Mathesis and Analysis

MATHESIS AND ANALYSIS:FINITUDE AND THE INFINITE

IN THE MONADOLOGY OF LEIBNIZ

JAMES LUCHTE

University of Wales, Lampeter, UK

There is an innity of gures and of movements, present and past, which enter into theefcient cause of my present writing, and in its nal cause, there are an innity ofslight tendencies and dispositions of my soul, present and past.1

Two years before his death in 1716, Leibniz nished his Monadology,which was to be the last, complete exposition of his philosophy. In itsninety numbered sections, he seeks to disclose, in a succinct narrative, theultimate unity of nitude and the innite.2 Despite the appearance of thisradical differentiation, Leibniz contends that a necessary and sufcientground for existence subsists in a divine unity or, that there is a syndotic3

intimacy between these realms. We may suggest, provisionally, as ametaphor, that it is Leibnizs task, as with one of his precursorsDemocritus,4 to trace Ariadnes thread out of the labyrinth5 along acontinuum betwixt nitude and its mirror in the innite. Yet, his narrativeunfolds as an exploration of a pathway from the latter toward the former.As we will see, his unduly abstract starting point in the monad, and hissubsequent revisions of each point of departure, lead us ever more closelyto the concrete individuality of the nite being. From a concreteperspective he begins with nitude seeking the innite, but in the idealperspective, nite existence has already been reected, howeverabstractly, in the mirror of the innite. As the narrative is enacted, theconcrete striving for the innite, or power, is reected and repeatedlyovercome, sublated, amidst the ideal transcendens of the monadic, livingindividual. With the realization of concrete individuality, the self abidesthe innite, but as it is with body, and will ever remain so, any sense ormeaning of the innite will remain tentative, precarious, and makeshift.6

Such a trajectory is given a specic meaning in that each nite beingabides in itself the potentiality for a disclosure of the sufcient reason fornot only its own existence, but also for that of the whole.7 In otherwords, and to put it again metaphorically, as did Leibniz, each being is a

r The author 2006. Journal compilationr The Editor/Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK and Boston, USA.

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mirror of the entire cosmos, and thus contains within itself the resourcesfor an interpretation of the/its world. Signicantly, this is a repetition ofhis principle of individuation (principium individuum), which he sketchedin his rst published work, Disputatio metaphysica de principio individui(Metaphysical Disputation on the Principle of Individuation).8 Mates, in hisThe Philosophy of Leibniz, summarizes this principle as the contentionthat things are individuated by their whole being (entitas tota); that is,every property or accident of a thing is essential to its identity.9 Thiswhole being intimates Leibnizs interpretation of substance as amonadic body,10 which (from the perspective of the divine) containsall of its aspects (necessary and contingent), past, present, and future.11

In this way, the ontology of Leibniz is deeply wedded to a temporalproblematic and must be distinguished from any merely de-temporalized,logical rationalism. From Leibnizs own indications, we must attempt tounearth the root for the unity of concrete existence entailed in theprinciple of individuation as we traverse the tapestry of being as a whole.This principle and its operative corollary, the principle of sufcientreason, enact their drama upon the topos where we can discern thephenomena, and the originary connection (syndosis), of nitude and theinnite. It is the task of this essay to follow this clue of place so as to setforth an hermeneutical interpretation of the Monadology.12

Leibniz seeks most of all to save the phenomena (as contingency isperfectly analysable or present in the intuition of the divine) and todisclose, through an analysis/exploration13 of his own nite existence andmonadic horizons,14 a deeper plane of philosophical meanings andreasons. All contingent truths/beings have sufcient conditions, even ifit is beyond the powers and the desirability of the nite being to fulll atotal analysis of contingent existence. Yet, this sense of analysis, as it iscoordinated amidst the principle/pathway of individuation, will not seekto purify truth from the contingent ux of existence or reduce truth to aset of deductive, axiomatic reasons or premises. On the contrary, thatwhich is analysed for Leibniz is to be acknowledged, described andsufcient reasons for its existence are to be sought. That which is essentialis that his notion of truth must be attuned to the principle ofindividuation, and thus, to contingent existence as the reciprocal mirrorof the divine.15

If we are to provide an appropriate interpretation of Leibniz, we mustexplore Mates and others contentions that logic, as with Heidegger, isrooted in existence, and thus, for good or evil, can be articulated as thesimultaneous ideality and reality of metaphysics. The principle ofindividuation forbids any severance of logic and metaphysics. In thisway, a mathematical or logical reduction of the philosophy of Leibniz isnot only aesthetically restrictive,16 but also, philosophically violent. WithMates, Heidegger, and others, we must nally discard the haunting imageinaugurated by Russells reduction and restriction of the signicance of

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Leibnizs philosophy to his own (retrospectively conceived) logical andmathematical protocols.17 Such a reduction includes so as to exclude that which is excluded is the so-calledmetaphysical or that which does notinclude the consistency and rigor demanded of a coherent logicalphilosophy. What is lost is the power of philosophy to speak to us and toallow for a self-expression of existence. At the same time, this does notreduce Leibniz to the descriptivism and aestheticism of Strawson18 as theformer is seeking to retrieve a metaphysical grounding for logic itself and not to annihilate it. In this way, we are attempting to transcend thedichotomy of rationalist and empiricist interpretations of Leibniz, towardan hermeneutic interpretation which discloses the intimate relation ofmetaphysics and logic.

Mates gives us a hint of a different portrayal of Leibniz, an indicationwhich we will explore in the following essay:

. . . Leibnizs attitude is that of a philosophical explorer, who reports whathe nds to be the case and who notices that there are important logicalinterconnections among his discoveries.19

What can be gained from Mates description is a differing notion ofanalysis operative in the Monadology of Leibniz. For while the latter isseeking the sufcient ground of existence, such an analysis is neitherregressive, nor decompositional, in that it does not seek primarily to breakdown phenomena into schemas or logical forms. As a philosophicalexplorer, on the contrary, Leibniz seeks the sufcient ground amidst anexpansive and prospective unfolding of existence amidst ever higherunities, one which seeks an ultimate unity in the divine. The logicalinterconnections, as Mates writes, are interesting, but remain parasiticupon and/or expressive of the nite situation surrounding the dis-coveries the truths.

That which is signicant is the recurrence of unity which grounds thesetruths. In this way, a merely formal logic, because of its arbitrarycharacter and its up-rooted status, cannot disclose the truths of existenceand being. In other words, any authentic logos must be rooted in thesescandalous origins. In this context, analysis must acquire a topos fromwhich to comprehend the philosophy of Leibniz in its specicity. Anindication of a topos for our interpretation of Leibniz, as we will see in ourreference to Foucault, comes from a consideration of the deeper sense ofunity in mathesis. As a site of individuation, mathesis opens up aqualitative place for an exploration, interpretation and analysis of niteexistence,20 or, in the language of Schurmann,21 a topology upon anepochal economy of being. In this light, amidst this multiplicity therealready resides a unity, one that is disclosed amid the process ofindividuation. Mates characterizes the difcult and far from straightfor-ward task of interpreting Leibniz. He writes,

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The rst and foremost difculty is that in setting forth the philosophy ofLeibniz, one does not know where to begin. Some advice on this problem isfound in a well-known passage in Alice in Wonderland:

The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. Where shall I begin, please yourMajesty? He asked.Begin at the beginning, the King said, very gravely, and go on till you cometo the end: then stop.

But unfortunately we cannot follow this good advice, for Leibnizs philosophyhas no beginning, that is, no unique, logically primitive set of axioms.Contrary to what many commentators seem to have supposed, he does nottreat his philosophical principles as a deductive system in which certainpropositions are to be accepted without proof and the rest are to be deducedfrom these. Instead, it is clear that he regards his doctrine simply as a networkof important truths that have many interesting logical interrelationships. Hededuces the various principles from one another in different orders andcombinations. Often he gives alternative denitions of the same concept,sometimes even showing how to derive these from one another. It is obviousthat he had no particular order of theorems and denitions in mind.22

It seems clear that the true target of this text is the commentator himself.Indeed, these many commentators23 are merely echoes of an interpreta-tion which Russell had set out and refused to alter in any essentialrespect in 1900.24 What is interesting, however, is that the real violenceof Russells interpretation resulted from his attempt to show thatLeibnizs metaphysics derive from his logic. Yet, even though this was theostensible programme for Russell, he remained sceptical of its completesuccess, so much so that he found it necessary to re-write the philosophyof Leibniz in order to demonstrate his case. Moreover, this is distinctfrom the position of Heinrich Scholz who argued that Leibnizs systemhad a secure and complete logical foundation. Yet, these two, while indisagreement, would surely become quick allies in another interpretivecontext, say, for instance, in one which sought to disclose themetaphysical foundations of logic.25 In either case, these approaches toan interpretation of Leibniz would be, forMates, species of bad advice,just as that from the King to the White Rabbit.

Some good advice may come from the perspective of a newer residentin our Leibnizian City. Although he is new, and might be deemedsuspect as he is not really a Leibniz scholar, Foucault, in his The Order ofThings, portrays Leibniz as an initiator of the 17th century mathesis, anorder of identity and difference in the Classical, pre-Kantian episteme the site of perspective, orientation and self-interpretation.26 Foucaultrespects the principle of individuation as he seeks to disclose thegenealogical whole amid an indigenous history of the present. Hedescribesmathesis as a universal science of measurement and order, but,in another way, as an order of simple natures, or as the place of thesesimples which are bestowed via their situation amidst this order.

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Foucault writes, tracing the genealogy of mathesis as a pursuit of thewhole:

. . . the fundamental element of the Classical episteme is neither the success orfailure of mechanism, nor the right to mathematicize or the impossibility of amathematicization of nature, but rather a link with the mathesis which, untilthe end of the Eighteenth Century, remains constant and unaltered.27

Foucault, from his perspective, seeks to unfold the philosophy of theClassical era, and thus, that of Leibniz, within the context of its ownlimits and horizons. He is also disclosing a situation in which onemetaphysic, episteme, can exist and then be displaced. The primaldifferentiation of the mathesis is also a fracture in the unity ofknowledge. Amidst these displacements, new metaphysical possibilitiescan emerge, but it is not possible to see these various displacements in alinear fashion as older forms are constantly re-emerging amidst the newerforms.28

It is from this indigenous topos that we can perhaps begin tounderstand the meaning of philosophical analysis in Leibniz. Foucaultwrites,

In this sense, analysis was very quickly to acquire the value of a universalmethod and the Leibnizian project of establishing a mathematics of qualitativeorders is situated at the heart of Classical thought; its gravitational centre. But,on the other hand, this relation to the mathesis as a general science of orderdoes not signify that knowledge is absorbed into mathematics, or that the latterbecomes the foundation for all possible knowledge.29

Foucault, with his genealogical/archeological methodology, on thecontrary, traces/excavatesmathesis (and taxonomy and genesis) out fromunderneath the archive of mathematical and logical reductions/transfor-mations. Indeed, mathematics and logic cannot be conceived asautonomous and independent realms, in Leibnizs view, as they cannotestablish themselves as pure relations except as those severed from thequalitative order of substance, or from vis primitiva. On the contrary,mathesis is the orientational horizon for the disclosure of sufciency withrespect to the phenomena of existence. In this way, analysis would be theact of disclosing the sufcient unity of existence and being within thelimits of mathesis. In the neighborhood of Foucault, Russell is notjustied in his elimination of the rich sense of mathesis from the earlymodern philosophy of Leibniz, in favour of his latter-day and violentreduction and re-construction. Indeed, his mockery of these aspects ofLeibniz is indicative of the great distance that separates these twophilosophers both in method and intention.30

From this perspective, Leibniz, in the Monadology, can be seen aslaying out a hermeneutical situation which is inclusive and variegated initself, and open to the beyond. In this way, we are confronted by the


question of the indivisible forms which are the causes of theappearances,31 an uncertain question which seeks to navigate upon asea of perplexing cases.32 For Leibniz, analysis of nitude toward itssufcient grounds could be conceived as an exploration of the unfoldingof existence and being amid the nite perspectives of created beings.These considerations intimate that there is more to Leibniz than hiscommon portrayal as a mathematical, logical scholar, and discoverer(independent of Newton) of Calculus. This more is rarely mentioned,despite its prominence in his writings. The theodicy33 of Leibniz had beenput to sleep by the now tottering ethos of scientic and logicalhegemony.34

In the following pages, I will trace a thread from the topos of thecreated monad and its insularity amid proximate perception to that of theuncreated Monad of an innite divine being. This thread will consist of aseries of provisional points of departure, in which each starting point willbe makeshift, a temporary shelter, so as to engage a philosophy whichcontests that there is no beginning and that everything is in everything.I will begin in TheMonadwith the abstract concept of the monad as a rstpoint of departure upon our pathway between nitude and the innite. InMonad and Perception, a second, revised point of departure will emerge inthe appetitive monad indicating the changing manifoldness within eachmonad. In Monad and Entelechy, as a third point of departure, I willdisclose the sufcient condition for the aspiration of nitude for theinnite in the entelechy, actuality, which strives for a certain perfectionamid the radical diversity of perceptive existence. In The Principle ofRational Soul (Mind), I will describe a fourth point of departure as theprinciple of rational soul, which, Leibniz asserts, emerges ambivalentlyamid the striving of actuality for self-consciousness (apperception). Inlight of the limitations of mind, I will reect, inMonad and the Body, uponthe body as a fth, revised point of departure, as the existence of a self-conscious living being. The monadic body is a mirror of the physicalcosmos and is an index of the relative state of perfection of the soul vis-a`-vis the absolute perfection of the divinity. In God as Supreme Monad,I will set forth Leibnizs designation of divinity as the necessary andsufcient ground for essence and existence. But, as we are nite, we canneither unfold our perception to rival a god, nor can we interpret our ownexistence from the perspective of innity. In this way, God cannotbecome, within the limits of this analysis currently at play, a sixth, revisedpoint of departure. In The Meaning of the Monad, I will attempt todecipher the signicance of the monad in light of Leibnizs metaphors ofthe city and of the windowless monad. I will suggest that these metaphorscomplement and remain linked as each discloses a perspective desired bythe other. I will close in the Epilogue with an alternative possibility, fromLeibnizs correspondence with Arnauld, which suggests that our desirefor transcendence is in truth an intimation of a vague but true

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remembrance of our emergence in the world via the self-expression of thedivine will. In this way, amidst the simultaneity and identity of mortalexistence and the divine, the need to escape from nitude becomes thewrong question/solution. There must instead be a comprehension thateach soul is a recurring truth, moment, amid the life of the All. Yet, thereason for our desire for transcendence remains unknown to us.Heidegger would call this our basic state, transcending. Indeed, as itemerges amidst the mirror of nitude, it must have, for Leibniz, asufcient ground for its existence in the understanding of the divine.

I. THE MONAD

The rst point of departure for our analysis is the monad. Of course, thisis only a provisional starting point, as we embark in the spirit of Mates.Considered as such for the moment (although no monad ever lives in thisway), a monad is a simple substance. In this state of abstraction, themonad can only be dened in the negative. Simplicity entails a be-ingwithout partition, with neither extension, nor form, nor diversity.35

Moreover, as a simple substance, or as a soul, the monad cannot bedestroyed or created through natural means,36 since it does not operateaccording to the laws of composition. Unlike composites which begin orend gradually, monads can only be created or annihilated all at once.37

In this light, Leibniz deems the monad a rst principle, and describes it asfree with respect to other substances, including God.38

Yet, despite their simplicity and transcendental signicance, monadsmust have for Leibniz some qualities, otherwise they would not even beexistences.39 Indeed, in light of his principle of individuation, monadsmust subsist in the very heart of contingency as the very constituents andlimits of things themselves. It is this apparent paradox that we mustattempt to fathom. For although Leibniz contends that simple substancesmake up composites, the monad remains strangely distant from thetopography of nite contingency where living beings appear to exist. Thisstrangeness is echoed in a metaphor, where Leibniz writes, The Monadshave no windows through which anything may come in or go out.40 Assimple, a monad can neither be effected by another created being, nor canchange be effected by an external source. Indeed, in the context of themonad, a question-mark is placed over the very actuality of an external,a mere prejudice for Leibniz, as Russell asserts.41 The dogmatic object,for Leibniz, as Fichte would later echo, does not exist. Instead, anyauthentic outside, as suggested by the principle of sufcient reason,subsists just beyond the limits of the contingent world, as the necessarycondition for the existence of states of affairs, situations . . . existence.

The paradox is alleviated with a displacement of metaphors withrespect to the possible readings of windowless. Windowless is not meant


to indicate an entitive plane of interacting things. This is just an image, away of conceiving Leibnizs metaphor. Another reading of the metaphorconjures a differing image of a self which is intimate amidst its world one not enslaved within the ideal architecture of the house and itswindows (cf. Descartes). Not only does each monad mirror the universefrom its own perspective, but each also strives for the whole perception.Yet, it is the nitude of each monad as a created, living being whichforbids the disclosure of a perception of the universe, of an authenticoutside or totality. The created monad must always inhabit a body as abeing in and beyond the world. It ceaselessly strives to perceive the whole,it harbors a hidden secret to be a god or to be with one. It is in this waythat the rst point of departure in the abstract monad becomesinsufcient as it does not adequately account for its striving for thewhole amidst a topography (mathesis) of perception. Indeed, thenegative connotations of an abstract monad in itself leads us astray intoan ambivalent image of a mere geography of things which conceals thetopos of existence. Moreover, as a hypothesis, it does not adequatelyaccount for the temporality of the monad, in its rich, concrete sense, as abeing which contains within itself the entire potentiality (and eventualactuality) of its substance, its being. In this way, we must move beyondthe abstract starting point to a second point of departure in a monad withperception.

II. MONAD AND PERCEPTION

The simple and windowless character of the monad precludes internalchange from an external source. Yet, as the monad must be constitutiveof the composite, it must also be capable of a type of change which iscontinuous in each.42 This change comes from an internal principle ofchange, appetition, which, indigenous to the monad, ceaselessly bringsabout the change or the passing from one perception to another.43 In thisway, the appetitive monad becomes a second point of departure for ouranalysis. It is this desire, or drive (Drang), as Heidegger thematizes in hisMetaphysical Foundations of Logic,44 which throws the monad beyond itsstate of abstraction. Amid the nite disclosure of its world, the perceptionof the monad is a passing condition which involves and represents amultiplicity in the unity, in the simple substance.45 Monadic perceptionindicates a phenomenology of any living unity of monad and manifold.

As we cannot conceive of the effectation of the monad by an externalobject, there must be, within the monad, not only a principle of change,but also, a changing manifoldness which constitutes, so to speak, thespecic nature and the variety of the simple substances.46 Themanifoldness is a multiplicity in unity, myriad changes in theunchanged, a plurality of conditions and relations in the simple. As it

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is to be a constituent of apparent actuality, perception, each monad willbe different from every other, not only due to its own principle of change,but also due to the perspectival character of its existence, its proximateperspectives and expressions of truth.

Appetition or desire seeks the whole of the perception, but cannotobtain it. Yet, its drive for transcendence and its striving for the whole,though a necessary failure, does open up a topos of new perceptions, andthrough this contrast, a chance for a primeval reection upon the truths ofexistence. But, we must not begin to form the picture of a monad as anentity standing outside in relation to a series of perceptions conceivedas an external entity, as a spectator. Neither can we credit any longer anyexplication of the monad from the standpoint of abstraction. Leibniz isnot rehearsing the Platonic myth of the descent of a disembodied soul intothe world. Indeed, the soul or monad is active amidst its world anddiscovers its own self amidst the durable contingency of its perception. Itis thus never without proximate, nite perceptions, even if these are onlyvague or unconscious. Leibniz does write that there is only perception inthe monad. In this way, contrary to Plato, and Plotinus, the body is notthe prison house of the soul. The body is instead the phenomenal life ofthe soul, and the latter, the monad, in that it is the vita activa of unity, isthe sufcient ground condition for life, body, and world.

Each monad abides a potentiality, a toti-potency,47 to perceive andexpress the whole of itself and the All. Yet, such an unobtainableperception is dispersed amidst a perceptual topography of extension,shape and virtual effectation (without itself being effected). That whichdrives it toward transcendence is at once that which forbids theactualization of its intent, its desire for the whole its ultimate doublebind. Indeed, since the composite (body) is itself composed of monads, ofsimple substances, it could be said that the very fate of the monad ashaving to be the constitutive substance of the world is that which renders itnite. It is in its own sacrice that a perception of the whole is forbiddento the created monad. Yet, its sacrice enacts the gift of its own freedom,or liberty, as it is not swallowed, as with Spinoza, in the homogeneity ofan enlightening substance which seeks to assimilate every alterity.48

From our second revised point of departure in the nite perception ofthe appetitive monad, as opposed to that of the prior abstract denition,we can see that the monad gives unity to living beings and that each hasa perception which is intimate to itself and constitutes thephenomenology of its life. This is an active or immanent perception,however, as the latter is not an objective series which the monad,conceived as a subject, merely observes, passively and at a distance. Onthe contrary, for Leibniz, perception is born amidst the pregnancy of thepresent moment, from the appetition and striving of the monad fortranscendence, for an orientation among, and perception of, the whole.Moreover, due to the differentiation of monads, there will also be a


variance with respect to the extent and depth of their respectiveperceptions. In this way, we can trace a pathway from the primordialmonadology of silent material beings, bare monads, without feeling orsoul, to beings which properly have soul, and to those which have souland spirit, and nally to the divine as the necessary and sufcient reasonor condition for all existence and being. In this way, we must movetoward our third point of departure in the monad as entelechy.

III. MONAD AND ENTELECHY

The possibility of a pathway from a bare monad to a substance that isdivine nds its operative ground in Leibnizs indication of the monad asentelechy. He deploys this Aristotelian word as he seeks to give shape anddirection to the ux of perceptions that are indigenous to the monad. Themonad as entelechy, as actuality, will thus be the third point of departurefor our analysis. Yet, it will benet our analysis, before we move alongupon our pathway, if we take a brief detour into AristotlesDe Anima49 soas to more fully disclose the signicance of the monad as entelechy.

Russell mentions the notion of entelechy in his commentary onLeibniz. Indeed, it is in this section of his interpretation where he mostdistinctly attempts to provide a true commentary on the philosophy ofLeibniz. Yet, it is precisely these aspects of Leibniz that Russell hasalready warned us are irretrievably problematic. And, having rejectedthem, he seems to be merely going through these ideas as a simple matterof historical interest or completeness. However, it seems that this is asleight of hand on his part as we are already aware that Russell is seekingto quarantine these ideas into a state of diminishment, when, it could beargued, these notions are the primary truths of the philosophy of Leibniz.He cautions us most suspiciously, and all-too-briey, that the notion ofentelechy should only be regarded as a stand-in for form as that which isdistinct from matter.50 This description gives us the immediate sense of acrude dualism in which an abstract form sets against an incoherent chaosof matter. In the setting-against, the form can decide not to mix withmatter, as Russell would seem to prefer. Yet, it is quite clear, as we willmore fully comprehend, that the reference to Aristotle cannot denote, inany way, an abstract pseudo-Platonic form. There is no suggestion inLeibniz of a Cartesian dualism. The entelechy is something else besides.We must turn to Aristotle to disclose this fact.

In radical contrast to its designation as an abstract form in Russell,Aristotle writes inDe Anima that soul is the actuality of the body.51 Soulas entelechy actuality is neither an abstract, de-sensualised form, northe idea, look (eidos) of a thing. It pertains instead to the operational52

features of the existent, to the how, as in the Four Causes in his Physics.For the latter, and for Leibniz, it is the how which must be the topos of

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disclosure for the what. In this way, eidos (beyond mere form) becomesnot only the interstitial conguration of the being, but also itsmorphologyand physiology, as for instance, in Goethes An Attempt to Interpret theMetamorphosis of Plants.53 In this way, entelechy, as distinct from anabstract form or a vulgar notion of substance, would point instead toenergeia, the vital force of life amidst its actualization from barepotentiality. In this light, there can be no dualism or atomism, as the soulis the actualization of the body; it is this unity which travels a trajectorytoward an animate actuality. Indeed, Aristotle simply dismisses thepossibility of dualism, when he writes:

We should not enquire whether the soul and body are one thing, any more thanwhether the wax and its imprint are or in general whether that matter of eachthing is one with that of which it is the matter. For although unity and being arespoken of in a number of ways, it is of the actuality that they are most properlysaid.54

For Aristotle, at the same time, the soul has pre-eminence in itsrelationship to phenomena as it is the seed of life, that whichdistinguishes one being from the next, and sets forth the telos towardits appropriate kind.55 The latter reference intimates a psychichierarchy in which actuality, the entelechy, strives for the fulllment ofits potentiality. The soul for Aristotle, which unlike Leibniz, pertains toonly living beings, is the logos of human actuality. Following Aristotle,Leibniz writes that the entelechy, actuality, abides a certain perfection,and thus, unfolds according to a trajectory which is not merely random.The sufciency of an entelechy, described strangely by Leibniz as anincorporeal automaton, maintains and augments itself in its strivingtowards its own perfection. In this way, the sufciency of energeticsubstance is the source and ground for appetition and desire. It is aprimordial desire and longing which differentiates each monad and livingbeing in itself. Its own desire for perfection invokes a topos of perceptionamidst which it strives and lives.

Since we are in the middle, in between the bare monad and the divine, itis perhaps beyond our nite perceptive horizons to comprehend thesituations and actualities of other existent perspectives, of other monads,amidst our pathway. Yet, although he cannot obtain the perception ofthe divine, Leibniz can excavate other regions of existence which departfrom our normal consciousness so as to provide the necessary contrastfor a disclosure of a pathway toward perfection. He offers intimations ofperceptions of the bare monad in syncope56 and dreamless sleep or,when we turn around and around (as with the Islamic Su Dervishes) andswoon and are able to distinguish nothing. Leibniz writes,

In such a state the soul does not sensibly differ at all from a simple Monad. Asthis state, however, is not permanent and the soul can recover from it, the soulis something more.57


In this light, even in this nothing, there still persists perception in themonad. Its present, even if characterized by a sudden recovery, is thenatural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that its presentis big with its future.58 This continuum of perception suggests anindigenous continuity between monads which are wholly bare and thosewith a higher avour of perception. Indeed, for Leibniz, such acontinuum could be extended still further, and by analogy, even to thedivine itself, as if nitude were merely another syncopic state from whichwe could recover.59

It is in this way that the entelechy sets forth a directionality amid thechanging manifold of perception, from lower and higher states ofexistence and being. Those living beings which Leibniz deems of a higheravour are animals which have a perceptive soul and a memory whichallows them the capacity for the expectation of an effect from a habitualcause. The consecutiveness and coherence of its perception, grounded inmemory, imitates reason, but is not identical to Rational Soul (Mind).Indeed, even man acts according to the manner of the animals in so far asthe sequence of their perceptions is determined by the law of memory.60

But, just as there is a continuum and thus differentiation betwixt monads,there is also an identity and difference between living beings and withineach living being. Man does act as the animals if his perception isdetermined by memory, truths of fact.61 Yet, with respect to the strivingfor a certain perfection indigenous to the entelechy, the perceptions ofman are also determined by other grounds, truths of reason.62 In this way,we could speak of higher and lower perceptions of the soul, but not ofhigher and lower souls. Indeed, there can be no radical breach as eachexists amidst a continuum of existence and being from the bare monadto the divine. In this way, the point of departure in the entelechy throwsus still further to our fourth, provisional point of departure in theRational Soul or Mind.

IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF RATIONAL SOUL (MIND)

That which is purported to distinguish men from mere animals is, forLeibniz, the existence of rational Soul. The evidence for the existence ofthis principle is the alleged knowledge within man of eternal and necessarytruths. This knowledge allows us to comprehend ourselves and haveintimations of the divine. But, just as perception and existence are in ux,so knowledge must be characterized by movement, it must shift amidstthe ux of present perceptions, memories, and desires, each of which ispregnant with a future. In this way, a fourth point of departure for ouranalysis has presented itself in the life of a being with a rational soul. Thehigher perception of this knowing activity can conceptually express theux of existence. Leibniz writes that knowing occurs through reective

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acts which occur as abstractions from eternal and necessary truths. It isfrom these reective acts that there emerge objects of reasoning, such asthe I, and, as he delineates: being, substance, simple, composite, materialthing and the divine.63 These objects become the sufcient grounds forperception and are provisional fulllments of the striving entelechy for acertain perfection. As we traverse the continuum and ascent ofperception, it seems that the differentiation of concept and perceptionis only apparent as each exists as an aspect of our new point of departure.

While this differentiation between objects of reasoning and perceptiondoes not return us to our initial situation of abstraction and apparentseverance between substance and life, it neither abides merely in thenatural harmony of the living being nor only upon the ladder of theentelechy which sends us to the phase of Mind. The rational soul is aprinciple which inuences the array of perspectives through its greaterpowers of perception. As the monad strives for an ever greater perceptionof the whole, it exhibits its augmentation of power as Mind when thelatter begins to direct the sequence of perception to an ever greater extentand depth, on its way to a promised perception of the whole.

Yet, in the wake of its augmentation of power in its direction of the uxof perception, the mind becomes confused amid a movement along thecontinuum in which it increasingly seeks to emulate, in the convention ofour epoch, a bodiless God. In its striving for a perception of the whole,the monad as merely a rational soul, begins to tear, however ill-advisedly,at the limits of its own bodily existence. In the wake of nitude, suchlimits stand before it as taboos. In this light, there remains the temptationto transgress these limitations, a desire born of a metaphysics whichseducesMind into the presumption that it is also bodiless and could eithertherefore commune with a divine beyond existence or could set itself up ashighest principle (in place of God). Yet, the non-simplicity of rationalsoul, with reference to its ideas, is forgotten as is its rootedness in soul andbody. It forgets its containment in individualized substance as actuality,and thus, in the metaphysical foundations of existence. Mind, in thisway, is not that which truly transcends the series of contingency, beyondexistence. Any such attempt would lead, to borrow a phrase from Hegel,to a bad innity. Yet, we cannot easily move to the divine as a fth pointof departure, but must, strangely, return to the body as the next toposamidst our pathway toward the good innite.

V. MONAD AND THE BODY

Since the created monad and living being is nite, its potential perceptionof the universe is limited within the horizons of its own perspective, itsbody. In this way, the monad as perception, entelechy, and rational soulexpresses an aspiration for the whole amid the horizons of its nitude.


But, the Mind cannot be our nal point of departure as it fails tocomprehend its own embeddedness in the substantial monadic topos. Itseeks the bodiless state of the divine and seeks to direct the all, yet itcannot succeed as it is merely another perspective amid the actuality ofthe nite monad. In this light, the rational soul must be seen as anotheraspect within a fth point of departure in the monad as body. ForLeibniz, body abides a myriadity of basic aspects that stand in relationwithin a single monad. Body is the virtual expression of the monad and itssite of self-interpretation. Substance or the individual being conceived asbody is thus the unifying topos of existence. It is such a place which can bedescribed as body in its richest sense. It is the body conceived in this waywhich most radically indicates the whole being that is the microcosm forthe macrocosm of the divine totality of existence and being.

Contrary to Descartes dualism and his judgment of dissolution uponthe body, we must instead regard the body not only as a multiplicity in theunity of perception, as an indication of the nitude of the created monad,but as the great reason64 which, for Leibniz, intimates the divine groundof being. The body abides a soul which is its own actuality their unity isthat of an organic, living being, one which is a mirror of the universeaccording to its own fashion.65 Moreover, it is by virtue of thefundamental diversity of the aspects and the plurality of substances thatLeibniz is able to avoid the homogeneity of Spinoza. And, while the bodyis the mirror of the divine, we cannot conceive of this as a pantheisticidentication, in the latters sense. For the divine, the innite, as we willinvestigate in detail in the next section, is bodiless, ideal. It is in this sensethat the metaphor of the mirror becomes revealing. The reciprocalmirroring contains within itself the provision that the image in the mirroris the reverse of the extant original. There is thus not only a difference inthe positions of the mirrors but also in what is revealed in themirrorings. In a distinct antipode to the monad conceived as windowless,Leibniz writes,

. . . all bodies are in a state of perpetual ux like rivers, and the parts arecontinually entering in and passing out.66

Indeed, the makeshift character of bodies stands in contrast to themonadic body, which as the place of entry and exit, remains a site forthe interaction of bodies, which in light of the windowless character of themonad, must be conceived as phenomena. It is not only a mirror of thecosmos within the nite monad but also intimates upon its ownmicrocosmic level the ideal interaction of monads in the divine. Themonadic body, as a higher actuality, a higher unity, emerges amid its owndrive toward transcendence. This unity of aspects, of souls, bodies andminds, in the original substance conceived as a living being, as theinseparable body, can be seen as the metaphysical corollary of the

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principle of individuation. It is in the body, conceived in this way, that thewhole being (entitas tota) is emphatically disclosed as a harmony ofdiverse aspects. And, it is in this way that the body serves as the exemplarof the divine in our world.

Leibniz describes the organic living being as a natural automaton,67 adivine artwork even in its smallest parts. It is this innite continuity ofdivinity in the art of nature which distinguishes it from the art of the nitebeing. In this way, Leibniz contends, There is, therefore, nothinguncultivated, or sterile or dead in the universe, no chaos, no confusion,save in appearance.68 The lively chaos of souls and bodies does notamount to discordance, as each monad is tted to each other in virtue ofthe pre-established harmony between all substances, since they arerepresentations of one and the same universe.69 This tting operatesaccording to a principle of the conservation of the same total direction inthe motion of matter.70 In a rather Neoplatonist formulation, Leibnizwrites that the body mirrors the soul just as the latter mirrors the createduniverse. It is animated body, in this metaphor, which mirrors the mirrorof the cosmos and thus, though distinct, intimates most nearly the idealharmony of the divine.

The soul (and thus the Mind, as rational soul) cannot live withoutbody, with its perceptions and perspectives, though these may betemporarily eclipsed in the syncopic state betwixt instantiations. And, itis only in light of this original unity that it is at all possible to conceptuallydistinguish monad and body, the sufcient limit from the changingperspectives of the soul. For Leibniz, conceived in this manner, eachfollows its own laws. The soul follows nal causes, while bodies act inrespect to efcient causes. Yet, despite this apparent disunity, Leibnizargues, The two realms, that of efcient causes and that of nal causes,are in harmony, each with the other.71 This harmony is not anafterthought, but an original syndotical unity, and it thus could bedescribed as the monadic body in its richest sense. As the soul cannot bewithout body, Leibniz writes, signicantly, that death usually fathomedas the separation of the soul from the body is instead an envelopmentand diminution back into the bare monad.

Indeed, Leibniz intimates the necessity of the monad entering intoanother awakened state, just as syncope is still entwined within thecontinuum of perception, as the spirit of the unconscious. In this way, wecould perhaps infer a reference to transmigration in this inseparability ofmonad and body. Such a possibility would allow for an unfolding of ourpathway beyond the body, to a sixth point of departure in the divine.72

Yet, such a possibility is disallowed by Leibniz since it is precisely in sucha unity of opposites, of nitude in the unity of the innite, that existenceand the divine are at all possible. From this perspective, there can be nobridge across the pathos between nitude and the innite. Leibnizexpresses this distance in another metaphor, as God, the monarch of the


city and architect of the universe, who is the father to his children. Hischildren, the totality of spirits, inhabit the city of God, a moral worldwithin the natural world, and gain access to grace along natural lines.73

God unites in himself efciency and nality. It is our inseparability frombody even at death which keep us in the never-ending state ofchildhood. I will return to this theme in my Epilogue below.

VI. GOD AS SUPREME MONAD74

That which accounts for the differentiation between nitude and theinnite is, for Leibniz, the contention that the sufcient reason forexistence must subsist outside the inexplicable series of contingency.Unlike Kant who forbade knowledge of things-in-themselves, of thenoumena, Leibniz contends that that which stands outside as thesufcient reason for contingent existence must be a necessary substance,still a monad, but without an intimate entanglement in body75 thedivine as a pure sequence of possible being unique, universal andnecessary.

Since the divine is without body, the specic ideas of contingency arepresent in it merely potentially, as in the fountain-head.76 For Leibniz,the divine is the source of the real in the possible77 the necessary being inwhom essence includes existence, or in whom possibility is sufcient toproduce actuality.78 Moreover, the divine is perfect, where perfectionindicates the magnitude of positive reality in the strict sense.79 Withoutlimits, perfection is absolutely innite and contains as much reality aspossible.80 Leibniz contends, with respect to the bodiless god,

. . . nothing is able to prevent the possibility of that which involves no bounds,no negation, and consequently, no contradiction, this alone is sufcient toestablish a priori his existence.81

Divinity is characterized by power, knowledge and will. In other words,for Leibniz, it is the source of everything, possesses the details of the All inpotentiality, and effects changes in accordance with the principle of thegreatest good.82 An innity of possible universes exists in the ideas ofGod, and any of these could be made to exist by him. Yet, as this cosmosexists, there must be a sufcient reason for it. This reason is to be found inthe tness or degree of perfection of each possible world, in its desire andclaim to godliness83 in proportion to its own perfection, and in thearbitration of each and all of these desires and claims in the considerationof the divine. Leibniz writes,

This is the cause of the greatest good; that the wisdom of God permits him toknow it, his goodness to cause him to choose it, and his power enables him toproduce it.84

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Created beings are distinguished from the divine by their own specicnite natures, by their bodily perspectives and by the peculiarity of theirperceptions. The perfection of monads and of living beings, as entelechy,can be traced, for Leibniz, to the inuence of God.85 The trace of thedivine is sketched upon the monads as they spring forth amid thecontinual outashings of the divinity from moment to moment, limitedby the receptivity of the creature to whom limitation is essential.86 Itis this specication that created monad is essentially characterizedby receptivity, which gives us a clue to distinguish nitude from theinnite, or the divine. It is only a god in whom spontaneity is innite orperfect.87

The divine is the sufcient reason for existence as he is irretrievablymore perfect than, and thus is able to give an a priori reason for, thecreated being. It is in this way that it can act upon the created being. Hedoes not need to come through windows as he is already inside eachmonad as the root of its created being. A monad is perfectible only in thewake of its own approach to the perfection of God, the uncreated. As thedivine can have an impact upon the windowless monads, and as there isnothing else with this power, it becomes the topos and logos amidst whichcreated monads interact. The interaction ofMonads is ideal causes andeffects (logos) occur upon the topos of the divine. It is through such aprimal regulation that one can have dependence upon another.88

Moreover, the divine is oriented by the principles of rational soul and theideal of the greatest good, and nds in each one reasons obliging him toadapt the other to it; and consequently that which is active in certainrespects is passive from another point of view.89 The regulation of eachand all as each strives for the whole perception sets forth a picture of asituation in which each monad or simple substance comports itself to allthe others, and is thus a perpetual living mirror of the universe.90 Eachmirrors the All, but cannot witness or become the All in light of itscondition of receptivity and nitude. Each lives its perspective amid thisexistence. This reliance upon the divine is rooted in the nitude of thecreated monad whose perception remains confused amid proximity andreceptivity. If the monad had a clear and distinct perception of theworld, it would itself be a deity. At the end of the day, its perspective mustbe limited amid its distinct perceptions.91 As Leibniz describes, Itcannot all at once open up all its folds, because they extend to innity.92

Yet, that which incites us still is the impossible perception of the whole of the lingering possibility of a transcendence of our contingentperspective and series of perceptions to the innite. In wake of thepsychic hierarchy, we seem to resist our own nite status and resent thebody which we mistakenly consider the obstacle to the divine. But, as weare embedded within the present moment, our perspective cannot witnessexistence in its totality, in its past, present and future.93 The createdmonad, in the wake of the valorization of a divinity without body, must


remain content with its status as a mirror of the cosmos. Leibniz gives us arough sketch of our predicament:

And as the same city regarded from different sides appears entirely different,and is, as it were, multiplied perspectivally, so because of the innite number ofsimple substances, there are a similar innite number of universes which are,nevertheless, only the aspects of a single one, as seen from the special point ofview of the monad.94

This perspectivism, a precursor to Nietzsche, allows for the greatestvariety amid unity, the greatest possible perfection and, for Leibniz, thegreatest articulation of the topos and logos of the divine.95 And in itsaccess to each and all, the divinity can arrange the best of all possibleworlds though not a perfect world. This best of all possible worlds isarticulated in the metaphor of the city and leads us into an hermeneuticsof the monad in the metaphors of Leibniz. Indeed, our basic state, that oftranscending, is characterized by the necessity of interpretation amid theindividuation of the nite substance across its existential and temporalcontinuum of perspectives.

VII. THE MEANING OF THE MONAD

Just as there are no higher and lower souls, but only higher and lowerperceptions of Soul, of perspectives amid a totality of souls, a diversity ofmonads does not indicate an atomistic fragmentation of the world.Neither should the principle of individuation be feared. Instead, as withthe metaphor of the city, there exists a topography of myriadperspectives, each of which, though limited by proximity and power,expresses the totality of the city in its own pregnant moment. Thismetaphor unfolds a positive phenomenology of perspective in the totalityof the divine. In the quotation at the head of this essay, Leibniz portrayshis own writing in light of the perspectives of efcient and nal causes.Yet, he does not see these causes as distinct and in need of some externalmediation. Indeed, these causes are not two different things, but arediffering indications in an account of one and the same existence whichunfolds across a continuum of bare monad, animality, rational soul, andthe divine. This continuum entails an innity of causes, which arepractically unanalysable in the context of a nite perspective. In this way,Leibniz places absolute emphasis upon a prior unity of existence andbeing, as a knot which ties together the myriad threads of perspective.The ground for such a unity is for him the innite perfection of a supremebeing, one that is prior to the differentiation of a monad and its ever-changing manifold of perception. There is only perception in the strivingmonad, and, as we fathom from the metaphor of the city, only perspectiveamidst perspective in the totality of the divine. To repeat for Leibniz,

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divine unity is the necessary and sufcient ground for existence, andexistence is the topos or place for phenomenality, expression, and action.

Another of Leibnizs major metaphors in this work, that of awindowless monad, reminds us however that, although our perspectivessubsist in the divine, we are not ourselves God. Since it is windowless andthus contains within itself the potentiality of its entire existence, thecreated monad, while it lives, remains embedded within the intentionalityof the phenomenal world. For while its character as windowless intimatesa separation of the monad from external effectation, there still remains atacit acknowledgement of an outside the remainder of which is theperception of the body. The metaphor can be linked to Descartes who, ashe confessed in his Meditations,96 often gazed from the safety of hiswindow at those who were passing and wondered if these were in factautomatons. Descartes diminishes perception in favour of judgment, ashe judges that they are men. Leibniz however does not look at an externalworld from the safe distance of a window as he abides in the intimacy ofperception a perception only limited by the nitude of the createdmonad. Such intimacy displaces the prohibiting edice of the subject andobject. Yet, the metaphor still suggests a placewhere windowless monads,whether these be turrets or tombs, stand in some blind relation to theothers. Amid this geography of simple substances, where there is onlyperception in the monad, other monads disclose themselves to me withinthe horizons of my perspective facilitated by the divine. In this way,other simple substances and perspectives must exist independently of mymind and will. It is this otherness as such to which I must remain blindhowever as I am cast adrift amid my own perspective and perception. Inthis sense, each monad is windowless since it is nite. It is the divine whichis the supreme simple substance and who is the conduit for this array ofperspectives. This metaphor of the windowless monad serves as an indexof our nitude and thus has a different, negative, role than the metaphorof the city. It has a distinct ontological signicance as it intimates thetemporal meaning of nitude for the nite creature. Yet, these metaphorscomplement each other and remain linked together. Each discloses aperspective desired by the other in its own striving for a perception of thewhole. They are mirrors of each other, one positive, the other, negative.

The very act of reading the Monadology, as it is divided into sections,each of which expresses the whole, allows us to see the monad as amigrating ground of unity in the multiplicity of existence. The sense of themonad therefore lies in its location in-between the radical diversity ofperception and the ultimate unity of divinity. It stands at the gateway ofthe moment,97 and as an entelechy indicates a philosophy of nitude onits way to the innite. Yet, despite the trace of its genealogy in the divinemonad, the created monad is forbidden any communion with the innite.Any transgression towards the innite will always already be interdicted.We remain in-between since we are existentially forbidden to transcend


the primordial antithesis of existence and the divine. Yet, as entelechies,we remain compelled, for unknown reasons, to strive after transcendenceand seek out proscribed pathways towards that perfection. Since eachexpression is an eternal truth, such striving must also have its sufcientreason and truth.

VIII. EPILOGUE

In closing, I will set forth another possibility perhaps as a metabole overturning of the preceding narrative. It could be argued, on the basisof another text, that Leibniz holds that it is an illusion that nitude mustseem to have the character of deprivation or negativity or that it cannotobtain the radical other. Perhaps we are not seeking Ariadnes threadafter all, but are instead seeking to understand the monadic body as theexpression of the divine spirit in the world. In his letter to Arnauld ofApril 30, 1687, to return to an earlier suggestion, Leibniz rejects thedoctrine ofmetempsychosis as it implies a continuous revolution of bodiesto which the soul is subject until it can somehow transcend the cycle.This would be unacceptable for Leibniz as the soul, as windowless andself-organizing, is already always free. He sets forth instead metasche-matismi as an alternative narrative, which he describes as a transforma-tion of the same animal which always preserves the same soul.98 In otherwords, he seems to suggest that individual souls return as emanationsfrom the divine, as instantiations of the same kind. For Leibniz, spiritscan never be conceived as being subjected to revolutions of bodies, butinstead, this revolution must serve the divine economy for the sake ofspirits.99 From this perspective, he may not be seeking the thread out ofthe cycle of nitude, but seems to suggest, on the contrary, that nitude isthe self-expression of the divine in its constant placement of souls intoliving beings. In this way, Leibniz attempts to reconcile nitude and theinnite in the creative being of the divine. In light of this scenario, thequestion of a pathway from nitude to the innite is transgured into thatof an eternal recurrence, which, however, eludes the question of an escapefrom nitude per se, as this state is not conceived as a prison of the soul,but as the self-expression of the divine will.

In this light, we could perhaps trace a conditional sixth point ofdeparture in the creative will of the divine, of which we are, for Leibniz, itsexpressions. It is conditional as we gain no intimacy with the divine in thesyncopic state of the monad, bare between instantiations. Diminished inbody at death, the monad, soul, sleeps with the others in the city of godand waits for the latter to send it into another awakened state. There isneither transmigration nor mystical transcendence of the body, but adecided and continuous outashing from the divine source.

In this way, nitude must not be disclosed as a negation of the divine,as a state from which one would seek to escape, but as a moment within

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the being of an innite that ceaselessly regulates all and deploys and re-deploys monads, souls, and spirits for the sake of the greatest good. Inthis way, we can ascertain a theodicy of a non-linear cosmos in which eachmonad must recur as a living being amidst an incessant and eternalcreation of harmony. Its instantiated life in which it sleeps and awakens isthus a microcosm of its great life in which it oscillates between a recurrentenvelopment in death and outashing into new awakened states. Thisalternative possibility is thus not a metabole of the original narrative of apathway, as the latter is re-inscribed into the narrative of recurrencewhich is operative as a still higher unity.

Notes

1 Leibniz, G. W. Monadology in Discourse on Metaphysics, Correspondence with Arnauldand Monadology, translated by George Montgomery, (LaSalle, Open Court, 1990), No. 36,p. 259.

2 From an historical perspective, it might be suggested that Leibniz had become increasinglyconcerned with the topics of nitude and the innite, and, under the heavy burden of hiscontinuing project, the History of Brunswick, desired to express his system in a succinctformulation, not only due to his own failing health, but also due to the recent deaths of hiscondant and correspondent, Sophie Charlotte (1705), a philosopher in her own right, and hermother, Duchess Sophie (1714), a patron and friend, and the departure of, and his abandonmentby, George Ludwig (George I of England) in 1714. (For a broader consideration of Leibnizsbiography, see Benson Mates excellent work, The Philosophy of Leibniz (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1986).

3 Heidegger, M. Phenomenological Interpretation of Kants Critique of Pure Reason(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998). Heidegger writes (p. 93):

Hence we need here another expression, namely syndosis. The verb sunddomi means togive along with, give together, give something along with something else. Thus sudosiBmeans connection. We say that space and time as pure intuitions are syndotical, meaning

thereby that they give the manifold as an original togetherness from unity as wholeness.

(We should compare the expression syndotical with the word-image avnekdotoB,which comes from ekddomi and means anecdotal.

4 For Democritus thirst for the divine, cf. Patockas Plato and Europe (Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press, 2002), p. 68.

5 This is a reference to chapter nine, The Labyrinth of the Continuum, in RussellsA Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz: With an Appendix of Leading Passages(London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1975). This notion of a labyrinth as a nite topos ofinterpretation will be signicant for the discussion that follows, beginning with Mates.

6 It can be suggested in this connection that the perspective of theMonadology differs fromthat of the Discourse on Metaphysics, since the latter sets out a point of departure in God asrelatively unproblematic, while the former projects God as a rather speculative ending along anexploratory pathway.

7 Leibniz also makes this point in his Discourse on Metaphysics, IX.8 It may be considered problematic to attribute the principle of individuation to Leibniz on

the strength of his thesis due to the specic practices of German universities of the era. Yet, it willbe shown in the following that the principle of individuation is necessary for Leibnizsphilosophy.

9 Mates, B. The Philosophy of Leibniz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 18.10 It may be argued that the phrase monadic body does not allude to alleged shifts in

Leibnizs view of the body. Yet, we must also heedMates contention of a remarkable continuityand consistency across the entire range of Leibnizs philosophy.


11 An excellent discussion of the historical background to Leibnizs concern for the wholecan be found in Leroy Loemkers Struggle for Synthesis: The Seventeenth Century Background ofLeibnizs Synthesis of Order and Freedom (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972).12 Such a desire and the possibility of the resurrection of a differing interpretation of Leibniz

was also expressed by Gottlob Frege, as Mates relates in his The Philosophy of Leibniz, p. 12.13 From Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz, p. 4, as will be discussed below in more detail.14 This lateral orientation for a monadology is suggested by Gilles Deleuze in his The Fold:

Leibniz and the Baroque (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1992).15 What is sought is the metaphysical background of the philosophy of Leibniz, a theme

which was explored, for instance, in Heideggers Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, whereLeibniz is re-situated amidst a topography of existence in which temporality is disclosed as theprimeval ground and condition of logic, its prerequisite logos and being (Sein).16 Aesthetics concerns the dimension of phenomena which is art, but more broadly unfolds

the domain of space, time, and causality and ultimately, existence and the divine.17 Russell in his seminal commentary on Leibniz, takes a hammer to him and tries to knock

off that which he does not like, what does not cohere with his own preferences, his own logicalprotocols. However, much is lost, not only the more interesting expressive possibilities of Leibniz(such as his use of metaphor), but also the integrity and grounding of Leibnizs philosophy in theprinciple of individuation (and the divine). The irony is that Russell rejects Leibnizs notion ofsubstance, and hence, the former principle on the ground that it is empty, that it is merelylogical. Yet, Russell, unlike Kant, fails to comprehend that substance can at the very least bedeployed as a heuristic (hypothetical) or regulative principle of unity. The whole being ismorethan the sum of its parts and the true motivation for the notion of substance is ontological andexistential in which formal logic, as with Kant, plays only an ancillary role.18 Wilson, Catherine, Leibnizs Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study (Manche-

ster: Manchester University Press, 1989), pp. 308309.19 Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz, p. 4.20 Esposito, Joseph, Schelllings Idealism and Philosophy of Nature (Lewisburg: Bucknell

University Press), p. 143: Mathesis is the condition of Schellings Absolute Identity, wherein therst differentiation occurs. Abstractly considered, this is the separation of God and Nothing.21 Schurmann, Reiner. Heidegger: Being and Acting, From Principles to Anarchy

(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). These indications are also related to Deleuzesinterpretation of Leibniz in his The Fold.22 Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz, p. 4.23 Those who perpetuate Russells approach, to name a few, are G. H. R. Parkinson, Logic

and Reality in Leibnizs Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965) and again in 1995in The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, Chapter 7, Philosophy and Logic(Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1995). Those who begin to dismantle this view areMartin,GottfriedLeibniz, Logic and Metaphysics, trans. K. J. Northcott and P. G. Lucas (Manchester:Manchester University Press, 1964), who suggests the view that there is disagreement overRussells ideas, at least in Germany, Catherine Wilson, Leibnizs Metaphysics, 1989, and morerecently, Christina Mercers Leibnizs Metaphysics, Cambridge: CUP, 2001.24 Indeed, Russell had plenty of opportunities to change his positions. Not only the 1937

preface, but as late as 1971, in his essay, Recent Work on the Philosophy of Leibniz, he, in adiscussion of Couturat, restates the basic premise of his work of 1900: Leibnizs metaphysic restssolely upon the principles of his logic, and proceeds entirely from them, from Leibniz:A Collection of Critical Essays (London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1976), pp. 366400.25 Martin, Gottfried, Leibniz, Logic and Metaphysics.26 It may be objected that Foucault is the last person to reference in an interpretation of

Leibniz, especially as the former does not, allegedly, adhere to the principle of sufcient reason, aconcept which is central to Leibniz. However, it could easily be argued that not only does hisnotion of discourse meet this criteria, but also that his excellent analysis of the Classical epistemesheds much needed new light upon the philosophy of this era, andmost specically, upon Leibniz.27 Foucault, The Order of Things, (London: Routledge Classics, 2001), p. 57.28 For instance, Foucault, in The Order of Things, p. 247, describes the fracture of mathesis

and the endeavours which arose in wake of this breach in the 19th century. The essential questionis not if we can dispense with metaphysics, or, if, somehow, the Classical age will return, butinstead, to ask after the possibility of creation amidst our present moment and itsincommensurability with different epochs, differing forms, differing claims and differingfoundations even if it is not so different, after all.

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29 Foucault, The Order of Things, p. 57.30 In this light, analysis need not be conned to a mathematical logic in the sense of an

a priori method of deduction from a set of axiomatic truths. Indeed, many contemporarymodalities of analysis, such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, and post-structuralism have littleregard for formal logic and the mathematical character and aesthetic of its regressive method.It could alternatively be stated that, for Leibniz, in the Monadology, a phenomenologicallyadequate analysis opens itself toward the whole, to existence and its prospective ground as theunfolding of the world in reference to an order of a substantial world of beings.31 Leibniz, Monadology, XVIII, p. 33.32 Leibniz obtained a Doctor of Law at Altdof in Nurnberg with the DissertationDe Casibus

Perplexis (On Perplexing Cases) in 1667.33 Leibniz, G.W. Theodicy: Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom ofMan and the Origin

of Evil, trs. by E.M. Huggard (LaSalle: Open Court, 1990).34 For Leibniz, there is no need to escape from the phenomena, from the body or from

illusion. Perception is indigenous to each monad and each monad is the creation, in the rstinstance, of a god who is himself subject to his own operative principles. This particular contextevokes a heterodox Christianity in that the monad cannot live without body, and will remainwith body always. For Leibniz, analysis is not, therefore, the purication of the soul from thetaint of the body, but instead is a pathway which traces the cosmos itself from out of theperspective of the mirror.35 Leibniz, Monadology, III, p. 251.36 Ibid., V, p. 251.37 Ibid., VI, p. 251.38 It is important to keep in mind the signicance of Leibnizs deployment of the free monad

in the context of the raging debate about Spinozism which even plagued Kant sixty-seven yearslater.39 Leibniz, Monadology, VIII, p. 252.40 Ibid., VII, pp. 251252.41 Russell, A Critical Exposition, p. 115. He also criticizes Leibnizs unphilosophical lack of

precision and concern for exactitude (p. 72).42 Leibniz, Monadology, X, pp. 252253.43 Ibid., XV, p. 253.44 Heidegger, Metaphysical Foundations of Logic, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,

1992), p. 82.45 Perception is quite broad and deep in this denition, as is substance, and must be

distinguished at this juncture from consciousness or apperception.46 Leibniz, Monadology, XII, p. 253.47 To understand Leibnizs meaning with respect to the apparent opposition of soul and

body, I would suggest that we look not to Plato or Descartes, but instead to Heraclitusindications of a unity of opposites and of logos (The thunderbolt (i.e., Fire) steers theuniverse.) In this light, the contingency of the world is not mere ux, but is instead steered by ahigher unity, which, in these references, is Zeus, the wielder of the thunderbolt and the patrongod of the oak tree. It is the logos which unfolds existence and its tacit self-interpretation. In thisway, as Foucault has indicated, the nite monad orients itself amidst the horisons of themathesis, in the prospective search for such a higher horizon of meaning and order.48 Ibid., LXVI, p. 266.49 Aristotle. De Anima (On the Soul), trs. Hugh Lawson-Tancred (London: Penguin, 1986).50 Russell, A Critical Exposition, p. 104.51 Aristotle, De Anima, p. 157.52 Aristotle, De Anima, p. 157. Aristotle writes: In the same way, if some tool, say an

axe, were a natural body, its substance would be being an axe, and this then would be itssoul.53 Goethe, J.W. An Attempt to Interpret the Metamorphosis of Plants, Chronica Botanica,

(Vol. 10, No. 2, 1946), pp. 89115.54 Aristotle, p. 157.55 Ibid., p. 162.56 Clement, Catherine. Syncope: The Philosophy of Rapture, trs. by Sally ODriscoll and

Deirdre Mahoney (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). In this text, syncope isprecisely the state which is described by Leibniz as dreamless sleep or swooning in theMonadology.


57 Leibniz, Monadology, XX, p. 255.58 Ibid., XXII, p. 256.59 In a letter to Arnauld of April 30, 1687, Leibniz seems to suggest, on the contrary, that it is

our suspension in-between instantiations which is the syncopic state of the bare monad.60 Leibniz, Monadology, XXVIII, p. 257.61 Ibid., XXXIII, p. 258.62 Ibid., XXXIII, p. 258.63 Ibid., 30, p. 258. Leibniz qualies his Promethean rhetoric with the proviso that we can

know God to the extent that what is limited in us is unlimited in him. Yet, this does not removethe striving of the Monad to obtain the whole perception, or in other words, to become God orbe with him. Yet, this would seem to be impossible as the monad cannot be without body. And,God is without body, unless that is, we can conceive of the cosmos itself as his body, in which thelonging of the nite Monad could be satised.64 Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Despisers of the Body, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trs. by

Walter Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche, (New York: Penguin, 1999) p. 146:

The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a

shepherd. An instrument of your body is also your little reason, my brother, which you

call spirit a little instrument and toy of your great reason.

65 Leibniz, Monadology, LXIII, p. 265.66 Leibniz, Monadology, LXXI, p. 267.67 Ibid., LXIV, p. 265.68 Ibid., LXIX, pp. 266267.69 Ibid., LXVIII, p. 269.70 Ibid., LXXX, p. 269.71 Ibid., LXXIX, p. 269.72 I will return to this possibility in the next section, The Meaning of the Monad.73 Leibniz, Monadology, LXXXVIII, p. 271.74 Foucault, in The Order of Things, p. 298, referring to Nietzsches dictim in Twilight of the

Idols, I fear indeed that we shall never rid ourselves of God, since we still believe in grammar,writes that God is something prior to the sentences we speak, that our language holds uscaptive in the shadows of grammar.75 Once again, the severance of God and body can be seen as a divergence from Spinozism.76 Leibniz, Monadology, XXXVIII, p. 259.77 Ibid., XLIII, p. 260.78 Ibid., XLIIII, p. 260.79 Ibid., XLI, pp. 259260.80 Ibid., XXXVIII, p. 259.81 Ibid., XLV, p. 260261.82 Ibid., XLVIII, p. 261.83 As we have intimated, this emulation of the divine cannot be interpreted as one that seeks a

resemblance with the bodiless character of God. In its stead, the continuity of emulation mustsubsist as the respective harmonies of existence and the divine.84 Leibniz, Monadology, LV, p. 263.85 Ibid., XLII, p. 260.86 Ibid., XLVII, p. 261.87 This does not mean, however, that all reality is subject to the will of God, but only to his

understanding, for even Gods will is subject to the principles of Mind and the Good. In this way,both the created thing andGod are monads, but are distinguished by their respective activity andpassivity, spontaneity and receptivity.88 Leibniz, Monadology, LI, p. 262.89 Ibid., LII, p. 262.90 Ibid., LVI, p. 263.91 Ibid., LX, p. 264.92 Ibid., LXI, p. 265.93 Foucault describes our negative relation to innity in The Order of Things, p. 316.94 Leibniz, Monadology, LVII, p. 263.95 It may seem strange to make a reference to Nietzsche in the context of a discussion of the

divine. Yet, there are some very interesting correspondences between Leibniz and Nietzsche, as

542 JAMES LUCHTE

well as questions of a nature which would send us beyond the connes of the present essay.Sufce it to indicate that both of these thinkers were not only adherents of the principle ofindividuation, but were also committed to a perspectivism which remained oriented to a wholeand a continuum even if their respective conceptions of this whole are distinguished by theevent of the death of God.96 Descartes, Rene. Meditations on First Philosophy, translated by John Cottingham,

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 21.97 Nietzsche, The Vision and the Riddle, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, pp. 267271.98 Leibniz, G. W. Monadology, p. 195.99 Ibid., p. 195.


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