The Monadology

Leibniz's whole cosmology, in which there are infinite objects each with infinite attributes, and infinite contingent truths by which they mutually express one another, led to some very strange conclusions, when added to certain ideas of his regarding the physical world. First let us consider how time figures into all this.

Leibniz believed that if there were any two objects with all properties identical, they were one and the same thing. And conversely if there were any objects with any different property, they could not be the same thing. This is the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. It is generally accepted these days, if modified. Leibniz is usually taught in the university classroom to have supposed that spatial and temporal properties are included in his identity principle, such that if all properties including spatial and temporal properties are identical, the objects are the same single object. But this is not supported by the texts, in my opinion. For example, the identity of indiscernibles was defended by the principle of sufficient reason. Given two objects exactly alike, and yet with different spatial and/or temporal properties, God would not have reason to create one over the other; thus there would be a truth without a reason. And this is why in Leibniz's view there are no atoms—those things that have identical properties (other than spatial/temporal properties). His reason for the identity of indiscernibles was that if two objects are in fact exactly alike, and one was created rather than the other, given that there is no difference between them there could be no reason God should choose one over the other. So in Leibniz's mind spatial and temporal properties were not among those that had to be identical for the identity principle to stand--at least this is the most reasonable interpretation of his denial of the atom, those things exactly alike and yet existing in different spaces and times. In the contemporary setting the principle is still thought correct, but only if spatial and temporal properties are among those that have to be identical for the objects to be so.

But add time to any given object and there is a problem. I believe that the "I" who went to bed last night is the same object as the "I" that woke in the morning. And yet I awoke with sunlight on my skin that was not there when I went to bed: thus my properties were not identical. According to the converse idea of the identity principle, the "I" who went to bed could not be the same object as the "I" that awoke, given that these two entities do not share all properties, but there are some found on one that are not found on the other (such as sun on my skin).

And so Leibniz was led to the conclusion that any given object is what it is according to all the properties it has ever had and will ever have. The object that is "I" exists over a large stretch of time, and all the properties this "I" has ever had and will ever have are among its properties. In the present I have certain properties I didn't have yesterday; but could we look over the whole of my past and future, and enumerate all the properties I've ever had and will ever have, this is the nature of the object that is "I". The thing that is "I" includes all properties I have ever had and will ever have from a kind of eternal rather than temporal perspective. Could we see all of time—or at least the length of time that I subsist in existence—from the perspective of God, we could enumerate all the properties this thing "I" has over all that time, and the sum total of these properties all belong in eternity to this object "I".

But let us consider now what is the nature of these infinite objects that make up the cosmos. The thoughts that follow are what led Leibniz to conclude that the only true objects in the universe are minds. Matter has some ontology, and is not simply perception such as in Berkeley; but its exact ontological status is unclear. But first let us see how it is that the world's objects proper are all minds.

Supposing I am looking over a pasture where there is a "herd" of cows. All the cows make up what I call my object, a "herd". Now suppose that slowly those cows wander away, and separate. At what point of distance between them do they cease to be a "herd"? When they scatter and separate, what in each individual cow changes, such that they become individual cows and no longer a "herd" of cows? Is not the whole concept of my object "herd" a mere abstraction that has nothing to do with the cows in-themselves?

Likewise suppose I hold two diamonds in my hand, and call them a "pair" of diamonds. Now suppose I slowly move them apart, eventually such that there is a mile of distance between them. At what point precisely did they cease to be a "pair" of diamonds? What in the diamonds changed such that they were no longer a "pair"? And so the reasonable thing to say is that they were never quite strictly a "pair"—just like the herd was never quite strictly a "herd"—but these are merely abstractions, arbitrary words. There never was a "herd" of cows nor a "pair" of diamonds in the strict sense—that is, the objects "pair of diamonds" and "herd of cows" were not independently existing objects, but arbitrary abstractions, a function of language used to communicate, but not quite strictly belonging to the things in-themselves.

So far so good. But now consider an individual cow. I call this an object. Certainly I am not wrong here.

Or am I? Does the grass sitting on her teeth count as part of the "cow"? What about that grass in itself is different that it sits on her teeth now, and is thus part of the "cow", since ten minutes ago, when it sat on the ground? So suppose we subtract the grass on the cow's teeth from what I mean by "cow". What about the grass in her stomach? How has this transformed from "grass" to "part of the cow"? What about the gases in her intestines, the iron in her blood? Obviously there are no clear demarcations between "what is the cow" and "what is not the cow". Thus "the cow" is not quite strictly an object at all—its bounds bleed at the edges such that we can draw no clear lines, demarcate no clear boundaries.

Leibniz believed this applied to just about everything in the phenomenal world. But what about minds? What about the "I" that Descartes supposed indivisible? Certainly the iron in my own blood may not be part of what I am, any more than the bit of food stuck between my teeth. But when I consider my own mind—this seems a solid object, with clear boundaries. Should I be split into two minds what is "I" shall not be split, but go off and experience a single destiny of one of the two. Minds are indivisible and thus are coherent objects of consciousness, not mere abstractions like the herd of cows; no part of a single mind bleeding at the edges into what I consider not properly a part of it. My mind has clear limits, and is a coherent object of consciousness with properties that belong to it alone; thus it is real and individual.

These are the thoughts that led Leibniz to believe that those infinite objects that make up the universe were all minds. A herd of cows is not quite strictly an object, but a human abstraction with no clear demarcations. But those infinite objects that make up the cosmos, with the infinity of contingent truths between them, each object reflecting, relatively, the entire cosmos—they are all proper objects of consciousness, that is, they are all minds, or monads.

A famous quote by Leibniz concerning monads is, "A monad has no windows." What this means is that each monad was created by God complete with its entire concept. Its entire concept expresses from at least one point of reference the entire cosmos, and each was created individually to stand coherently in relation to all other things. But one monad cannot change the concept of a different one; thus they cannot quite strictly interact or stand in a causal relation one to another. Each monad contains the entire cosmos in its complete concept, created such that it is logically consistent with all others; but each concept of each monad is entirely self-dependent. Each is consistent and fits logically with all the others, but really has nothing the others add to it, that is not already within its entirely individual concept. That concept reflects every truth in the cosmos from a given point of reference, and all the monads fall into perfect logical harmony with all the others; but each has its concept due to itself and not due to the others. Thus the others cannot add or take away one iota of its properties.

The precise reasons for this schematic are unclear. Most likely Leibniz thought it merely the most intelligible theory. Does the relative distance between me and the sun belong to me, or to the sun? Leibniz believed it belonged to both; on one side it is among the sun's attributes, and on my side I have an attribute that completely mirrors this from the other side. When the Earth drifts farther from the sun it is as much part of my total concept that the distance between I and the sun increases, as it is part of the sun's total concept that it will grow farther from me. We each have such a gain in distance written into our total concept, so that my concept matches the sun's, but only somewhat coincidentally; it is not so much the sun causing my concept to change, or mine causing the sun's to change; rather we each have corresponding attributes written into our individual total concepts that match.

Leibniz came up with the Monadology in the early part of the eighteenth century. A few decades earlier the Dutchman Antoni van Leeuwenhoek had performed experiments with microscopes that had revealed the existence of bacteria—what he called "little animals"—in moldering pepper. By the time Leibniz theorized that the world was made of minds the existence of such microbes was confirmed. Leibniz believed that these "little animals" in everything were monads, or minds, which lived in everything, and were the fundamental constituent in the phenomenal world. He believed that in the smallest particle there were an infinity of such monads, and that the cosmos itself was some part of some greater monad, that was in turn within its own even greater cosmos, among other giant monads like itself. To go to the macro level the universe infinitely expanded, as well as infinitely divided on the micro level, the fundamental objects to such universes-within-universes always the omnipresent monads. To read Leibniz, the influence of the microscopic experiments is an obvious inspiration of his idea that the world is made of minds. The microscope seemed to confirm that the constituent of the world was not Democritus's atom, but the stuff of life, the microbes or "tiny animals"—living things in everything, minds everywhere. He writes:

Each portion of matter can be conceived as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fish. But each branch of a plant, each limb of an animal, each drop of its humors, is still another such garden or pond. . . . This there is nothing fallow, sterile, or dead in the universe. . . . ("The Monadology," p. 222.)

Leibniz came onto the scene before the existence of material nature had been denied by Berkeley. The exact status of dead matter in Leibniz's world of minds is unclear. Dead matter according to him could not constitute or be made of objects of proper, but it does seem to have an ontology of some sort, not mere perception. It seems rather a background or medium from which the minds arise, and in which they subsist; certainly something existing, but not quite at the level of reality as the minds, which are the only true objects of consciousness. Had he heard Berkeley's arguments as a young man perhaps he would have thrown out the concept of matter altogether. In any case dead matter is not at the same level of intelligibility and reality as the minds in his system.

Angelhaunt.net: Because earth's madness is heaven's sense.