Well I got the paper on monads back today - it was an A! I was really baffled by that. I didn't think I did that good a of a job writing it. Maybe I'm devaluing myself, maybe the teacher just went easy on me (more likely!). Either way - for those of you who want to read it, here it is!
Leibniz’s Monad Theory
In the late 1600s and early 1700s, it was a time of revelations and discovery in the scientific world. Europe was the center of this “Age of Enlightenment.” New discoveries were being made constantly, and many opposing theories arose. Metaphysics, or how the world was made, was a truly active field. Isaac Newton proposed one way that the world was constructed – that it was made of tiny things called atoms. Gottfried Leibniz had a different theory – that of monads.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was the son of a professor who studied moral philosophy. While it would have made sense for him to focus upon entering the world of academia, he instead pursued a path of professional assistance to the nobility (mainly the family of Hanover, of whom George Ludwig became George I of England just before Leibniz’s death), in the capacity of legal advisor, engineer, diplomat, and official historian. His work caused him to travel widely, and allowed him to meet many of the foremost thinkers of the time, such as Benedict Spinoza and Christiaan Huygens.
Leibniz’s works include a wide variety of subjects and breakthroughs – he made major discoveries in the area of topography, he helped create the idea of cataloguing for libraries, he independently discovered differential calculus (only slightly after Newton – they published their findings almost simultaneously), he made significant leaps in the theory of momentum. Due to his broad spectrum of talents and abilities, not much of his work got published, or even finished. However, one of his most passionate pursuits was his theory of monads.
Before going into a discussion about monads, it is necessary to understand Leibniz’s view of philosophy. Leibniz believed that God was a perfect being. Since God was perfect, he created a perfect world. While this is a logical deduction, many objections were put forth about evil and sin. If this was a perfect world, how do evil and sin work? Leibniz responded to these questions with a few succinct responses. One – humans can only perceive a portion of the universe that God has created, therefore cannot pass a final judgment on it. Two – sin and evil are the balances of good. Therefore balanced, created beings must have sin and evil to be true beings.
Another thing to understand is Leibniz’s perception of truth. Leibniz viewed all facts as if one knew all about everything. The basis of this is what he refers to as a “complete concept” – knowing all aspects of everything. As an example – the statement: “Joe is sick today.” If one had the complete concept of Joe, as soon as he got sick, it would be known. Also, Leibniz believed that a statement was true at all times –a year ago (though Joe didn’t know it at the time), or a year in the future (though Joe might have forgotten it by them) the same statement would still be true. This fundamentally supports why monads work.
On to the monads - Leibniz’s definition of a monad is that it is a simple, undividable substance. Each monad is totally unique, and has its own consciousness, however simple it may be. They build upon each other to create more complex substances, which in turn can be broken down back to monads. Everything is created of monads linked together, and acting as a whole, in a perfect world, created by God. All monads derive from God, who in this theory represents the ultimate in unity and perfection. Leibniz argues that God had a choice from creating an infinite number of universes, and chose this one, due to the fact that it was the most perfect.
A building block of Leibniz’s theory is that fate is predetermined. Each monad contains its fate “folded” within it, and as time progresses, the monad unfolds to fulfill its fate, as folded by God. This means that the world has its fate predetermined for all eternity. This portion of the theory was highly contested by Leibniz’s colleagues. Leibniz responded to their questions with the statement that free will was part of the unfolding – God presented us with a “choice” whose outcome had already been decided. Again, the reason that God has made the world and universe as such, is because he is perfect, and chose the perfect path.
Another part of Leibniz’s theory is that monads are without spatial extension. This essentially means that an infinite amount of monads can fit in a finite space. By this reasoning, space does not exist. However, since everything we see is real, how can we touch it if space does not exist? The answer, according to Leibniz, is that all finite things are made up of infinite monads. While this may seem strange, Leibniz was a founder of calculus, which in the 17th century was thought to deal with infinite quantities.
The idea that monads are without spatial extension lead some people to conclude that they are something resembling angels. Strange, yes, but understandable. At the time, a scholastic question was “How many angels fit on the head of a pin?” The answer – infinite. They take up no space. They have no spatial extension. Therefore, monads could also be seen as angels, due to similar physical qualities (no spatial extension), as well as their relation to God (being created by him from his perfectness).
In order to understand the theory fully, it is necessary to realize that each monad has a level of consciousness. This is represented by its level of activity. A rock has less of a consciousness then a sunflower, for example. The less activity a monad, or group of monads has, the more materialistic it appears. Due to this level of consciousness, each monad is aware of those around it, which allows monads to work in harmony, and proceed with the fate which God has “folded” for them. However, despite working together, they do not interact with each other.
In conclusion, according to Gottfried Leibniz, the universe is built of monads. These monads are conscious, undividable simple forms that are extensions of the perfect being that is God. They interact in harmony, and the entire representation of their universe is already created into them, to be unlocked by time. While this theory was not widely accepted in its day, nor is it widely accepted now, it is an interesting look at the world’s composition. Even today, some of the ideas put forth by Leibniz are still being discussed and finally understood. He was a true thinker of any time. As one of my friends put it – “This guy is a genius! He tried to explain philosophy with math, and threw in religion where it didn’t all work. He did this in the 17th century and didn’t get executed!!”
References
http://www.friesian.com/leibniz.htm
http://www.island-of-freedom.com/LEIBNIZ.HTM
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/leibniz.html
http://www.rbjones.com/rbjpub/philos/classics/leibniz/monad.htm
http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/leib-met.htm#H8
http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Gottfried-Leibniz-Philosopher.htm
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/modeur/ph-ryan.htm
