[Home]GottfriedLeibniz

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Changed: 5c5
Yet, in the 'best of all possible web pages' Monads can
Yet, in the 'best of all possible web pages' Monads can

Changed: 8c8
known it. (By means of that 'prestabilized harmony'
known it. (By means of that 'PrestabilizedHarmony?'

Changed: 22c22,41
once for all. --- )
once for all. --- )

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a
philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomate
and lawyer. Independently of Isaac Newton he
'invented' the infinitesimal calculus (and also
the notation df/dx still used.) His philosophical
contribution to metaphysics is based on the
Monadology, which introduces MonaDs? as 'substancial
forms of being. They are a kind of spiritual atoms,
eternal, indecomposable, individual. In the way
sketched above the notion of a monad solves the problem
of the interaction of mind and matter that arises
in Descartes' system, as well as the individuation
that seems problematic in Spinoza's system, which
represents individual creatures as mere accidental
modifications of the one and only substance.
The "theodicee" claims to justify the
apparent imperfections of the world by its
being optimal among all possible worlds.

The best of all possible web pages,we have WindowlessMonads? as well as Monads with a view.


Yet, in the 'best of all possible web pages' Monads can well afford not to have windows: They know anyway what is going on elsewhere, or atually, they have always known it. (By means of that 'PrestabilizedHarmony?' Leibniz avoids the problem to explain how mind affects matter and vice versa. "Car je ne trouvois aucun moyen d'expliquer comment le corps fait passer quelque chose dans l'ame , ou vice versa, ny comment une substance peut communiquer avec une autre substance creee." Systeme Nouveau de la Nature etc.(12). Descartes' followers had introduced the "Systeme des Causes occasionelles" to solve the problem: God creates movements according to our will to move, and thoughts according to movements of exterior things. The idea of a God permanently busy to maintain the harmony of the universe seemed much less attractive to Leibniz then the harmony established once for all. --- )

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomate and lawyer. Independently of Isaac Newton he 'invented' the infinitesimal calculus (and also the notation df/dx still used.) His philosophical contribution to metaphysics is based on the Monadology, which introduces MonaDs? as 'substancial forms of being. They are a kind of spiritual atoms, eternal, indecomposable, individual. In the way sketched above the notion of a monad solves the problem of the interaction of mind and matter that arises in Descartes' system, as well as the individuation that seems problematic in Spinoza's system, which represents individual creatures as mere accidental modifications of the one and only substance. The "theodicee" claims to justify the apparent imperfections of the world by its being optimal among all possible worlds.


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Last edited January 28, 2001 2:03 pm by JoshuaGrosse (diff)
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