A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 2: Modern PhilosophyCushman, Herbert Ernest
Philosophy
A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 2: Modern Philosophy
Cushman, Herbert Ernest
Philosophy -- History
=The Immediate Problem for Leibnitz.= Perhaps Leibnitz was called
away from this purely theoretical problem of method by the practical
problem of reconciling science and religion, which problem in his
day had become particularly acute. For science had made rapid strides
since the days of Descartes, had drawn very far away from religion,
and Leibnitz’s attempt to reconcile science and religion was much
more difficult than that of the preceding Rationalists. Leibnitz had
accepted the most radical results of science, but he saw that science
had yielded only a mechanical view of the world. Politics demanded in
the exigencies of that hour some principle of unity. He sought to find
some philosophical principle for the _living, religious character_
of the universe, and a principle that at the same time would preserve
the results of science. He therefore sought to leave the conception of
mechanical nature intact and go behind it for a teleological principle.
He examined the mechanical principles of the science of his day and
found them embedded in a deeper metaphysical principle.
=The Result of Leibnitz’s Examination of the Principles of
Science[35]――A Plurality of Metaphysical Substances.= What was the
developed scientific principle of Leibnitz’s time? And what was the
result of his analysis of it? The principle was the mathematical
principle of Galileo in more complex form, for there had been added
to it since Galileo’s day the concept of the atom. That is to say,
the fundamental scientific principle was that nature consists of the
measurable movements of atoms. From his analysis of this, Leibnitz
obtained as follows his conception of a plural number of substances,
which he called monads.
1. Leibnitz first scrutinized the scientific conception of motion.
His analysis of motion into infinitely small impulses by the method
employed by Galileo, Huyghens, and Newton had already led him to one
important discovery――the differential calculus. Now he scrutinizes it
further and discovers that the fundamental ground of motion is _force_.
While Leibnitz was in entire agreement with other scientists in their
effort to reduce all phenomena to motion, he insisted that motion
was not by any means the fundamental thing. He calls the Cartesian
conception of motion the antechamber of true philosophy. There is no
absolute motion nor absolute rest. Motion and rest are relative to
each other. Descartes’ theory that there is conservation of motion
is incorrect. Motion and rest are the phenomenal changes of force.
Force alone is constant and conserved. Physics points beneath itself
to metaphysics; motion points to force. Force is what is fundamental
in nature. Force is “that which in the present state of things brings
about a change in the future.” Therefore force as the substance of
nature is super-spatial and immaterial, and therefore the basis of
the new physics ought to be dynamic metaphysical substance.
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