Leibniz
Introduction
Leibniz find freedom and determinism compatible, because he is thinking of freedom not from mechanical causes, but as freedom to pursue goals and ends. These things arise in Leibniz because he is rejecting mechanistic science as the ultimate explanation. He asks this question, the mechanistic science is telling us that everything is explained as matter and motion, what is there when matter disintegrates and motion ceases? And his answer is not matter but energy. He is conceiving energetic physics in a teleological metaphysic, where everything is end-oriented.
| One & Many | Mind & Body | Freedom & Determinism | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Descartes | Theistic Dualism(Qualitative) | Causal Interaction | Indeterminist |
| Spinoza | Quantitive Monist | Double Aspect | Determinist |
| Leibniz | Quantitive & Qualitative Pluralist | Parallelism | Freedom & Determinism Compatible |
Leibniz is seeing emerging conflicts between science and religion. Mechanistic science poses problems for Christianity, problems about human freedom, human soul, future life and nature of God and how he relates to the world of nature. Because these problems he rejects mechanistic science as the account ultimate nature of reality. In fact, what we see when we get to Leibniz is a questioning not only of the mechanistic system but also a questioning of the rationalistic approach. What you find in Leibniz is his theological ideas feeding into his thinking.
The crux of the matter for Leibniz is going to be the concept of substance, he is opposed to Descartes’ view of substance as simply extended stuff, because that notion of matter fails to explain other very basic properties of material bodies such as inertia. He therefore argues that extension is not a basic primary property, it is a composite of more basic ingredients. And property of extension are due to the relationships between those basic ingredients rather than being simply the compilations of extended substances. The ultimate ingredients of substances is what he call “Monads”, and they are basic units of all reality, units of force. By the same token he is dissatisfied with Spinoza’s conception of substance, because with Spinoza’s determinism there is nothing that’s contingent in the entirety of nature, everything has its own necessities and there is no contingency on the incident that may happen. He doesn’t like Aristotelian conception of substance because for Aristotle, a primary substance is still a composite rather than what’s basic and it doesn’t explain inertia any more than Descartes’ substance. When he looks at Newton’s physics, he dislikes Newton’s conceptions of Space of Time.
He argues for the relativity of Time and Space. He says that Space is absolutely uniform, without things placed in it, one point of space does not differ from another point of space, so that it is impossible there should be a reason why God should have placed them in space in a way and not another way. If space is nothing else, then order, relations, nothing at all without bodies then those two states would differ from one another. The same applies to time, suppose anyone should ask why didn’t God created anything sooner, the answer is this inference would be right if time was distinct from anything exist in time. If there is no events, there would be no time. So he abandons the Newtonian conception of time.
There are four key concepts of Newtonian science: Matter, Motion, Space, Time. Space and Time by themselves are nothing. Matter and Motion are not ultimates, the ultimates is Force or Energy. What you have is a complete rejection of the four key concepts in Newtonian physics, and replace them with Force and Energy in a teleological system.
Monads
Indestructible units of force
Last time we talked about that Leibniz saw conflicts emerging between the mechanistic science and the Christian religion, both in terms of its materialistic direction and in terms of determinism. And he didn’t like Spinoza’s pantheistic interpretation of the mechanistic science, so he tries to come to grips with that kind of science and religion conflict by working out an alternative metaphysical understanding that doesn’t ignore other science of the day, but puts it in a limited role, more of a phenomenal direction, the level of appearances rather than the underlying reality. The underlying reality is that everything that exists ultimately consists of Monads, which are indivisible, indestructible units of force, energy. These monads are analogous to each other in such a way as to compose a hierarchy of being, where the supreme monad has perfect apperception and appetition, whereas monads of lower hierarchy has lesser degrees of apperception and appetition. When you come to humans with spirit monads, they have not just sense consciousness, but self-consciousness, and therefore the capacity to interrelate their own ideas to reason, which is called apperception. Here is where the final causation become evident, in the nature of all monads, with natural drive, inclination, disposition.
Individual Essence
Leibniz speaks of the principle of continuity in the hierarchy of being. And that is simply what the Scholastics said, that the whole creation, together comprises the fullness of things that finds their existence in relationship to God, so there is a principle of sufficient reason, there is a reason for everything that exists, and every event that occur. And there is principle of perfection. And what he has to do is find the place for mechanistic science within this arrangement. We can’t get to that until we talk about the distinction between mind and body. These monads are unit of force, each one different from any other one, and each has its individual essence. But the individual essences are alike since they have similar attributes. Each has its own nature and therefore knows its place within their whole.
Windowless
These individual monads windowless, there is no cause effect relationship with anything external, everything inside the room are as it were, hermetically sealed, it is self contained by virtue of the resources stored in the room. Knowing by virtue of apperception is all innate ideas that come to our awareness, because monads are windowless. Not only knowing are innate, the desires, the appetition are also innate. To say that they are windowless, it means there is no causal connections between monads.
Continuously “figurated” by God
Then you may ask how do they exist, what’s their source of energy. Leibniz uses the term figuration, saying that they are continuously being figurated by God. Their particular degree of force is constantly being generated and fused by God. So rather than the conception of creation which was becoming apparent in the beginning of deism, the view that God created and then things become self existent and self operative, God is continuously imparting existence. God is the one who not only initiates existence, but who sustains existence by continuing to impart existence and Leibniz is simply reiterating that within the conceptual scheme which he is developing.
Each Mirrors the Whole
Having that individual nature, knowing its place in the whole, Leibniz is able to say that each by virtue of its own essence mirrors the whole, each as it were, a micro-cosom of the whole, so if you understand your own individual nature in terms of apperception and appetition, you have in that what the whole looks like. The nature of the individual monad is such that its own nature mirrors what it needs to be in order to fill this particular slot in the whole as if it’s a distinct unique piece in a jigsaw puzzle.
Mind & Body
This is one of the basic issues that divides Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. Monads are casually disconnected with each other. Bodies are composites of monads. If it’s a living thing, there is a soul monad. It’s related to form and the particular function of the thing. The body of an animal is unified by a living soul, which makes it a living animal. There are cause effect relationships between bodies. When you have millions of monads unified, they begin to take on spacial extension. Monads themselves don’t have spacial extension, but bodies which are composites do occupy space. Mechanistic science is the science of relationship between bodies, but doesn’t tell anything about monads. The spirit monad is the unifying, organizing principle as well as the life giving, thought giving direction giving principle for the whole. So it is as if the soul does for the body what God does for the universe.
There are trues of fact and trues of reason. Trues of fact are contingent, that is, they are about what happens successively and awareness of them accordingly depends on these successive events. Trues of reason are logically necessary. Trues of fact depend on the law of sufficient reason. Whereas the trues of reason depend on the law of non-contradiction.
Freedom
What does it say about human freedom, will and intellect? The discussion that occurred in Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza are entirely in efficient and material causation. On the other hand, Leibniz tells us that monads are material cause, efficient cause, formal cause and final cause. He is going to have a conception the will, so that it looks as if a free will chooses in a causal vacuums. Free will is rather a matter of apperception and appetition, there is an inner drive. You have to define what is freedom not just in terms of efficient causation, but final causation, there is no vacuum of final and formal causation.
Leibniz’s theology is one of the classics in the history of thought, dealing with the problem of evil. If Leibniz, as a Christian thinker, is going to deal with the moral evil in particular, he will be expected to have recourse to Augustine’s free will argument. We already see that Thomas Hobbes, Spinoza seems to reject a realistic view on freedom of will. While we are seem to make free choices, but the experience of free choice is a confused idea, the choice itself is caused by causal processes that dominate everything else.
The other extreme is Descartes’ indeterminism. By virtue of mind body dualism, there is no necessity in the mind that its concept is distinct from percept. The human will seems to operate in some causal vacuum, a completely indeterminate situation, which is only possible because mind is a separate entity, functions independently, not causally dominated, though cause effect connections between mind and body do occur in relationship to physical stimuli producing sense responses and emotional feelings, but the will remains free.
Leibniz is developing a different kind of metaphysical system, he is not a mechanistic materialism of Hobbes, nor is he simply an indeterministic system in which all you have is efficient material causes as in the case of Descartes. He is developing a teleological metaphysic, he talks about intrinsic essences for every monad, so it has its own potency to be actualized. Everything a monad does is due to the inner nature of the monad, which is preprogrammed to function as it does. At first glance, it seems to imply some kind of inner determinism, what I do is determined by my individual nature, but the question boils down to whether my choice is determined by who I am, or whether I can modify who I am, my nature. If we grant that our choices are constrained by the essence, can I modify my essence. Leibniz seems to reject necessitarianism, the view that choices are a matter casual necessity. The predetermination of events is what contributes to morality instead of destroying it. Causes inclines the will without compelling it. This is why the determination in question is not necessitation. What appears to you to be good may change that appearance when mind gains sufficient reflection. It is reason which raises human beings to a knowledge of ourselves and God. Reflection gives us an idea of that which is far better than we which should be desired. So the whole natural inclination is tied to clarity of thought into the rule of reason. He is saying that freedom is compatible with a pre-established nature, that we are free to modify our desire with the reflection that we understand what is good.
The other missing parts are contingent and necessary truth. He says God’s own knowledge is all of necessary truth, from our standpoint what happened is contingent on God’s grace, but from God’s pre-knowledge standpoint, what we regard as contingent is something which is logically necessary to the perfection of the whole.
The Problem of Evil
The principle of sufficient reason implies a final cause outside of the sequence of contingent events, a teleological argument that final cause is a necessary and perfect being. In nature there are imperfections that are part of very nature of things, on the other hand, he speaks of eternal truth, concepts of everything in nature, in the mind of God, pre-conceives everything, the very essence of God is to exist, but nature is continually harmonized by the intervention of God so that this is the best of all possible world. He is not arguing empirically that this is the best of all possible world but on an a-prior basis.
The reason why this is the best possible world is that God is all-wise, all-powerful and all good. If you take these three and a fourth proposition purposeless evil exists, you have the classical formulation of the problem of evil. Therefore Leibniz is trying to assert that there is no purposeless evil. The overall process of actualizing its nature with the grace of God as well as the creative work of nature. The combination of nature and grace is involved in the best of all world, you have to say in his treatment of the problem of evil, Leibniz is not working with a static view of nature but a dynamic one. He sees the whole process of nature and grace as culminating in the City of God, the Augustinian conception. The notion of Kingdom of God on earth is very common on the 17th century. Movement towards it historically is what gives rise of idea of progress, which is the increasing dominate idea in the Enlightenment. The inevitability of progress is what we now call the philosophy of history.
Theodicy
Section 1 of Theodicy is dealing with the greater good argument, evil is simply part of the inclusive teleology, it, like every other kind of things that emerge within the whole hierarchy of being contributes to the perfection of the whole in the long run. In Leibniz this becomes explicit the greater good argument that includes God’s grace and the whole vision of what God is doing in the human history. Section 2 draws inference that evil is limited, and is allowed only with purpose. While the good is unlimited. He moves from that to the free will argument, where the emphasis is the internal inclination of the will and its ability to resist passion. Section 4 follows that the permission of human freedom and the occurrence of evil, both of these were builtin to the preconceived creation for the greater good. Section 5 talks about evil is the privation of good, but a limited and purposeful privation of the good. 6 and 7 coming back to the nature of God. Section 8 comes back to the power of God. There is a distinction of metaphysical necessity and moral necessity. Metaphysically God could created many different world than this why, but it is morally necessary that he creates the best of all possible worlds. So God acts under moral necessity rather than metaphysical necessity. If God has perfect pre-understanding of all things and he acts in the courses of time in nature so that all things do indeed reach their actualization. One modification of this kind of approach is to deny this is the only best possible worlds, granted there are other possible worlds, might there not be other possible worlds which is equally good as this one? The benefit of saying that is God is perfectly free to create other equally good worlds.