
theory
but
only
put it
for-
ward
for
Bartholomew
des
Bosses' consideration.
62
G II 435 (L
600).
The
"Metaphysical Discussion with
Fardella"
(Stein 1888, 323):
A
monad
is not a
part
of a
body,
but an
internal, essential requisite,
just
as a
point
is not a
part
of a
line
but is
required that
the
line exist.
63
G II 451 (L
604): Monads
are not in
bodies.
GM III
537:
"Even
though
the
body
of an
animal,
or of me
considered
as an
organism,
is
composed
of
innumerable substances, neverthe-
Leibnizian
Substances
205
and
anyway
the
monads
do not
exist
in
space
and
consequently cannot
be
adjacent
to one
another.
64
But
bodies
are
infinitely
divisible
and
actually
divided;
there
is no
body that does
not
have parts that
are
smaller
bodies.
65
There
is no
such thing
as a
perfect vacuum; every portion
of
space
is
filled
with
bodies.
Leibniz
also holds, however, that although bodies exist
in
space, they
have
no
determinate shape.
In a
very
Platonic passage,
he
says that
a
body
...
is
only
a
phenomenon
or a
well-founded appearance,
as are
space
and
time
also.
It
does
not
even have
the
exact
and
fixed
qualities which could make
it
pass
for a
determined being
...
because
in
nature even
the
figure,
which
is the
essence
of an
extended
and
bounded
mass,
is
never
exact
or
rigorously fixed,
on
account
of the
actual division
of the
parts
of
matter
to the
infinite.
There
is
never
a
globe
without
irregularities,
or a
straight line without intermingled curves,
or a
curve
of
finite
nature
without
being mixed with some other,
and
this
in its
small parts
as in its
large.
66
In the
physical world,
all
action
is
mechanical.
67
The
notion
of
action
at a
distance
through empty space
is a
scholastic
superstition.
68
Also, since there
is
no
vacuum,
the
motion
of any one
body requires
the
motion
of
every other
body
in the
universe.
...
the
very smallest body receives some impression from
the
slightest change
in all
the
others, however distant
and
small they
may be, and
must thus
be an
exact mirror
of
the
universe.
The
result
is
that
a
sufficiently
penetrating spirit could,
in the
measure
of
his
penetration,
see and
foresee
in
each corpuscle everything which
has
happened
and
will
happen
in
that corpuscle, indeed, everything that
has
happened
and
will happen
both
within
and
outside
of
that
corpuscle.
69
Thus
the
mutual "mirroring"
of
monads
has its
counterpart
in the
physical
world.
The
reason
for
this
is
that
the
states
of any
body express
and are
less these
are not
parts
of the
animal
nor of
me."
Cf. G II 305
(R
252),
436 (R
256).
But in
response
to a
question
from
Lady Masham, Leibniz says: "The question whether
it
(the soul)
is or
is
not a
part
(of the
body)
is
nominal;
for its
nature
does
not
consist
in
extension,
but it
corresponds
to the
extension that
it
represents; thus
one
should place
the
soul
in the
body, where
the
point
of
view from which
it
represents
the
universe
is
located.
To
want
to go
further
and
give
souls
dimensions
is to
want
to
imagine souls
as
bodies" (Letter
of 30
June
1704,
G III
357). Lady
Masham
(G III
350-51)
quite properly found
it
puzzling that Leibniz refers
to the
monads
in-
differently
as
"simple beings," "forms," "souls," "primitive forces,"
or
"atoms
of
substance," when
these
various terms seem
not
even
to
refer
to
entities
of a
single category.
M
G
VII
365-66
(L
683).
65
G VII 394
(L
699).
GM III
592: "You
ask how I
divide
a
portion
of
matter into
the
sub-
stances
of
which
it is
composed.
I
answer that there
are as
many substances
in it as
there
are
animals
or
living beings
or the
like; therefore,
I
make
the
division
in the
same
way as in the
case
of
a
herd
or of a
fishpond,
except that
the
liquid [air
or
water] that
is
between
the
animals
of the
herd
or the
fish
in the
fishpond,
as
well
as the
liquid
and
other material that
is in
each
fish
or
animal,
must
in my
opinion
be
regarded
as a new
fishpond
to be
further
divided,
and so on, ad
infinitum."
66
Gil
118-19
(L
343).
67
GUI
607
(L
655).
68
G III
535,
580 (L
663).
G VI 541 (L
587):
A
body never receives
a
change
in
motion
except
by
another (contiguous) body that pushes
it.
69
GIV
557
(L
576),
C 15.
206 The
Philosophy
of
Leibniz
expressed
by the
states
of the
monads
in the
aggregate with respect
to
which
it
is
"well founded,"
and
since
the
states
of
monads
(and
aggregates
of
monads)
express
one
another,
the
states
of the
corresponding bodies
will
be
similarly
related.
To
explain
the
occurrence
of a
given
event
in the
physical world,
we
must
cite laws that connect
it to the
occurrence
of
other events; similarly, mental
events
are to be
explained
by
reference
to
other mental
events.
70
The
pre-
established harmony among
the
states
of
monads induces
in
particular
a
derivative
harmony
of the
states
of a
given mind
and
those
of its
body,
namely,
the
body "resulting"
from
the
monadic aggregate over which
the
given
mind
is
dominant.
As we
noticed
in the
previous section, this harmony,
or
complete psychophysical parallelism, gives Leibniz
one of his
arguments
for
the
existence
of
petite perceptions.
But
doubtless
its
principal theoretical
advantage,
from
his
point
of
view,
was
that
it
enabled
him to
answer
(or, per-
haps,
to
avoid)
the
difficult
question
of how the
body
and the
mind could
affect
one
another.
His
answer,
of
course,
was
that they can't
(and
don't need
to).
There
is no
proper causal interaction between states
of
different
monads,
but
if
a
state
of
monad
A
expresses
a
state
of
monad
B
"more distinctly" than
the
state
of B
expresses
the
state
of
A,
"one
calls
it a
cause" (and
the
other
an
effect).
The
same usage
is
carried over
to
bodies. Thus, although when
a
ship
is
in
motion
on the
sea,
the
motion
is
entirely relative
and we
could
say
either
that
the
ship
is
pushing
the
water back
or
that
the
water
is
pushing
the
ship
forward,
we
attribute causality
to the
ship rather than
to the sea
because
by
reference
to it we can
explain "distinctly" what happens. Similarly,
we
attri-
bute pains
to
bodily movements rather than
vice
versa.
But
these causal
con-
nections
are
only apparent; actually,
the
state
of any
monad
is
caused only
by
other
states
of
that monad
and
ultimately
by
God.
71
5.
Leibniz
on the
Mind-Body Problem
Since
bodies
are
only phenomena, whereas minds
are
real,
one
would
suppose that
the
mind-body problem,
the
problem
of how the
mind
can act
causally
on the
body, would simply disappear.
But
Leibniz does
not
seem
to
be
content
to
leave
it at
that.
We
have
seen
that
he has a
great deal
to say
about bodies. Since pheno-
mena
do not
really exist,
all
such statements should somehow
be
analyzable
into statements about
the
perceptions
of
monads.
But
Leibniz gives
no
clues
as
to how
such reductions could
be
accomplished;
we can
only conjecture
that
he
would have followed
a
phenomenalistic
line,
as
suggested
by his
7(1
GIV
560
(L
578):
"Everything
occurs
in the
body
as if
there
were
no
soul, just
as
every-
thing
occurs
in the
soul
as if
there
were
no
body."
71
GII
69
(M
84).
Leibnizian
Substances
207
comment
on
Berkeley's
Principles.
At any
rate, when
he
considers
the
mind-
body problem explicitly,
he
goes
off
in
another direction.
Consider,
for
example,
the
note
entitled "How
the
Soul Acts
on the
Body."
72
He
begins this short statement
by
declaring that
the
soul acts
on the
body
in the
same
way in
which
God
acts
on the
world, that
is, not by
miracles
but
through
the
laws
of
mechanics.
73
He
continues:
Therefore,
if per
impossibile
all
minds were destroyed
but the
laws
of
nature con-
tinued
to
hold,
everything would remain
the
same
as if
there were minds,
and
books
would
be
written
and
read
by
human machines which would
not
understand anything.
Of
course
we
know
it is
impossible that
the
laws
of
mechanics should continue
to
hold
in
the
absence
of
minds.
For the
laws
of
mechanics
are the
decrees
of the
divine
will,
and the
special laws governing each body (which
follow
from
the
general laws)
are
decrees
of its
soul
or
form, directed toward
its
good
or to
perfection. Therefore,
God is
the
mind that leads everything
to
general perfection.
And the
soul
is
that
sentient force
which
in
each individual tends toward
its
special perfection.
For
souls came into being
when
God
impressed
on
each thing
a
tendency
[conatus]
toward
its
special
perfection,
in
order
that
from
the
resulting conflict
the
maximum possible perfection should arise.
Everything that occurs
in
nature
can be
demonstrated both
by
final
causes
and by
efficient
causes. Nature
does
nothing
in
vain; nature acts
by the
shortest routes, pro-
vided
that they
are
regular....
Souls
do not act
in
bodies
extra
ordinem.
Nor
does
God
so act in
nature, even though some things
do
appear
to
occur extra
ordinem,
since
from
the
beginning reality
was so
constituted that
the
general order
will
involve some-
thing extraordinary
in the
particular
case.
74
This account
is
obviously puzzling
and
unsatisfactory
in
several respects.
First,
we are
invited
to
consider what would happen
if the
realm
of
bodies
remained
as it is but
there were
no
minds. Given that bodies
are
only
pheno-
mena,
so
that statements purporting
to be
about
bodies
will
be
only com-
pendia
loquendi
for
statements about
how
things appear
to
minds,
the
hypothesis
seems
so
self-contradictory
that there
is no
nontrivial criterion
for
deciding
whether this
or
that
follows
from
it.
Leibniz does,
of
course, charac-
terize
it as
impossible,
but not
because bodies
are
only phenomena. Instead,
he
ignores this aspect
of the
matter
and
offers
as his
reason
a
claim that
the
laws
governing bodies
are
decrees
of a
mind,
a
mind which found
it
best
so to
arrange things that
the
physical world proceeds
in a
completely regular
way
(though
occasionally,
to one who
sees only
a
part
of the
whole, there
may
appear
to be
irregularities).
A
second puzzle
in the
passage
is the
suggestion that
the
special laws
governing
the
body
of an
individual person
or
other entity
are the
"decrees"
of
the
soul
of
that person
or
entity, though
at the
same time they
are
supposed
to
follow
from
the
general
laws
of
mechanics, which
are
decrees
of
God.
According
to
this,
it
would seem that
we, all of us, are
issuing
a
great many
"decrees"
of
which
we are
totally unaware.
72
LHIV
vi
12f
15
(Fasz.
],
#
26, p.
74);
the
same point
is
made
at
Grua 266.
73
Though
God
is
definitely
not
the
soul
of
the
world.
Cf.LH
I
xx
408
(Fasz.
1,
#13,
p.
50).
74
Seen.
72.
208 The
Philosophy
of
Leibniz
But
these
puzzles
aside,
the
upshot
of the
passage,
as I
read
it, is
that
the
mind
does
not act on the
body.
The
body goes
its way in
accord with
the
"phy-
sicomechanical"
laws,
and the
mind develops according
to
laws
described
as
"ethicological."
75
Any
appearance
of
causal interaction
must
arise
from
the
preestablished
harmony between
the
states
of a
monad
and
those
of
"its"
body.
In
other
words,
Leibniz subscribes
to the
view
now
called
"psychophy-
sical
parallelism."
In a
letter
to
Lady Masham
he
explains
that
he
reached this
view
by
reflecting
that there
is no way to
explain
how the
mind
can
give
an
acceleration
to the
body,
or how the
body,
acting
in
accord
with
the
laws
of
mechanics,
can
produce
a
perception.
He
adds,
incidentally,
that
this
har-
mony
of the
mental
and the
physical
is
what
led him to his
general doctrine
of
the
preestablished
harmony.
76
The
content
of
this
chapter
is
admirably summed
up in a
rather remark-
able
encomium that Leibniz wrote about
his own
system:
This
system appears
to
unite Plato with
Democritus,
Aristotle with Descartes,
the
Scholastics
with
the
moderns,
theology
and
morality
with
reason.
Apparently
it
takes
the
best
from
all
systems
and
then advances
further
than anyone
has yet
done.
I
find
in
it
something
I had
hitherto
despaired
of—an
intelligible explanation
of the
union
of
body
and
soul.
I
find
the
true
principles
of
things
in the
substantial unities which
this
system
introduces,
and in
their harmony which
was
preestablished
by the
primary sub-
stance.
I
find
in it an
astounding simplicity
and
uniformity,
such that everything
can be
said
to be the
same
at all
times
and
places
except
in
degrees
of
perfection.
I now see
what
Plato
had in
mind when
he
took matter
to be an
imperfect
and
transitory being;
what
Aristotle meant
by his
"entelechy";
in
what sense even Democritus could promise
another
life,
as
Pliny says
he
did;
how far the
skeptics were right
in
decrying
the
senses;
why
Descartes thinks that animals
are
automata,
and why
they nevertheless have souls
and
sense, just
as
mankind thinks they
do. How to
make sense
of
those
who put
life
and
perception into everything
...
How the
laws
of
nature—many
of
which were
not
known until this system
was
developed—derive
from
principles higher than matter,
although
in the
material realm everything
does
happen mechanically
...
I see
every-
thing
to be
regular
and
rich beyond what anyone
has
previously conceived; with matter
everywhere
organic—nothing
empty, sterile,
idle—nothing
too
uniform, everything
varied
but
orderly; and, what surpasses
the
imagination,
with
the
entire universe being
epitomized, though always from
a
different
point
of
view,
in
each
of its
parts
and
even
in
each
of its
substantial unities
...
Well, sir,
you
will
be
surprised
at all I
have
to
tell
you,
especially when
you
grasp
how
much
it
elevates
our
knowledge
of the
greatness
and
perfection
of
God.
77
75
GUI657.
76
G
III
340-41
;cf.G
VI
541
(L
587).
77
A.6.6.71-73.
xn
Relations
and
Denominations
The
proper
understanding
of
Leibniz's views about relations
has
been
and
still
is the
subject
of
much dispute among commentators.
As we
have
seen,
his
nominalistic metaphysics provides
no
place
in the
real world
for
anything
other than individual substances-with-accidents.
These
accidents
themselves
are
said
to be
individual,
in the
sense that
the
same accident can-
not be in
more than
one
substance, whether simultaneously
or at
different
times,
for
such
an
accident
would
be a
kind
of
universal.
Consequently
relations, considered
as
accidents
of
multiple substances,
are not
real.
1
Reality
consists exclusively
of
individual substances
in
whatever conditions
they
are at any
moment
of
time;
it
does
not
consist
of
substances, accidents,
and
relations. Relations, Leibniz says,
are
only
entia
rationis', they belong
in
the
"region
of
ideas."
2
Further,
as we
shall
see,
even
in the
region
of
ideas they
occupy
a
secondary status; they
are
only what
are
called "results," that
is, by-
products
of
concepts
of a
more fundamental
type.
3
Obviously this ontology
differs
basically from what
is
tacitly
or
explicitly assumed
in
most
metalogical
theorizing
these days, when
a
model
or
model structure involves
one or
more
nonempty
sets together with properties
and
relations among
the
elements
of
those sets.
In
my
opinion,
the
exegetical controversies arise from
at
least four distin-
guishable
but
interrelated sources.
(1) The
term
"relation"
is
used
in
several
senses
by
Leibniz,
as
well
as by the
tradition within which
he
writes
and by the
1
Grua 266: Relations
are not
real;
they
are
ideae
imaginariae.
CL
Grua 547,
G VII 401 (L
704).
2
Relations
are
entia
rationis:G\
132,210,246;
Gil
486,517.
For ens
rationis
see PLR
41
n.
2. G II 96: An ens
rationis,
e.g.,
a
pair
of
diamonds,
"is
useful
only
for
abbreviating
our
thoughts
and
representing phenomena."
3
Relations
are
"results": Grua 547;
C 9;
LHIV
viii
60r;
LH IV vii C
74r;
GII
226 (L
525),
SL
VII
(1975),
188.
Cf. the
definition
of
"result"
at GM VII
21-22
(L
669).
GII471
(1712):
"Let
us
see
whether
it
wouldn't
be
better
to
remove relations
from
the
class
of
entia."
209