Leibnitz :

Monadology :

“Force  constitutes  the essence of matter,hence matter is in reality immaterial in its essence.The paradox,which is also found in Leibnitz,Bruno and Plotinus,in principle overcomes the dualism of the physical and mental worlds.”      

                                                                                                         Weber

Matter is ,according to Leibnitz,conglomeration of simple forces which are called monads by Leibnitz.So the constituent parts of matter or body is infinite number of simple substances or forces,everyone of which is a particular,individual substance.Force is not divisible due to its simplicity,that’s why it is immaterial and unextended.Being immaterial and unextended they are imperishable and eternal.They cannot be created or destroyed.Neither they come into existence nor they cease to exist.According to Leibnitz they are merely ‘true points’,not something real.He calls them metaphysical points or formal atoms or substantial forms.They are merely points of view.

Nature ,in its totality,is animate in Leibnitz’s philosophy.Everything is alive ,there.Of course there is hierarchy of consciousness in plants ,animals,and men e.t.c. ,but nothing is inanimate.All the monads have ‘perception’ and ‘appetition’ like us.That is why Leibnitz calls them spiritual or psychic forces.According to Leibnitz there continuity between physical and psychical realms.Since there is hierarchy of consciousness,we differ from each other,on the level of perception and tendencies.Indistinct perceptions are called petites perceptions .There are different levels of perceptions within the same monad ,also.At the lowest level, the degree of obscurity and confusion is much more than at the higher level.The monads at the lowest level are ,in sleeping state.Plants are at this level of dormant life.While animals have memory also,with perception.In men,percaption turns into apperception.Men are aware of there own activities.They are self-conscious.

Every monad represents the whole cosmos,on micro level.But this representation differs,according to the levels of consciousness of the monads.They differ on the level of clearness and distinctness,from each other.Every monad of this universe is interconnected with others.So,every monad feels whatever happens in this whole universe.As Leibnitz writes in the Monadology:

“every body feels everything that occurs in the entire universe,so that anyone who sees all could read in each particular thing that which happens everywhere else and besides,all that has happened and will happen,perceiving in the present that which is remote in time and space.”1

According to the law of identity of indecernibles,no two monads are exactly the same. While according to the law of continuity there is no gap in nature,it continues in ascending order from lowest to the highest,without any break.And it culminates in God ,who is the highest monad or King Monad or Monad of Monads.He is the perfect one, that is why ,pure activity.According to the principle of continuity ,His existence has been proved.

Leibnitz is pluralist,just opposite to Spinoza,who is monist.Leibnitz’s monads are spiritual one,just opposite to the atoms of physicists,which is material.Monads are also indivisible ,unlike atoms ,which are divisible,endlessly.Being windowless,monads are unaffected by external forces,but since they are part of cosmic development,they are monitored by internal forces.Development is only unfolding of what is already implicit in it.The blueprint of whole human species was in Adam and Eve.The only difference between organic and inorganic is the existence of soul in organic bodies,while it is absent in inorganic bodies.They are merely aggregation of monads.Leibnitz has accepted concomitant changes in mind and body,which is determined by pre-established harmony,the law given by God.Since ,monads are windowless they don’t interact with each other,directly.

Truths of Reason and Truths of Fact :

According to Leibnitz knowledge which is based on sense-perception is contingent knowledge.Initially all the concepts are indistinct and confused.But gradually they become clear and distinct.These confused concepts are sensations while the clear one are thoughts.His famous statement is nisi ipse intellectus i.e.intellect itself is not created by any sensation.To make sensation possible there must be apriori intellect.

According to Leibnitz there are two types of knowledge :

1.Absolute :This is universal and necessary knowledge.At the same time it is apriori.

2.This is based on sense-perception and is relative.

Like other rationalist thinkers Leibnitz also accepts that universal and necessary principles give birth to knowledge.Principle of sufficient reason and the law of contradiction are the criterions of contingent and necessary truths ,respectively.Through these laws we can know the truth and validity of knowledge.

According to Liebnitz there are two parts of knowledge:

1.Idea

2.Thought

Ideas are innate while we receive thoughts through materials .Thoughts are extensions of ideas.Being rationalist,Leibnitz accepts that knowledge lies in the mind in implicit form,through experience it is developed.

Innateness of All Ideas :

“Nothing can be taught us of which we have not already in our minds the idea. This idea,as it were,the material out of which,the thought will form itself.This is what Plato has excellently brought out in his doctrine of reminiscence,a doctrine which contains a great deal of truth.”2

According to Leibnitz,the rationalist,all knowledge is present in nascent form in the mind of man.All ideas are innate.The mathematical –logical order of the universe can be deciphered only by reason.Knowledge cannot come to the soul monad from without,but arises within the soul itself.The soul is not,therefore,a blank slate,on which only sense experience can write something.

Leibnitz has accepted the rationalist’s criterion of knowledge.According to them,only universal and necessary principles are the cause of knowledge.Law of contradiction is the criterion of true knowledge.Principle of sufficient reason is the another criterion of true and valid knowledge.Principle of sufficient reason is the another criterion of true and valid knowledge.This principle asserts that we cannot accept any knowledge true till we don,t have any sufficient cause for that.The basis of metaphysics, ethics,religion e.t.c. disciplines is the law of sufficient reason.And we cannot know the law of contradiction and sufficient reason through sense experience.

Rationality of the universe pre-supposes sufficient reason.All our knowledge lies,in latent form,in the mind.Experience doesn’t create knowledge but it makes the potential actual,latent in the potent form,implicit into explicit form.For,universal knowledge is not possible through sense-organs.Empirical truths are contingent,accidental and at the same time they aren’t certain either.So,the seat of the universal and necessary knowledge must be in the mind itself.Universality and necessity comes from the soul itself.

Contrary to Locke’s standpoint,Leibnitz asserts the existence of conceptions in the mind,of which mind is not conscious.Locke had argued that had there been innate or apriori knowledge,we would have been conscious of it.There are some universal and necessary facts which are not based on sense-experience,for example,facts of maths,logic,metaphysics,ethics e.t.c. .Through experience,we bring to the forefront only knowledge which was already in minute form in the mind.It just becomes much vivid ,clear and explicit through experience;they don’t create them.As Leibnitz himself says:

“The final proof of necessary truths comes from the understanding alone,and the other truths are derived from experiences,or the observation of the senses.Our mind is capable of knowing both ,but it is itself the source of the former.However numerous the particular experiences we have of a universal truth may be,we can never be absolutely sure of it by induction,unless we know its necessary through reason….The senses can arouse ,justify and verify such truths,but not demonstrate their eternal and inevitable certitude.”3

Ideas and truths,which are universal,are ,innate in our minds,we find chance to implement them only through experience.Universality and necessity,in itself,is something abstract,which can be thought only.We make it concrete,by applying on particular examples which comes through experience.For example,mortality in itself is bare concept,something abstract we can think about it,but cannot experience it.Whenever we see someone dying,we think that men are mortal.Till there is experience of someone dying the concept of mortality wouldn’t come into experience.

According to empiricists,there is nothing in the intellect that wasn,t previously in the sensation.But Leibnitz adds in it that minus intellect everything was previously in sensation.The mind gives us some basic concepts of substance,unity,identity e.t.c. which are not based on experience,but used on experience only.In the words of Leibnitz:

“Our ideas of space,figure,motion rest have their origin in the common sense,in the mind itself,for they are ideas of the pure understanding,which,however,have reference to the external world.”4

Leibnitz tried to synthesise both apriori and aposteriori knowledge which later reached to its culmination through the philosophy of Kant.Knowledge ,which comes through sense-experience is something vague and indistinct,which is made clear and distinct by reason.Through sense perception and reason both are the functions of the same monad they differ in degree.Reason gives us real knowledge while knowledge which comes through sense experience is ,phenomenal.

Principle of Non-Contradiction and Sufficient Reason :

In the realm of knowledge we find two types of propositions –          

1. Necessary Propositions

2.Contingent Propositions

Necessary propositions are those in which we find facts of logical and mathematical certainty and definiteness.Its assertions must be like this that we cannot even imagine to think about its opposite. We find such type of truth in geometrical arguments.For example – 2 + 2 = 4 is necessary truth.We cannot even imagine to think its opposite.This type of truth is self-evident and self-consistent which is based on principle of non-contradiction.We can find such type of truths in complex propositions also.

According to Leibnitz necessary truth is that which is devoid of any purpose.In this sense he has called Spinoza’s concept of God as necessary truth because according to Spinoza,God doesn’t have any desire.That is why He doesn’t have any purpose.

Besides necessary truths there are accidental truths,which are implemented in the real and moral cases.Differentiating both type of truths Leibnitz has written in the ‘Theodicee’’, thus :

“It would be impossible to choose a more suitable method to show the difference there is between the moral necessity which rules the choice of the wise and the brute necessity of Strato and Spinozists,who allow God neither understanding nor will than to consider the difference between the reason for the laws of motion and reason for the ternary member of dimension the former consisting in the choice of what is best,and the latter in a geometrical and blind necessity.”5

The laws of nature are contingent,because God has created them for the purpose of making them superb.Had God another purpose,He would have changed these laws.So,contingent truth is that of which contradiction we may think.In this sense the facts regarding the real world are accidental.We can think about the other color of the table.

As,necessary truths are based on the principle of non-contradiction,in the same manner contingent truths are based on the principle of sufficient reason.Leibnitz has written in the Monadology :

“Sufficient reason is that by which we believe that no fact can be true or real nno statements trustworthy,unless there is sufficient reason,why it should be so and not otherwise although in the greater number of cases we cannot know these reasons.”6

Never we will be able to prove through reason the necessity of the color of the table.It has every possibility of changing.Necessary truths are rational.We need to analyse it to prove its certainty.But real incidents or objects depend on sufficient reason to be proved.We may think about its contradictory statements.That is why these statements are contingent.

Proofs For The Existence of God :

“The monads are neither absolutely primitive and eternal nor in a word,the absolute,but they depend on divinity,the primitive unity or the original simple substance,of which all monads,created or derived,are the products and are born.”7

God is the supreme monad or monad of monads or king monad in the philosophy of Liebnitz.God and monads are co-eternal and co-exist.God is eternal,infinite,perfect,really existent.God creates the monads and He can destroy them.All the other monads are in the process of development,but being the king God is beyond this process of development and most perfect monad.

All the other monads follow God in this process of development.The cause of unity among the monads is,God.They are windowless,still they synchronize with each other due to the pre-established harmony established by God.God is the most intelligent as well as most active entity.He doesn’t have passiveness in Him.F Mayer rightly says:

“Leibnitz deduced various attributes of God.He believed God to be unique,universal,necessary and incapable of limits.God is perfect,perfection being nothing but the magnitude of positive.”8

Leibnitz has given following proofs for the existence of God :

Ontological Proof :

“In his version of ontological argument,Liebnitz says that existence is perfection.He first proves that all perfections are compatible that goes on.Whence it follows that he exists,for existence is among the number of perfections.”9

Highest monad is pre supposed to exist,according to the principle of continuity,at the end of the series of forces.He says that there are two aspects of every monad : one aspect is actual and the another one is possible i.e. activity and passivity.The more higher the monad will be,the more he will be actual and active.In this hierarchy of development God is the highest and perfect one.According to Leibnitz,perfection indicates existence.We have concept of perfect God,so there must be perfect God according to our concept.

Law of Sufficient Reason :

“There can be no fact real and existing,no statement true,unless there be a sufficient reason why it should be so and not otherwise.”10

According to the principle of sufficient reason everything which is real,must have sufficient reason for its existence or reality.This law is a changed form of cosmological proof.There must be an efficient cause of the things of the universe.It must not be finite,but the infinite one.So,infinite God is the cause of the universe.Leibnitz differentiates between the contingent and necessary cause.This necessary cause i.e. causa sui is God. 

Law of Eternal Truth :

“God’s intellect is the place of eternal truths,source of essences as well as of existence.Contingent truths correspond to facts in the actual world but there is nothing in the actual world to make the eternal truths true.”11

Thilly calls this argument as epistemological proof.The existence of the eternal truths of logic and geometry e.t.c. presuppose the existence of eternal intellect.Leibnitz says that eternal truth is beyond sense experience.Only contingent truths can be known through sense-experience.So. only God can be the basis of eternal truths.The existence of eternal truths prove the existence of God.

Pre-established Harmony :

“The monads have no windows.They do not interact,but in spite of their isolation,they are perfectly synchronized.This can be explained only by their dependence on a common force – God.”12

If there is harmony in the universe,there must be a harmonizer.Hence,Leibnitz gives a teleological proof,frim pre-established harmony to harmonizer i. e. God.According to Leibnitz ,monads are windowless still concomitant changes take place.There is harmonious changes in every monad of the universe.God,Himself ,is the cause of the harmonious changes among them.Mind and body also synchronise with each other,though they exist independently of each other.

Principle of The Identity of Indiscernibles :

The law of identity of indiscernibles implies that things without differences are one while things that are not identical are not one.But monads differ from each other on the level of continuity and in their  position in the universe as well.The theory of continuity implies the law of identity of indiscernibles.So.every monad is unidentical with all the other monads.Two monads are dissimilar to each other.Since,force is the constituent part of monads,when it is activated,they evolve.The centre of monads is the force itself.Monads don’t become influenced from outside.The capacity of the monad lies in it in potential form.To actualize it , the force of the monad is to be activated.

Every monad represents the universe from its own individualistic standpoint.Since,there is hierarchy among the monads,they are linked to each other in the ascending order of consciousness.Had there been no hierarchy of consciousness,they would have been identical.Even,two monads at the same level,will be dissimilar to each other,because of their inner reflection of the universe.

Problem of Freedom and Philosophy :

According to Leibnitz,everybody is free to achieve the good for his life.The purpose of his life must be to serve the society.But this freedom doesn’t imply,anarchism.Thilly rightly says :

“Leibnitz is an ardent advocate of freedom of the will,but the freedom on which he so strongly insists is not the freedom of caprice or indeterminacy,but of the inner self-determination of the monad.”13

In fact man is always determined by the cosmic laws.The events of the universe don’t happen, randomly.But we cannot prove their necessity either.Man is free in the sense that he is not determined by any external force,but is determined internally by his moral will.In fact man is determined by his desires.He chooses whatever he desires the most.To desire freedom from the ideal and norms of life will be foolish.If everybody will start behaving whatever he wants,there will be total state of anarchism in the society.

So, ‘ will’ is consciously taken decision,guided by clear idea.Y.Masih has given three conditions of freedom of choice:

1.It must be conscious ,deliberate act.

2.It must be spontaneous and self-motivated.

3.It must be contingent.

He writes, “A free action is a contingent activity,having spontaneous unfolding of the action guided by clear perception.”14

Leibnitz has presented a synthesis of independence and determinism.On the one hand,he has postulated the freedom of monads,and on the other hand he has propounded the harmony and order in the universe by giving the law of pre-established harmony.Although, the monads are free,they perform in harmony with other monads,and thus maintaining the order of the universe.

God is the most free entity in this sense because His activities are self-motivated.They are guided by His purpose of the welfare of humanity.As Weber says:

“…the God of Leibnitz is not like an oriental monarch,he is sovereign ground of laws which he cannot unmake ,a kind of constitutional king.”15

Doctrine of Pre-establisbed Harmony :

Leibnitz’s conception of substance is pluralistic.He has accepted infinite number of substances.All of them have their own individualistic existence.They are not related with each other.So,the real problem in the philosophy of Leibnitz was their interaction.Since all of them,according to Leibnitz are windowless,the real problem was their communication with each other.

Leibnitz tries to solve this problem through the theory of pre-established harmony.Hence the existing harmony between the monads is  the natural outcome of the pre-established harmony,determined by God,in the beginning of the creation.Due to this harmony established by God,mind is aware of the each and every changes happening in the body and the body receives the reflection of the every change happening in the mind.There is concomitance between physical and mental states.

Organic and inorganic bodies,both are composed of monads but the organic body contains the queen monad,which guides the whole body.Inorganic bodies don’t have any queen monad like organic bodies.They are merely conglomeration of monads

He writes in the Monadology that souls act according to the laws of final causes,by means of desire,ends,and means.Bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes or motions.And the two realms are in harmony with one another.16

In his view ,the organic body and its minutest parts are performed by God:they are “divine automata” or “divine machines.”17

Organismic body,according to Leibnitz ,is cosmic.All the monads work together for the same purpose.Concomitant changes take place in the mind-body,because they are preordained by God.Needn’t God interfare in the universe again and again.All the monads synchronize with each other as cosmic whole.

This concept of pre established harmony of Leibnitz is similar to the concept of Rta in Vedic philosophy.Rta,in Vedic philosophy,shows the cosmic order.The pre established harmony in the philosophy of Leibnitz also shows the law,order and uniformity in nature.But in the philosophy of Leibnitz,God is ultimate cause of all occurrences,which is not the case in Vedic philosophy.Gods in Vedic philosophy hold the various powers of Rta.God is the final cause  and efficient causes are His means in the philosophy of Leibnitz.These laws of nature are means to realize the purpose of God.These laws are inherent in the universe and cannot be demonstrated like the laws of logic or maths.

So,Leibnitz’s philosophy is a synthesis of teleology and mechanism.Whatever is at macro level,God is at micro level man.Man at micro level represents the universe or God.The only difference between the two is of degree.Man’s purpose is similar to God.

“The monads ,no doubt ,work independently of all other monads,according to their own inner urge,but their inner plan co-incides with the realization of the one master plan in the mind of the creator.”

References :

1.Monadology – section – 61 .

2.Discourse on Metaphysics , Sec. – 26^th

3.New Essays on the Human Understanding ,Bk. 1st ,ch.-1st ,sec. - 5

4.The Philosophical Works of Leibnitz ,Trans. By Duncan

5.Theodicee,Quoted by Y Masih,p.-111

6. Monadology,Quoted by Y Masih- p.-112

 7. Monadology ,Trans by Hedge

8.F. Mayer , A History of Philosophy , p. – 163

9.Ibid , p. – 162

10.D. J. O. Connor,History of Philosophy. P. – 233

11.Ibid

12.F. Mayer , A History of Philosophy , p. – 163

13.Frank Thilly – A History of Philosophy ,p. – 394

14.Y. Masih – Pashchatya Darshan Ki Samikshatmaka Vyakhya , p, - 118

15.Monadology ,Sec. - 79

16.  Ibid .

17.Quoted by Masih, p. 104