DOWNLOAD PDF LEIBNIZ ON SPONTANEITY DONALD RUTHERFORD

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1 Chapter 1 : Leibniz: Nature and Freedom - Oxford Scholarship This essay explores the conception of spontaneity or self-determination presupposed by Leibniz's analysis of freedom. It argues that Leibniz's writings support a narrower notion of agent spontaneity, which characterizes cases in which an individual can be understood as acting for the sake of the greatest apparent good. Leibniz against Physical Influx and Occasionalism When it came to introducing his theory of causation, preestablished harmony, Leibniz was fond of presenting it via an argument by elimination: Consequently, since the preestablished harmony is entirely intelligible according to Leibniz, and more worthy of a divine creator, it must be the true theory of causation. I have pointed out that we can imagine three systems to explain the intercourse which we find between body and soul, namely, 1 the system of mutual influence of one upon the other, which when taken in the popular sense is that of the Scholastics, and which I consider impossible, as do the Cartesians; 2 that of a perpetual supervisor who represents in the one everything which happens in the other, a little as if a man were charged with constantly synchronizing two bad clocks which are in themselves incapable of agreement â â this is the system of occasional causes; and 3 that of the natural agreement of two substances such as would exist between two very exact clocks. I find this last view fully as possible as that of a supervisor and more worthy of the author of these substances, clocks or automata. Why did Leibniz consistently make such claims about the rival theories of causation? The details of the history and various formulations of the influx model need not concern us here however, for what is important is that Leibniz rejects any model of causation that involves a transmission of parts between substances, that is, a passing on of something from one substance the cause to another the effect. There is, furthermore, no way to explain how a monad could be altered or changed in its inner make-up by some other created being. For one can transpose nothing in it, nor conceive in it any internal motion that could be excited, directed, increased, or diminished within it, as can happen in composites where there is change among the parts. Monads have no windows through which something can enter into or depart from them. Accidents cannot be detached, nor wander about outside of substances, as the sensible species of the Scholastics formerly did. And so, neither substance nor accident can enter a monad from without. Consider what happens when one looks at a red wall: As a result, one cannot conceive of a property or part of something entering a monad and transposing its parts, for monads have no parts and thus have no portals in which to enter and exit. Given that monads have no parts or windows, it is, as we have seen Leibniz claim, impossible for this theory to be true. Hence, it is not true, according to Leibniz. According to occasionalism, God is the only truly causally efficacious being in the universe. A true cause, for Malebranche, is one according to which there is a necessary connection between it and its effect. Since bodies cannot move themselves, it must be minds that move bodies. But since there is no necessary connection between the will of a finite mind and what it wills, it follows that the only true cause is the will of God, that is, the only will for which there is a necessary connection between it and what it wills that is, its effects. Hence, what appear to be causally efficacious acts of will by finite beings are mere occasions for Godâ â the only true causeâ â to exercise his efficacious will. Leibniz used three arguments against occasionalism. In other words, Leibniz believed that occasionalism, by claiming that a material object can be put into motion by something other than another material object, namely, the occasional cause of a finite will and the true cause of the divine will, violated a fundamental principle of physics. As we shall see, Leibniz believed the preestablished harmony did not do so, since every non-initial state of a body in motion has, as a real cause, some state of a body in motion. For it seems to me that the concept of the miracle does not consist of rarity. Rather, his objection is that according to occasionalism, there is nothing in the nature of objects to explain how bodies behave. Finite bodies on this view are merely extended hunks of matter with no nature by appeal to which one can explain motion. Thus, there is no natural explanation for natural change no naturally inner cause of motion, and hence such change is supernatural, that is, miraculous. Finally, this second argument is closely connected with a third argument. Throughout all of his later years, Leibniz sought to distance himself from Spinoza. According to Leibniz, the very nature of a substance consists in force, or its ability to act, for if it has no such ability, then it is a mere modification of God, the only other substance who Page 1

2 could act. Leibniz believed that occasionalism was in danger of reducing into the view of Spinozaâ a doctrine inconsistent with traditional theology, and in any event, according to Leibniz, one at odds with the common sense view that creatures are genuine individuals: I have many other arguments to present and several of them serve to show that according to the view which completely robs created things of all power and action, God would be the only substance, and created things would be only accidents or modifications of God. So those who are of this opinion will, in spite of themselves, fall into that of Spinoza, who seems to me to have taken furthest the consequences of the Cartesian doctrine of occasional causes. GP IV, [WF ] Because occasionalism makes God the principle of activity in created substances, it makes God the very nature of created substances. Hence, there is only one substance God, and created individuals are modifications of God. So, Leibniz argued that occasionalism has the dangerous consequence of collapsing into Spinozism. This doctrine contains three main ingredients: Consider the above claims in application to the mind-body relation. Leibniz held that for any mental state, the real cause of that state is neither a state of a body nor the state of some other mind. And for any bodily state, the real cause of that state is neither a state of a mind nor the state of some other body. Further, every non-initial, non-miraculous, mental state of a substance has as a real cause some previous state of that very mind, and every non-initial, non-miraculous, bodily state has as a real cause some previous state of that very body. Finally, created minds and bodies are programmed at creation such that all their natural states and actions are carried out in mutual coordination, with no intersubstantial mind-body causation involved. For example, suppose that Troy is hit in the head with a hammer call this bodily state Sb and pain ensues call this mental state Sm, a case of apparent body to mind causation. Suppose now that Troy has a desire to raise his arm call this mental state Sm, and the raising of his arm ensues call this bodily state Sb, a case of apparent mind to body causation. So although substances do not causally interact, their states accommodate one another as if there were causal interaction among substances. Mind-body causation was merely one case of causation, for Leibniz believed that a similar analysis is to be given in any case of natural causation. When one billiard ball in motion causes another one to move, there exists, metaphysically speaking, no real interaction between them. Rather, the struck billiard ball moved spontaneously upon contact by the billiard ball in motion. It did so in perfect harmony, that is, in such a way that it appears as though the first causes the second to move. Therefore, since I was forced to agree that it is not possible for the soul or any other true substance to receive something from without â I was led, little by little, to a view that surprised me, but which seems inevitable, and which, in fact, has very great advantages and rather considerable beauty. That is, we must say that God originally created the soul and any other real unity in such a way that everything must arise for it from its own depths, through a perfect spontaneity relative to itself, and yet with a perfect conformity relative to external things. Although Leibniz clearly found this theory unacceptable at the end of the day, he did nonetheless indicate that it is an acceptable way of understanding phenomenal nature. It is worth underscoring this point as it helps to highlight what exactly Leibniz has in mind. He writes in the New System: Besides all the advantages that recommend this hypothesis [that is, preestablished harmony], we can say that it is something more than a hypothesis, since it hardly seems possible to explain things in any other intelligible way, â Our ordinary ways of speaking may also be easily preserved. For we may say that the substance whose state explains a change in an intelligible way so that we may conclude that it is this substance to which the others have in this respect been adapted from the beginning, in accordance with the order of the decrees of God is the one which, so far as this change goes, we should therefore think of as acting upon the others. Furthermore, the action of one substance on another is neither the emission nor the transplanting of an entity, as commonly conceived, and it can be reasonably understood only in the way I have just described. It is true that we can easily understand in connection with matter both the emission and receiving of parts, by means of which we quite properly explain all the phenomena of physics mechanically. But a material mass is not a substance, and so it is clear that action as regards an actual substance can only be as I have described. As a result, Leibniz held that there was a sense in which one could say, for example, that mental events influence bodily events, and vice-versa. In this passage, Leibniz sets forth what he believed the metaphysical reality of apparent intersubstantial causation amounts to. We begin with the thesis that every created substance perceives the entire universe, though only a portion of it is perceived distinctly, most of it being perceived Page 2

3 unconsciously, and, hence, confusedly. Now consider two created substances, x and y x not identical to y, where some state of x is said to be the cause of some state of y. In general, causation is to be understood as an increase in distinctness on the part of the causally active substance, and an increase in confusedness on the part of the passively effected substance. Second, the above passage indicates that when it comes to a mechanical study of phenomenal natureâ â that is, when it comes to natural philosophyâ â the influx model may be used. They are not substances, which again, have no such parts. However, the influx model is acceptable at the phenomenal level of mechanics, perhaps as an abstraction from, or idealization of the underlying reality. But note that this level is indeed phenomenal, that is, only an appearance, and any analysis on this level is not the end of the story. Still, for Leibniz, the fact that it is acceptable when it comes to mechanics preserves our ordinary ways of speaking, since it is a model of genuine intersubstantial causation. But such a way of speaking, for Leibniz, is certainly not metaphysically rigorous. Consider the following from the Monadology: The soul follows its own laws and the body likewise follows its own; and they agree by virtue of the preestablished harmony among all substances, because they are all representations of one self-same universe. Souls act according to the laws of final causes through appetition, ends, and means. Bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes or of motions. And the two realms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, are harmonious with one another. Indeed, in the passage above, Leibniz presented his usual bifurcation of the world into two realms: A final cause of some activity is that for which that activity occurs; it is a goal, or end, or purpose of some activity. In claiming that souls act according to final causes, Leibniz seems to have in mind that they are essentially goal driven entities. Any given substance such as a soul, according to Leibniz, is endowed with two powers: Leibniz characterizes appetition thus: Appetitions are the ultimate principles of change in the Leibnizian universe, as they are responsible for the activity of the ultimately real things, substances. In claiming, therefore, that substances are governed by laws of final causes, Leibniz has in mind that appetitions lead a substance to strive for certain future perceptual states: C 14 [MP ] It is a matter of some controversy whether Leibniz held that appetitive states of a substance are intrasubstantial productive causes of change that is, efficient causes of change, and there are texts that can be brought to bear on both sides of the issue. See Carlin,, ; Davidson, ; Murray,, ; Paull, In some passages, Leibniz separates the world into what appear to be functionally autonomous causal realms: GP VI, [AG ] But in other texts, Leibniz seems clearly to suggest that final causes are a species of efficient cause, and hence are productive causes of change. The one is the place of the series of motion, the other of the series of appetites; the one is passed from cause to effect, the other from end to means. And in fact, it may be said that the representation of the end in the soul is the efficient cause of the representation in the same soul of the means. Dut, II, 2, ; my emphasis Thus, in this text, Leibniz suggests that final causes themselves produce future perceptions by way of efficient causation. In this connection, it is worth noting that there is a sense in which final causation is operative at the level of phenomenal bodies as well. Mechanical bodies, understood as phenomenal hunks of matter, do not exhibit intentionality. Thus, they do not frame their own ends in the way that immaterial substances do. Still, there is a sense in which they are subject to final causes, for they act for the ends that God has set for them, and they do so by way of mechanical efficient causation. Thus, there is some suggestion that Leibniz held that both efficient and final causation permeated the universe at multiple ontological levels. But whether or not Leibniz believed that both types of causes operated at multiple ontological levels, he did nonetheless believe that the harmony of efficient and final causes explained the ordinary conscious activity of substances, including that sort of activity often cited as involving free will: GP VI, [T 62] Although it might appear to some that such a view is inconsistent with freedom of the will, Leibniz did not think so, for he repeatedly maintained that human souls, though governed by preestablished laws of final causes, act with freedom of the will e. Whether he was entitled to such a view is another matter. It is also worth noting that in a number of passages, Leibniz argues that this harmony between types of causation accounts for the very union of the human body and soul cf. Finally, Leibniz does not restrict his doctrine of final causation to the conscious activity of rational agents, for he seems to recognize final causal activity everywhere in his system. Page 3

4 Chapter 2 : Research and Publications Julia Jorati "Leibniz on Spontaneity," in Leibniz: Nature and Freedom, ed. Donald Rutherford and J.A. Cover (Oxford University Press, ), Leibniz, Theodicy, possible worlds, identity, organism, freedom, evil, presumption. The most important work published by living Leibniz, Essays on theodicy Amsterdam,, needs at the three-centennial a new approach that can put into light the actuality of some themes, the posterity of the others or the motives for celebrity and popularity of this very important philosophical work. Given that it was the first major retrospective there will be others of course in the next years, the scholars had the opportunity to research the Essays on theodicy on theodicy for itself, and not as an accessory to other approaches. This is, probably, the most challenging question on the posthumous fate of the Essays on theodicy: We have here one of the explanations for the ambivalence of this work: Philosophie, 57, 2, p. The themes are of an amazing variety: Besides, the work is composed from many pieces: The preliminary discourse on the conformity of faith and reason, Abstract of the countroversy, Reflexions on the work of Hobbes on freedom; Remarks on the book on the origins of the evil; Causa Dei. Given that Leibniz wants to present a part of his ideas in an accessible form and in a not so much synthetical manner as is the case with the Monadology and Principle of nature and grace founded in reason lead him to a work in a form of an essay and with a content of a treatise. God is good even in the circumstances that in the world there is very much evil. The sophisticate Leibnizian theory has in its core the famous optimism given that the world we are living in is the best of all possible worlds. Given that the world is defined as the set of all bodies, it is required a condition of composibility that all this objects to be together. So, Leibniz sustains many series of composible objects, given that, according to him, there are many possible worlds in fact, a infinity 3. The specific of the metaphysical interpretation is the affirmation on space and time, because the cosmological interpretation sins with the fact that the space and time, as pure idealities, and it does a phenomenal approach of the world. Leibnitz, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag, On these grounds the complicated problem of the identity through possible worlds Adam that sins versus Adam that does not sins, Sextus that goes in Rome versus Sextus that goes in a town as Corinth, etc. In the same way, it is abusive to talk about the contradictions between possible worlds, even if they are different Rateau, p. Other aspect of the problem of kindness of God is that God remains good in the circumstances that, even if he does not do the evil, he tolerates it. On the Omnipotence and the Omniscience of God? The second great theme of the Essays on theodicy is the presence of evil, and the main problem of this work is that the choice of the best possible world leads automatically to the elimination of the evil from this world. Leibniz sustains that God sees the infinite series of possible worlds, compares the level of the good from each of them and then he chooses the world that has the most quantity of good. So, the world in which we are living, even if the best of all possible worlds, does not exclude the evil. Physical, moral or metaphysical, the evil is present as a counterpart of the goodness prevalent from our world. God would choose metaphysically speaking other world, but he can not do it morally speaking. So, the principle of sufficient reason appears as metaphysically necessary given that it speaks about a truth of reason and it is different from the principle of the best, that is contingent and that specifies in the case of an election what constitutes the prevalent reason in the occurrence of the value or the goodness of its object. So, the principle of the best has a double force: To sustain the contingency, the author sustains the distinction of Nicholas Rescher, between a metaphysical goodness and a moral goodness. Only the first one is a divine attribute, a necessary metaphysical propriety, and the second one is grounded on the will and so it is contingent. In this way, the principle of the best appears as metaphysically contingent, even if it is morally necessary Anfray, p. But the existence of the evil raises difficulties not only from a metaphysical or ethical point of view, but also with respect to the theological aspect. It seems that between faith and reason there is contradiction, so that confronted with this irreconciliability, we must keep the reason under silence, given that it is a weak and imperfect instrument, in exchange we must keep the faith. This fideist position, held by Pierre Bayle, would not satisfy Leibniz, given that the author of the system of pre-established harmony sustains a very strong kind of rationalism, probably the clearest position of the whole modernity. The Essays Page 4

5 on theodicy is one of the works in which Leibniz defends the supremacy of reason, as this is noted very well by Juan Antonio Nicholas p. So, the reality of the evil does not put into question the validity of the principle of reason and is not a limit of the rationality, because Leibniz realizes a rationalisatoric conceptualization totality, calculability, so that it is reduced to an object of the calculus Nicholas, p. Besides the confrontation with Pierre Bayle, Leibniz wants to demonstrate the counterarguments of Averroes the theory of the double truth and Socinians antitrinitarians. On the one hand, they make confusion above and against reason. By removing this distinction, Bayle sustains that one must believe to be superior to reason, even when something is against it. On the other hand, the Socinians end up by denying the superrational sphere, given that the human reason rejects as irrational all that it cannot comprehend Antognazza, p. Also, from a modality point of view, every time logical necessity is not demonstrated, one can presume in a proposition only physical necessity. Leibniz shows also what can be labelled as the extreme rationalism of the faith, following the inspired expression of Michel Fichant p. On this ground, it is possible to say that the objects of the faith can be explained without being comprehended and the articles of faith can, and must, be sustained through reason without thereby being proved. So, the metaphysical and theological presuppositions, that sustains the coherence of the extreme rationalism of the faith, are the following ones: So, the reason has the capacity of built for justifying from itself its own cause and the cause of God, and in this way the title of the work Theodicy can be seen also as a Logodicy Fichant, p. A theory as sophisticated as this, or even more, Leibniz uses in order to sustain the existence of the freedom in the presence of the constraints issue both from nature the principle of causality, from us inclinations, passions, etc. The Theodicy sustains that the requisites of freedom are: After presents the break into the approach of the spontaneity, both to respect of Aristotelian interpretation, and of scottist tradition p. This spontaneitas intelligentis13 is specific to the person that comprehends the object of the action and the particular circumstances, so that only through reason, one can say that he is free. So, Leibniz sustains a metaphysical spontaneity14, that results from his system of pre-established harmony and that is different of a psychological spontaneity grounded on personal, biographical, psychological identity. The metaphysical spontaneity takes the place of an autonomous impetus of the will and so it can compensate the lack of the psychological spontaneity of the spiritual automaton Pasini, p. The theory of little perceptions seems to be an intermediate term between representative principle of the substances at the metaphysical level and the perceptive activity of the souls. The finalist and dynamic nature of the imperceptible appetitions form a tissue that corresponds to the dynamic principle of the substance. Just this dynamical element shows how far Leibniz is from the Aristotelian approach Pasini, p. This goal leads not just to identify a prevalent pattern, the soul as a principle of intelligibility of the real, but rather to interrogate the reciprocity of the analogy and to think the action as a connection between machine and soul Rey, p. So, the image, representation and theatre appear as three levels in which the free action expresses the exigencies and produce the stats of the text of the Theodicy. Leibniz passes from the method to the object: The creator chooses one of the infinite possible worlds, but not in a necessary manner: God could choose anything else. This lack of logical necessity can lead someone to say that the divine action is contingent, as follows from the definition of the contingency. God is contingent not in respect with his action or with his quality as a free agent, but the thing he will choose are contingent, as point out Gianfranco Mormino p. It is interested to note, as Mormino sustains in his paper, that the possibility to do anything else, entailed by contingency, can not be labelled as a perfection. So, the contingency is an eminent feature of free act of human beings and it reveals the capacity of these to be limited and fallible Mormino, p. Gianfranco Mormino sustains that through the analysis of the two explanations of the contingency, one would not have a good reason for sustaining that the contingency is a perfection. The first explanation put in evidence the definition of the contingent things in itself as hypothetical necessary given that they result from the actual series of the things, which is from the harmony of the things or from the existence of God. The second explanation of the possibility to do otherwise is on the indemonstrability of the contingent judgments, in which the resolution of the predicate in subject is never finite. Or, it is obvious that in both cases, God plays a different role than the finite spirits Mormino, p. Approaching the freedom as compared to the unactualised possibilities, according to Mormino, Leibniz wants not just the foundation of the freedom, but rather to reveal the confuse context in which the freedom is exercised, giving the possibility of error. The contingency is Page 5

6 conotated only in a negative way, from ontological and moral point of view: In this way, The Essays on theodicy have the eminent merit to put together the contingency and the moral responsibility. Even if a negative requisite, the contingency gives reason to the limitation of creatures: So, concludes Mormino, the human actions are always contingent given that we are creatures and sometimes are free because they are autonomous and stay under the right reason. En exchange, the divine decrees are always free and never contingent Mormino, p. Other challenge to freedom is that it seems that the freedom is hard to be defended in the conditions of the continuous creation and the concourse of the God to the action of the creatures. The Cartesian party accepts the doctrine of the continuous creation and sustains that the power to act is reduced to the laws that God follows along of the continuous creation of the nature. Leibniz feels free to criticize this positions, so that he says that: Piro shows that Leibniz not just unifies the doctrines of the continuum creation and of the concourse, but he puts together a large part of the classical theory of sufficient grace. On the human action, Piro sustains that Leibniz remains Augustinian, believing that all efficacy power derives from God and so the creature has no power efficacy autonomy. Nevertheless, the physical conditions, or the properties of a substance that are not immediately efficacy, can have a causal role in some contexts. There must be powers of the creatures that do not derive from the contingent laws of the nature they depend on the essential attributes of the creatures and that nevertheless influence the dynamic of the real events Piro, p. So, only the organic bodies will form the unities of the material world, in exchange the relationship of the aggregates with the component parts is extrinsic to the idea of a integrative unity governed by the form of the whole Duchesneau, p. As Duchesneau pointed out, the pre-formation designates an entity that results from divine action, so that the living beings can come by seed encapsulated in a serial way. The pre-formation must be localized into original seeds, which have a potential to produce organisms that have at their turn a potential for developing for the organism from the next generations, and so on, at infinity Duchesneau, p. In this organical order, the spontaneity is explained by the integration of the living beings as machines of the nature, that entail on their turn other living beings subordinates and machines of nature that can decomposes themselves in other machines of nature at infinity. Even if it is endowed with an organic body, and so pre-formed as any other living being, the man has free will in the circumstances of the system of pre- established harmony. The pre-formation aims the corporeal organism, that is the unitary and integrated arrangement of the components towards infinity, under one and the same law of developing that includes its apparent conservation. Justin Smith, Divine Machines: Nunziante, Organismo come Armonia. The harmonic correspondence supposes the development laws of the soul and body that reflect one into another, because they are the emanation from the one and the same source, the principle of original organization Duchesneau, p. The problem of the modification or becoming of the substances approached also by Duchesneau, pp. Given that the length of this paper does not allow a more detailed discussion23, we will discusse in the final part of the paper two aspects: In his final part of the Theodicy, Leibniz presents the novel of the Sextus, where he sustains that he can show where will be not the same Sextus that we find in Rome in our world, because it is not possible such a thing, because he wears what will be, but the many similar Sextus, that have all we know from the real Sextus, but not entirely, that is already in him without us knowing and, therefore, nor all that is going to happen to him. In a world we will find a superior Sextus, in other a Sextus that is content with an obscure state, the Sextus of any kind and in an infinity of ways. Sextus from real world is not identical with Sextus from the possible world in which he goes in Thrace. But in the same time, this passage gives reason to the idea that there is identity through possible worlds: Sextus form real world is identical to Sextus that goes in Thrace in some aspects and from a particular view. Sextus that goes in Rome and Sextus that goes in Thrace have a relative identity in the sense that they have some common predicates. The strongest argument is that they have in common some general predicates: In this case, Sextus from a possible world is relatively identical with Sextus from our world given that: Sextus from real world is the same son of Sextus Tarquinius as Sextus that goes in Thrace and he is a different resident from Sextus that goes in Thrace. Page 6

7 Chapter 3 : Leibniz, Bayle and the Controversy on Sudden Change Markku Roinila - blog.quintoapp.com A significant part of my recent work has been in the history of ethics and its intersection with metaphysics and religion, focusing on such figures as Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza and Leibniz, and parallels between ancient and early modern ethical thought. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Christia Mercer Donald Rutherford. Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature. Cambridge University Press, During the twentieth century, scholars of Leibniz have mostly ignored his theology. Donald Rutherford is such a brave soul. The book has three parts and ten chapters. Therefore, once we see the metaphysics in light of its theological goal, the close interconnections among its parts will become evident. As Rutherford nicely puts it: In Part I, Rutherford describes the project of the theodicy and, along the way, offers answers to questions which have plagued scholars for decades: What is the relation between variety and simplicity as apparently conflicting criteria of worldly goodness? How is the demand for the maximization of perfection related to the apparently conflicting commitment to the optimization of the happiness of rational creatures? How can there be different orders and harmonies in one world? Some of the missing details are supplied later in the book, but others are not. There is much that is interesting here. He ties together many of the separate strands of the late philosophy and tells a plausible story about monads, panorganism, and corporeal substance. This is a genuine achievement and one that will generate a lot of discussion. According to the Christianized Platonism that Leibniz learned among many other things from his teachers in Leipzig, it is the intellect or understanding intellectus and not the reason that comes to know the most fundamental truths; and moreover the goodness that created beings and their interrelations are supposed to have is based on the fact that they are expressions of God. Both claims have their source in Book VI of Plato You are not currently authenticated. View freely available titles: Page 7

8 Chapter 4 : Donald Rutherford, Leibniz and religion - PhilPapers In "Leibniz on Spontaneity" Donald Rutherford provides an illuminating treatment of Leibniz's views on that subject. The general aim of the paper is to explain how Leibniz's views on spontaneity relate to his account of freedom. I will also reflect on whether the controversy could have ended in agreement if it would have continued longer. Instead, one should adopt a doctrine of force which belongs to the sphere of metaphysics GP IV This is because one cannot find the principle of unity in mere matter, as material things cannot be at the same time material and perfectly indivisible. Leibniz combined his new theory of forces or dynamics with the old scholastic doctrine of substantial forms, arguing that their nature consists in force in the sense that from it follows something analogous to feeling and desire which relates them to souls. According to Leibniz, the difference between minds and bodies is of kind rather than degree. Bodies or natural machines are machines, whatever change occurs in them such as a caterpillar turning into a butterfly ; whereas rational souls are above the changes in nature, as they are images of God. Thus spiritual machines are real unities with self-consciousness and moral identity; that is, they can systematically strive for happiness and perfection. In the second part of the article Leibniz strives to show how these two kinds of machines work together. His explanation is founded on his doctrine of pre-established harmony, which God created with the substances, determining by an single act the relations between the substances, including the human soul and the aggregate that is its body. Leibniz also gives a lucid formulation of a spiritual automaton: It strives automatically to the good, but is nevertheless free as it possesses intelligence and spontaneity. In addition, the representations of the substance are fairly accurate, and this is the reason why it is able to strive to perfection in imitation of its creator, God GP IV Thus the discussion on New System took a very long time. If a dog is thought to be more than a mere physical machine, a sort of intermediate level between machines of nature and spiritual machines, one would suppose that it has some sort of spontaneity, freedom to do what it chooses to do. I can understand why a dog passes immediately from pleasure to pain when, whilst it is very hungry and eating some bread, it is suddenly hit with a stick; but that its soul should be constructed in such a way that it would have felt pain at the moment that it was hit, even if it had not been hit, and even if it had continued to eat the bread without being disturbed or prevented, that is what I cannot understand Bayle Related to this question is the relationship between spontaneity and negative feelings. If we suppose that the soul has spontaneity or activity, how can it feel passivity or negative feelings such as pain? It is also evident, as Pelletier notes Surely one cannot imagine that these kinds of sudden changes can happen simultaneously in the mind and the body if it is supposed that they follow their own laws? This is especially true of simple substances such as monads, as they would not have parts which would affect other parts in the substance. He made a distinction between spontaneity and voluntariness. Everything voluntary is spontaneous, but there are spontaneous actions which are not chosen, and which consequently are not voluntary. The states of the soul are always connected to its past states WF By this Leibniz means that the past states are present in the soul in the form of dispositions, as minute, insensible perceptions petite perceptions. We do not know distinctly the future states of the soul, but there are in each soul traces of everything that has happened to it before certain moment in its history and traces what will happen to it later WF The spiritual machine has in this way a sort of complete program written by symbols, which to the agent herself looks like confused gibberish. Only its author, God, can interpret the code, hack the message WF But this is not deus ex machina, as Bayle argues, because all the cognitive states of a substance follow from each other naturally although we do not always notice it. There is always a continuity between states of the soul which is due to the confused little perceptions which we are not aware of. Because of this there are only natural, not miraculous consequences in the soul. We are not usually aware of these perceptions because there is an infinite multitude of them and we cannot tell them apart WF While Bayle holds that according to occasionalism, God acts according to general laws, Leibniz understands the term miracle in the sense that it exceeds the power of created things. Leibniz thinks that if there is some occasion which is thought to be a general law, there must be a simpler or architectonic law of nature for one to avoid the charge of God acting miraculously: Finally, Leibniz comments on the simplicity of a substance, Page 8

9 emphasizing its complexity. He argues that there are parts in the soul, though in itself it is a simple substance. These parts make up the affects or feelings of the soul. They are composed of several simultaneous perceptions. The perceptions which are simultaneously together in the same soul involve a truly infinite multitude of small indistinguishable feelings that will be developed in what follows, so one should not be astonished at the infinite variety of what emerges over time. All of this is only a consequence of the representational nature of the soul, which must express what happens, and indeed what will happen, in its body; and, because of the connection or correspondence of all the parts of the world, it must also express in some way what happens in all the other substances WF Thus each substance not only expresses its own body but through it all the other substances as well WF He also considers the view that substances are active in themselves problematic Bayle Bayle does not return to the dog -example,6 but presents another one concerning the union of soul and body of Caesar, in order to argue that the pre-established harmony greatly surpasses the imagination of men. How can this be conceived at all? The problem is even more incomprehensible because of the infinite number of organic parts in the human mechanism which all are subject to effects of all the other bodies in the world. How can we make sense of the fact that this pre-established harmony is never upset, and always stays on course through even the longest life of a man, despite the infinite variety of actions of all these parts one on another, surrounded on all sides by an infinity of corpuscles, sometimes cold, sometimes hot, sometimes dry, sometimes wet, always active, always pricking at the nerves, in this way or that? I think that this multiplicity of parts and of external agents is essential for the almost infinite variety of changes in the human body. But could this variety be as perfectly ordered as this system requires? Will it never disturb the correspondence between these changes and those of the soul? This is what seems to be quite impossible Bayle When this function of the natural machine is connected to the spiritual machine, the picture is even more incredible to Bayle. As Leibniz claims, the two machines are both guided by the active force and correspond perfectly without any direct co-operation. This is simply not acceptable Bayle Bayle proceeds by comparing the soul of Julius Caesar understood as an immaterial automaton to an epicurean atom which is surrounded by a void on all sides, never coming into contact with any other atom. According to Bayle, this comparison is very close, as the atom has a natural power of self-movement, and the soul of Caesar is a mind which can produce its thoughts without any influence from any other mind or body. Leibniz had earlier argued that a moving body will always retain its movement or progression if nothing occurs to make it change. Similarly the atom will keep on moving uniformly and regularly along the same straight line Bayle When this idea is applied to the soul of Caesar, we can see that if the first thought it gives itself is a feeling of pleasure, it is hard to see why the second thought should not be a feeling of pleasure as well. We could never make sense of the possibility of bizarre changes from black to white or from yes to no, or those wild leaps from earth to heaven which are quite common in human thought Bayle In the second moment of its existence, the soul of Caesar does not acquire a new ability to think, but only keeps the ability it had in the first moment, being as independent from any external affect as in the first moment Bayle If Caesar is suddenly pricked by a pin, how can the soul turn from pleasure to pain in a moment without being prepared for this sudden change? He tries to hammer the point home with yet another example. Let us say that God has designed a bird which sings all the time a certain score. In order for that to happen, the score has to be imprinted in the memory of the animal or its muscles are arranged in such a way that mechanical movement produce that score. It does not seem believable that the soul cannot foresee the following states or the musical score it will experience in the future. But this is what Leibniz claims, as he holds that the soul senses the future perceptions only confusedly Bayle Only God, whose cognition is infinite can analyse the complete history of the substances. In fact, that is the reason we exist in the first place, as God has chosen this set of substances to create. And the creation includes the idea that the substances are compatible; that is they harmonize with each other. Leibniz is ready to admit that with respect to bodies, his theory is mechanical, but with respect to soul, it is nothing like that. So according to this second half of my theory, everything happens in the soul as if there were no body; just as, according to the first half, everything happens in the body as if there were no soul WF Therefore even if the soul represents the states of the attached body, it acts independently of it. Concerning the soul of Caesar and the question of sudden change, Page 9

10 Leibniz argues that there is a great variety in the soul, unlike in an atom. Although like the atom, the soul is indivisible, it contains A compound tendency, that is to say a multitude of present thoughts, each of which tends towards a particular change, depending on what is involved in it, and which are all in it at the same time, in virtue of its essential relatedness to all the other things in the world WF The change from pleasure to pain may look sudden, but in addition to the continuous series of intermediate petite perceptions discussed above, there are a great number of different inclinations present at the same time in the soul, and the difference between the pleasure and pain is not as great as one might think. Therefore the balance between pleasure and pain is very delicate. However, there is a lot of interesting material preserved by Leibniz which did not end up in the communication and which sheds light to the topics. In the comments Leibniz returns to the example of the dog. It is also important to see that the change is not sudden as it seems: Because the hit of a stick received by the dog is only a disposition, the dog cannot know the future pain: In a soul, the representations of causes are the causes of the representations of effects. When the dog is hit, the soul represents the cause the hit and the effect pain. But before the first event and between these two events there are many intermediate insensible little perceptions. The soul of the dog is imperceptibly on its way to pain, but it is not aware of it. In another unpublished note of we can find a similar case: The soul sometimes passes from white to black or from yes to no, without knowing how, or at least involuntarily, for what its confused thoughts and its feelings produce in it we attribute to the body. So we should not be surprised if a man who is stung by some insect when eating jam should, despite himself, pass immediately from pleasure to pain. In the soul as in the body, little by little the insensible becomes the sensibleâ nothing new happens in the substance of the soul which makes it feel the sting; for what happens is confused presentiment, or, better, insensible dispositions of the soul, which represent the dispositions of the body with regard to the sting WF Therefore the events of hitting the dog or stinging the jam-eating man are processes of which only some stages are perceived distinctly. I think this fact cannot be resolved, but it can be understood â there are unfortunate events in the world and they are part and parcel of the history of the beings, evident to a supreme being who can analyse the law-of-the-series of the substances, but unpredictable to the substances themselves. Thus it is certain that the controversy was conducted under a spirit of tolerance which, according to Marcelo Dascal, is the first component of a positive attitude toward human difference Dascal Most thought of it as an interesting hypothesis which was very much estranged from reality. It is certainly true that Leibniz could not demonstrate his hypothesis any more than Malebranche or other occasionalists could theirs. In this sense his pre-established harmony is not an improvement to Malebranche. In fact, to contemporaries it might have been more believable to think that God connects all things in the world from moment to moment through laws of nature than that he has created the substances in such a way that they perfectly correspond with each other from the start until the end of the world. In the eyes of the learned reading public, it seems probable that Bayle was the winner of the controversy. The case may be different with respect to spontaneity. Leibniz struggled to show to Bayle that the soul functions largely in terms of insensible petite perceptions and that the continuity of events is founded on them. But he had not yet published his New Essays at this point where he would explain their significance in detail. For him it may have looked as unintelligible as the hypothesis of pre-established harmony. Page 10

11 Chapter 5 : Research - Donald Rutherford The item Leibniz: nature and freedom, edited by Donald Rutherford and J.A. Cover represents a specific, individual, material embodiment of a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Brigham Young University. Contains all past and future states All states of the universe Substances as parts of substances. What he calls substances on the right side of the formula above is "corporeal. A block of marble is not substanial forms. Human beings have substantial forms, but animals may or may not. Intrinsic unity and unity by accident: Every extended thing is divided into parts, which may or may not be seperated. A substance is an entity which is not a mode or state. Leibniz - The essense of an aggregate consists in modes or states of its constituents. So there are no aggregates unless there are substances, which are not aggregates. Read for monday the assignment for wednesday February 25th, - Reading: That is said to express a thing in which there are relations that correspond to the relations of the thing expressed. One thing expresses another, when there is a constant and ordered relation between what can be asserted of the one and what can be asserted of the other. When a circle is projected onto an ellipse, the latter is an expression of the former In analytic geomtry, numbers and figures represent geometric figures. In algebra, numbers and figures represent magnitudes. A map expresses the geographical region that it depicts. A miniature model of a machine expresses the machine Perception is an expression of that which is perceived our ideas of color, warmth, and other sensory qualities are really expressions of the motions of minute figures General concepts express things. What is common to all these expressions is that we can pass from a consideration of the relations in the expression to a knowledge of the corresponding properties of the thing expressed. For example, the idea of a circle expresses a circle, and although it "is not similar to the circle, truths can be derived from it which would be confirmed beyond doubt by investigating a real circle" V. Characters are certain things by which the relationships among other things are expressed and which are easier to manage than the things themselves. We need valid symbols to derive truths about what is smbolized. All of our reasoning is nothing but the combining and substitution of characters, whether those characters are words, marks, or even images Perspectival Projection As The Paradigm Of Expression These explicit sources are not enough for inquiry. Perspectival projections Thus, a circle can be represented by an ellipse that is, an oval curve in a perspectival projection, and indeed by a hyperbola, which is most unlike it, and does not even return upon itself; for to any point of the hyperbola a corresponding point of the circle which projects the hyperbola can be assigned by the same constant law. And his response to Arnauld in passage 2 runs more fully: One thing expresses another, in my language, when there is a con- stant and ordered relation between what can be asserted of the one and what can be asserted of the other. It is in this way that a projec- tion in perspective expresses a geometric figure. In Theodicy, There must always be an exact relation between the representation and the thing [it expresses] The projections in perspective of the conic sections of the circle show that one and the same circle may be represented by an ellipse, a parabola, a hyperbola, and even another circle, a straight line and a point. Like a function, a mapping of the points of the original figure to their counterparts in the figure that expresses it. The Method of Projection and Section. For those paintings done in accordance with the rules of perspective, we have little trouble "being tricked. When Leibniz tells us that there is an "exact" or a "precise and natural" relation between the points of the two figures in a perspectival projection, he is also noting the much deeper relationship that holds between a conic section and its perspectival projections Morals for an Account of Perspectival Expression Perspectival expression: The expression of one geometrical figure by a perspectival projection of it onto another. Features that are preserved by a transformation are said to be invariant under it. We can encode information about the original situation as information about the relationships among the corresponding items in the expression. In a perspectival projection, preservation of structure runs both ways, and so we can make the return trip to a conclusion about relationships among the original items of interest. An Account of Perspectival Expression Perspectival expression: Hence, the essential feature of a perspectival expression is that the pattern of projective relations and attributes among the constituents of the represented phenomena is mirrored by the pattern of such relations and attributes among the constituents of the expression of it. Since Page 11