Monadology – SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The Monadology (written in French in 1714 and published in German in 1720) is one of the works of Gottfried Leibniz that best summarizes his philosophy. Written towards the end of his life to support a metaphysics of simple substances, it is a treatise about monads, which are etymologically true atoms, that is, really indivisible. Reflect on what physical and metaphysical characteristics they would have these particles assuming that they exist. It is a philosophical and metaphysical proposition, which touches theoretical physics.

The foundation that Leibniz gives to the monads throughout his unpublished work is quintuple:

1. Mathematician, for infinitesimal calculation and its antiatomist conclusions (in the materialistic sense of Epicurus, Lucrecio and Gassendi).
2. Physical, for the theory of living forces and criticism, implicit in it, to the Cartesian dynamics, whose estimating errors Leibniz was responsible for highlighting. This theory is the precursor of relativity and indicates the need to give the movement a referential sense, represented here by the monad.
3. Metaphysical, by the principle of sufficient reason, that – as the Ockham razor – cannot be postponed indefinitely and requires a starting point in each being, determined to act by its own will or inertia.
4. Psychological, for the application of the innate ideas that he performs in the New essays on human understanding And that served Kant as a basis for writing his Criticism of pure reason .
5. Biological, by the seminal preformation of the bodies and the subdivision of functions in their organic development.

Exhibition [ To edit ]

The Monadology It is exposed through logical paragraphs, usually derived from each other, until a ninety number is completed. It is called that because – following Marsilio Ficino, Giordano Bruno and Anne Conway – Leibniz wanted to resume the name « Monas »From the Greek, which means unity; and ” logos », In turn, treated or science. The Monadology The treaty of the monads or the science of unity would be, then.

The text is presented in such a way that the reader can ask questions that help him advance in his knowledge. Thus, for example, it can be accepted that the compound is a derivative, extension, phenomenon or repetition of the simple (which Kant later would express in the phenomenon-non-noun dichotomy). Is the soul a monad? If the answer is yes, then the soul is simple. If the soul is an aggregate, then the soul cannot be mono.

Monities of monads [ To edit ]

Monadas are simple substances, without parts, they have no extension, nor figure, they are indivisible, autarkic, unique qualitatively, changing, they have internal crowd in their unity and imperfect; They have actions and passions (§49) as long as they have clear or confusing perceptions and the movement between the continuum of perceptions occurs by their natural appetite (§fifteen). Among the rational monads (souls) we must also point out the apperception, that is, the reflection or self -awareness. On the other hand, the monads lack the figure (although they have a place) and – saying in the theory of relativity – are the extreme of movement of the movement.

For Leibniz, monads are the atoms, formal, spiritual, of reality. They are not material atoms, because matter is divisible into divisible parts. In the matter we do not find indivisible units. Monads are dynamic units with an inner strength. They do not have windows abroad, but they have perception and appeal (for example the action of the internal principle, which verifies the change or transit of one perception to another). ^{[ first ]} All are different, and there are different types of perceptions. There are monads that are aware, they perceive themselves: the human soul. The perfect and infinite monad is God. By creating the monads God has provided harmony between them, to develop their activity in a coordinated way. ^{[ 2 ]} ​

Controversy within rationalism [ To edit ]

When it was written, the Monadology He tried to Zanjar from monism (but rejecting Spinozian panpsiquism) the problem of reality in general, and in particular the communication of substances, both studied by Descartes. Thus, Leibniz presented an alternative solution to the unknown of how the mind relates (“the kingdom of the final causes” or teleological) and the scare extensive reality (“the kingdom of efficient causes” or mechanical) through harmony pre -established between monads and matter, on the one hand, and among the same monads with each other, on the other. According to Leibniz’s theory, monads behave under their degree of distinction as if they were influenced by the bodies, and vice versa.

Leibniz challenged the Cartesian dualistic system in its Monadology and it was proposed to overcome it through a metaphysical system at the same time monista (only the inextente is substantial) and pluralistic (the substances are disseminated in the world in infinity number). That is why a monad is an irreducible force, which gives the bodies their characteristics of inertia and impenetrability and that contains in itself the source of all its actions. Monadas are the first elements of all composite things.

Paradoxes and aporia [ To edit ]

Monads are simple and immaterial substances, these constitute the ontological basis of reality since they are everywhere. Matter is the set of perceptions we have of the monads. There is not a minimal extension portion without monads. The monads are, therefore, the absolute full, and nevertheless are inextens. But this does not mean that they are, by its function, void (since they project and reflect strength); nor, by the place, immaterial (since they accompany the matter); nor, by nature, material (given that they do not interact with anything physical).

The extensive materiality would consist in the quality of impenetrable of the inextentent – the monad, without doors or windows – passively transmitted at the rate of successions of movements that, together with the perception and the apperception, integrate the active proceeding. Now, the monad cannot remain located in what she hypothetically generates, the extension, before the generating act, occurred in time. In a way that extension and monad coexist here and by timeless creation, despite linked reciprocally according to appearances.

In short, it is stated that matter is extensive, but not only extensive. It is formed of inextensive monads. Then is it extensive and inextense? No, since the function of the monad is to constitute the matter, without being said that this is nothing in particular. The key is to jump from the affirmation “matter is h o is b” to the resounding denial: “the matter is not.”

Philosophical conclusions [ To edit ]

This theory leads:

1. To idealism, because reality is denied and multiplied through its different points of view. The monads are “indestructible mirrors of the universe.”
2. What has been called “metaphysical optimism,” for the principle of sufficient reason, which develops as follows:
   • Everything is for a reason (according to the axiom: out of nowhere, nothing comes out);
   • Everything that is has more reasons to be than not to be (what is the best reason);
   • Everything that is also better than what is not (by point “A”: being more rational, it contains more being), and, therefore, it is the best possible (based on the axiom: what contains more being It is better than what contains less being).
     Hence the thesis of the best world, that is, that “endowed with the greatest variety of phenomena based on the lower number of principles.”
3. To the justification of the free will, for pre -established harmony. This refutes the fatalism of the efficient or geometric causes (Spinoza), distinguishing between predetermination -since nothing that becomes indifferent, because it has a reason to be before not being -and need -given that everything that could having been otherwise in the infinity of possible worlds, which is not necessary in the sense of being its opposite contradictory.
4. To an inverse emerging. The extension and other material properties would become phenomena not reducible to their ontological substrate. From the simple to the complex, and not from the complex (matter, movement) to the simple (perception, intention).

References [ To edit ]

external links [ To edit ]