Report Onj Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz

7/29/2019 Report Onj Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz

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References:Russell, Bertrand. 1945. The History of Western Philosophy. New York:Simon and Schuster.

Stumpf, Samuel Enoch. 1982. Socrates to Sartre: A History of Philosophy.3rd Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.


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CONTEXT/ ENVIRONMENT

REALITY=

ORIENTAL/ EASTERN THOUGHT


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CONTEXT/ ENVIRONMENT

=

IDEAL

WORLD

OCCIDENTAL/ WESTERN THOUGHT


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Life and Works Born: Leipzig, 1646. Entered the University at age 13. Leipzig, studied philosophy.

Jena, studied mathematics. Altdorf, jurisprudence and doctorate in law, aged 21. Lived actively in the two world of thought and action. Significant works:

New essays in human understanding Essays in theodicy Discourse on metaphysics New system of nature and the interaction of substances Monadology

Died: 1716


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Substance Dissatisfied with Descartes and Spinozas description

of the nature of SUBSTANCE. Reason: They had distorted our understanding of

HUMAN NATURE, FREEDOM, and the nature of GOD. Descartes dualism: (2 independent substances, thought

and extension) Produced the impossible dilemma of trying to explain how

those two substances could interact as body and mind eitherin man or in god.


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Substance 2 Spinoza: tried to solve the dilemma by saying that thereis only one substance with two knowable attributes,

thought and extension. Implication: losing the distinction between the various elements

in nature. But: the world consists of many modes, in which the attributes of

thought and extension appear. Still: his monism is a pantheism in which God was everything

and everything was part of everything else.

Leibniz: theirs blurred the distinction between God,man, and nature which he wanted to keep. Nonetheless: accepted Spinozas single-substance theory andmechanical model of the universe.

But: presented a unique theory of one substance that he was able tospeak of the individuality of persons, the transcendence of God, andthe reality of purpose and freedom in the universe.


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Extension versus force Challenged Descartes and Spinozas theory of

substance that believes on extension as implyingactual size and shape. For Descartes:

Extension refers to a material substance that is extended inspace and is not divisible into something more primary.

For Spinoza: Extension is an irreducible material attribute of God or

Nature.


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Extension versus force 2 For Leibniz:

Extension is divisible into smaller parts as the bodies or things areseen with our senses. Question: Why can we not assume that all things are compound or

aggregates? There must be simple substances, since there are compound

substances, for the compound is only a collection or aggregatum ofsimple substances.

Is he referring to Democritus small atoms? No. Reason: Democritus had described these atoms as extended bodies,

as irreducible bits of matter. Implication: must be lifeless or inert and would have to get its force

from something outside itself.

Monads: the truly simple substances. the true atoms of nature the elements of things.


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Monads versus atoms Atoms: extended bodies Monads:force or energy Implication:

Matter: not the primary ingredient of things Monads: the primary ingredient of things with their element of

force constituting the essential substance of things.

For emphasis: Substance must contain life or a dynamicforce. Democritus atoms: would have to be acted upon from outside itself

in order to move or become part of a large cluster. For Leibniz:

the simple substance, the monad: must be capable of action Compound substance: the collection of monads.


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Monads Etymology:

Greek,Monas: unity, or that which is one. Implication: Simple substances, lives, souls, spirits are unities. All nature is

full of life.

Characteristics: Unextended, they have no shape or size. A point, not a mathematical or physical point but a metaphysically existent

point (akin to the 20thcenturys energy). Independent of other monads, do not have causal relation to each other. Logically prior to any corporeal forms.

True substances are monads called souls (to emphasize their nonmaterial nature).

Each monad is different from the others, each possesses its own principle ofaction, its own force.

There is a certain sufficiency which makes them the source of their internalactions, and so to speak, incorporeal automata.

Independent and different plus containing the source of their activitywithin themselves.

Windowless, to emphasize that the rest of the universe does not affect theirbehavior. Nonetheless, their orderly actions are due to some preestablished harmony.


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Pre-established harmony

Each monad behaves in accordance with its own createdpurpose. These windowless monads, each following its own purpose, form a

unity or the ordered universe. Even though each is isolated from the other, their separate purposes

form a large-scale harmony.

Analogy: an orchestra Each monad is a separate world whose activity occurs in

harmony with the others. Implication:

Each monad mirrors the whole universe in the sense that if

anything were taken away or supposed different, all things in theworld would have been different from what they are like at present.

Further implication: Their activities are result of Gods activity, whereby this harmony is

preestablished.


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Gods existence

Proof: the fact of a universal harmony of all things Fact that impressed him: this perfect harmony of so

many substances which have no communication witheach other, saying that this harmony pointed to theexistence of God with surprising clearness, because a

harmony of many windowless substances can onlycome from a common cause. Resembles the argument from design and from a first cause.

Leibniz modified however the argument from cause with isprinciple of sufficient reason.


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Principle of sufficient reason Any event can be explained by referring to a prior cause.

But that prior cause must itself be explained by a still earlier cause. If all the causes we refer to a re alike in that hey must be caused, we

could never truly explain the reason for any event. It is not sufficient to point to the immediate or proximate cause, for we are left

with the problem of explaining its existence. Only by referring to some cause outside the series of causes, or outside the

complex organization of the universe, can the solution be found for theexistence of any particular thing.

The final reason, or the sufficient reason, for all things is found in asubstance whose own existence is necessary, whose existence requires nocause or further explanation, a Being whose essence involves existence,for this is what is meant by a necessary being.

The sufficient reason for the ordinary things we experience in the worldof fact lies therefore in a Being outside the series of obvious causes, in aBeing whose very nature or essence is a sufficient reason for its ownexistence, requiring no prior cause, and this Being is God.


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Evil and the best of all possible worlds

The harmony of the world led Leibniz to argue not only that God had

pre-established it but also that in doing this God has created the bestof all possible worlds. Leibniz was aware of the fact of evil and disorder but considered it

compatible with the notion of a benevolent Creator. The source of evil is not God but rather the very nature of things

God creates, for as these things are finite or limited, they are

imperfect. Evil is not something substantial but merely the absence of

perfection. Evil is privation.

God wills antecedently the good and consequentlythe best, since the mostthat God can do, in spite of his goodness, is to create the best possible world.

He agrees that we cannot rightly appraise evil if we consider only theparticular evil thing or event. Some things that in themselves appear to be evil turn out to be

prerequisites of good. Events in our lives, taken by themselves, lose their true perspective.


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Freedom Question: How can there be freedom in the determinedworld where God preestablishes an orderly arrangement byinfusing specific purposes into the several monads?

To be free is when our potentialities become actual, we seethings as they really are. Freedom is not volition, the power of choice, but rather SELF-

DEVELOPMENT, so that although one is determined to act inspecific ways, it is his own internal nature that determines his actsand not outside forces.

Freedom means the ability to become what one is destined

to be without obstructions. It also means a quality of existence whereby ones knowledge haspassed from confusion to clarity.

The free man is one who knows why he does what he does.


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Knowledge and nature His deterministic view of nature is supported by his theory

of knowledge. A person is similar to a subject in the grammatical sense. Reason: For any true statement or proposition, the predicate is

already contained in the subject. Thus, to know the subject is already to know certain predicates. Example: All men are mortal. This is true because the predicate mortal

is already contained in the notion of men.

Meaning: In any true proposition, I find that every predicate,necessary or contingent, past, present, or future, is comprised in thenotion of the subject

Similarly, in the nature of things, all substances are subjects, andthe things they do are their predicates.

He patterned his theory of substance or metaphysics afterhis epistemology or theory of knowledge. At the center of this argument is his notion of TRUTH.


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Truth Truths of reason vs. truths of fact Truths of reason: purely by logic = truths of facts:

experience

Test: Truths of reason: law of contradiction = truths of facts: law of

sufficient reason

Truth of reasons: necessary truth To deny it is to involve a contradiction. The very meaning of the terms used and the mode of human

understanding require that certain things be true. Truth of facts: contingent truth

Their opposite is possible without contradiction. The very meaning of the terms used are known through experience.


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Truths of fact Truths of facts imply a principle of limitation.

The universe of facts is only a collection of certain kinds ofcompossibles, that is, the collection of all the existent

possibles. Meaning: There could be other combinations of possibles than the

ones our actual universe contains.

Implication: The relation of the various possibles to each otherrequires us to understand the SUFFICIENT REASON that connects

each event to another event. The LAW OF SUFFICIENT REASON, which governs truths of fact,

requires that these truths be verified. But this verification is always partial since each preceding event in the

causal chain of events must also be verified.


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The first fact of the universe What about the universe?

How do we account for its first fact?

The first fact about the universe is like any other fact; it does notcontain, so far as the power of human analysis is capable of discovering,

any clearly necessary predicate. To know its truth requires that we discover the SUFFICIENT RESON for its

being what it is.

The final explanation of the world is that the true cause why certainthings exist rather than others is to be derived from the free decrees ofthe divine will.

Things are as they are because God willed them to be that way. Having willed some things to be what they are, He limited the number ofother possibilities and determined which events can be compossible.

God could have willed other universes, other combination of possibilities. But having willed this universe, there now exist certain necessary

connections between specific events.


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Synthetic and analytic propositions: the

world of facts

Propositions concerning the world of facts: From Human reason: synthetic, require experience and verification, if we

are to know their truth From God: analytic, the subject already contains the predicate.

Only God can deduce all the predicates of any substance. Implication: Only our ignorance prevents us from being able to see in any

particular person all the predicate that are connected with him.

In the end, all truths of facts are ANALYTIC. A person does already contain his predicates, so that if we really comprehend the

complete notion of a person, we could deduce these predicates.

Logic is a key to metaphysics. From the grammar of propositions, he inferred conclusions about the real

world.

In the end, all true propositions are analytic. For this reason, substances and persons are equivalent to subjects of an

analytic proposition; they really contain all their predicates.

Ultimately, the human mind contains certain innate ideas, self-evidenttruths.

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Report Onj Gottfried Wilhelm Von Leibniz