The
Philosophy of

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

General
Notions

Life
and Works

Theory
of Knowledge

Metaphysics

The
World as Phenomenal Extension

Rational
Psychology

Theodicy

Ethics

Conclusion:
Historical Position

I. General Notions

The
thought of Leibniz represents a synthesis of Cartesian Rationalism
and Aristotelio-Scholastic thought. The two problems
that must be solved are always the same:

Leibniz
believed that the central concept of the Aristotelian system -- that is, the form
that is drawn out of potency -- could explain these relationships. He
brought forth his theory of the monad,
a spiritual substance endowed with force which, spontaneously and according to
a law pre-established by God, is evolved from the obscure and confused state of
potency and reaches the state of representation.

II. Life and Works

Gottfried
Wilhelm von Leibniz (picture),
who had a mind of encyclopedic culture, was born in 1646 at Leipzig, where he acquired during his
early studies a profound knowledge of philosophy itself and of the history of
medieval and modern philosophy and of the mathematical sciences.

In
1672 he went to Paris on a diplomatic mission to the court of Louis XIV, the
Sun-King, whose desire to expand the realm of France represented a real danger for Germany. In Paris, Leibniz came into contact with
the leading philosophers and scientists of his day, such as Malebranche
and Arnauld, and there he made the discovery of
infinitesimal calculus. Newton made the same discovery at the
same time; hence the two entered into heated polemic regarding credit for the
discovery. On a voyage to London Leibniz made the acquaintance of Newton, and at The Hague he met Spinoza.

In
1676, invited by the Duke of Brunswick to accept the office of court librarian,
he left Paris to go to the ducal court of
Hanover. There he did not interrupt his studies of philosophy, science,
history, religion and politics, despite the fact that he had to attend to many
diplomatic and political matters. In order to compile a history of the House of
Brunswick, he made a trip to Italy, where he visited the major
cities. When the Duke of Brunswick succeeded to the throne of England, Leibniz remained in Hanover, where he died in solitude in
1716.

Of the
many writings of Leibniz only his Theodicy was published during his
lifetime, many other works of his remaining unedited. These are separate essays
rather than a systematic exposition of Leibniz' thought. They are, however, of
great critical value. Among the works published posthumously the most important
from a philosophical point of view are: Discourse on Metaphysics; The New System of Nature; New Essays Concerning Human
Understanding (a criticism of Locke's Essays); and Monadology. The originals of nearly all the writings of
Leibniz are in French or in Latin.

III. Theory of Knowledge

In
regard to the problem of the origin of ideas, Leibniz upholds a virtual innatism,
which is a middle course between the innatism of Descartesand the
empiricism of Locke.

Descartes
had admitted that such concepts as God, the perfect being, and so forth are
directly impressed by God upon the intellect. Locke denied this innatism, with good reason, and taught that the intellect
was a "tabula rasa"
(blank slate), and that all ideas come from experience and reflection.

Leibniz
believes that a middle course must be held in order to avoid the extremes of
both these theories. Thus he admits that the ideas of reason are virtually
in the intellect, and that the intellect discovers them by revolving upon
itself through reflection.

Let us
take the example of a piece of marble. The statue of Hercules which can be
carved in it does not "de facto" exist, but a sculptor sees the lines
of the projected statue in the marble, and through his workmanship is able to
reduce to actuality what first existed there only virtually. This is the concept
of Aristotelian potency. For Leibniz, the intellect is an active potency which
finds itself the power of being reduced to act by virtue of the spontaneity of
the monad, as we shall see in his metaphysics.

Regarding
the fundamental principles of knowledge, Leibniz holds that they are two:

In
fact, since reality is presented under two different aspects, one necessary and
absolute, the other relative and contingent, it follows that we are able to
make two kinds of judgments:

As a
consequence, the truths of fact are contingent for us ("quoad nos") but not in
themselves ("quoad se"), because an
adequate idea of the subject would reveal to us that the predicate is
necessarily connected with the subject. Thus both the truths of reason and the
truths of fact have a common foundation, infallible logical necessity.

IV. Metaphysics

The
metaphysics of Leibniz is a logical development of the theory of the monad. He
was led by his training in infinitesimal calculus to conceive of reality, even
on the philosophical level, as composed of infinitely small atoms devoid of all
extension and endowed with activity (dynamic atoms). The atom of Democritus was
extended and hence divisible: it had to be replaced by an unextended
atom, a mathematical point.

On the
other hand, Cartesian atoms ("res extensa"), subject to movement, are not passive but
are endowed with resistance, and resistance is a force. Leibniz unites both
these results of his critique and conceives reality as an
infinity of points deprived of all extension, but endowed with activity.
They are unextended centers of force. These he calls monads.

The
activity of the monad consists in representation. Every monad, each from
its own point of view, represents the universe, partially understood, and as it
were in miniature. Since the life of the monad
consists in representation and every representation of a monad is different
from the representation of other monads, they differ from one another. There
cannot be two monads equal to each other.

Furthermore,
the monad draws these representations from its own depths, from the obscure
principle that exists within it, and that tends to become clear in the
representative act. The monad can never exhaust this source that exists within
itself, for in such a case it would become Pure Act, God. The representative
act of the monad can never rest; it seeks ever to represent itself anew. Thus
the monad is representation and appetite.

Although
not only the soul-monad but all monads are representations and appetite, it
does not follow that all representations are equal. There are unconscious
representations, in which case the monad never manages to become conscious of
its own being. Such are representations of the mineral and vegetable world.
These unconscious representations Leibniz calls "perceptions." There
are also conscious representations, in which case the monad, by reflecting upon
itself, knows its own content. Such are the representations of the soul-monad.
These representations Leibniz calls "apperceptions."

Another
important particular of the metaphysics of Leibniz is the law of pre-established harmony. The monads, being unextended points, cannot have a relation of causality to
one another. Such relations are attributable to God, who establishes the order
that every monad must have in itself and in relation to its fellows from the
moment of creation (pre-established harmony). An example may be found in the
watchmaker who selects and puts together the parts of a watch.

Thus
the world of Leibniz is made up of monads, infinite in number, active, but
without any relation of causality among themselves. Monads are arranged by God
in a perfect order which ascends to God, the supreme monad.

V. The World as Phenomenal Extension

The
world, presented as extended matter, is a phenomenon resulting from the
grouping of monads. The monad is representation; it is driven ever more clearly
toward itself by an obscure principle. Since there are degrees in the
perfection of representation, it follows that the monad passes from lesser to
greater degrees of perfection, and hence that it is dual. Thus in the monad
there are to be distinguished an obscure passive principle, and an active
principle. The passive element is called by Leibniz "matter" or
"mass."

By
virtue of pre-established harmony, the monads arrange themselves in groups, as
if in a colony -- by coordinating themselves, the more imperfect with the
perfect, and these with a superior, central monad. Every reality that results
from such aggregates is a body in which the material part is the sum of the
passivity of the component monads. But, granted the immateriality of the
monads, the material element that results is not real,
but a phenomenon of the obscure principle of the monads. This is not to be
confused with phantasms and dreams, for these latter do not have a foundation
in reality, while the materiality of body is a well-founded phenomenon
("phenomenon bene fundatum"),
founded on the passivity of the monad.

VI. Rational Psychology

Even
man is an aggregate of monads, ending in the central monad which is the soul.
Hence there are in man monads of diverse nature, unconscious, subconscious, and
conscious. Since every conscious representation lies first in the unconscious
state of the passive material element, Leibniz adopts the Scholastic expression
"Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu," and adds "praeter
intellectum." The meaning is that the intellect,
by virtue of innatism, finds within itself the truths
of reason. Birth and death, in the system of Leibniz, signify the passage on
the part of the soul from one aggregate of monads to another.

VII. Theodicy

Leibniz
proves the existence of God by a priori and a posteriori arguments. The a
priori argument is substantially the same as the ontological
argument of St. Anselm. Leibniz, however, gives the argument a different
coloring by developing the concept of possibility. Thus if the infinite Being
is possible (and it is possible, for the concept of the infinite does not
involve contradiction), it exists. Hence God exists.

The
a posterior
proofs are two:
The first is based on
pre-established harmony in so far as such harmony demands an author, and
this is God.
The second is based on the
principle of sufficient reason: Everything that exists must have
sufficient reason for existing, and this reason is God.

Where
the attributes of God are under consideration, Leibniz differs from the
traditional concept of creation. God is the creator of the monads and of their
order. But if God was free to decree the creation of the world, He was not free
in the choice between different possible worlds. In virtue of the principle of
sufficient reason, God chose the best of creatable worlds (optimism), because
there would be no justification for a world worse than the present one.

Thus
Leibniz, while wishing to avoid the voluntarism of Descartes and the absolute
necessity of Spinoza,
winds up by approaching this latter, and finishes by conceiving of the world as
forming and shaping itself under the necessity of the principle of sufficient
reason.

VIII. Ethics

In a
world which, according to the concept of Leibniz, is the best possible world,
the question of the existence of evil must be answered. Leibniz treats of this
question in his Theodicy. Evil is the privation of perfection; it
is not a reality but the decline of a real being.

There
are three kinds of evil:

Keeping
in mind, however, the pre-established harmony and the law of optimism ("lex melioris"), derived from
the principle of sufficient reason, it is to be concluded that moral evil also
is necessary and willed by God.

As
Michele Sciacca writes: "We can conclude that Leibniz, despite all his
efforts, does not succeed in overcoming what is called the "geometric
fatalism" of Spinoza, which is the central problem of his speculation. Once admitted that the various
acts of the soul are causally bound together in such a manner that each is
necessarily determined by preceding acts, one can no longer speak of liberty.
Leibniz can justify spontaneity, but not liberty." (Manuale di storia della filosofia,
II, 96.)

IX. Conclusion: Historical Position

Leibniz'
philosophy is not superficial; it considers the most important problems of
metaphysics and psychology. Platonic in spirit, it is inclined toward a poetic
rather than a scientific synthesis. Thus its principal defect is it unreality:
the philosophy of Leibniz is not built on experimental data but on a priori
principles and definitions.

Still,
Leibniz must not be underrated as a speculative thinker. He rendered great
service to the cause of philosophy by opposing empirical sensism.
His philosophy opens to the mind new vistas of philosophic syntheses, and is an
invaluable aid to the understanding of later systems.