Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding: A Critical ExpositionDewey, John
Philosophy
Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding: A Critical Exposition
Dewey, John
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von, 1646-1716
We have seen the necessity and nature of matter as deductions from
the fundamental principles of Leibniz. We have seen that matter is
a phenomenon or manifestation of spirit in an imperfect and confused
way. But why should it appear as moving, as extended, as resisting,
as having cohesion, with all the concrete qualities which always mark
it? Is there any connection between these particular properties of
matter as physical, and its "metaphysical" or ideal character? These
are the questions which now occupy us. Stated more definitely, they
take the following form: Is there any essential connection between the
properties of matter as a metaphysical element, and its properties as a
sensible fact of experience? Leibniz holds that there is. He does not,
indeed, explicitly take the ground that we can deduce _a priori_ all
the characteristics of matter as a fact of actual experience from its
rational notion, but he thinks we can find a certain analogy between
the two, that the sensible qualities are images or reflexes of the
spiritual qualities, witnessing, so far as possible, to their origin in
pure energy.
His position is as follows: that which in the monad is activity or
substantial, is, in sensible matter, motion. That which in the monad
is lack of a given activity, that which constitutes its subordinate
position in the hierarchy of monads, is, in the sphere of material
things, inertia. That which in the spiritual world is the individuality
of monads, making each forever ideally distinct from every other, is,
in the phenomenal realm, resistance or impenetrability. The perfect
continuity of monads in the _mundus intelligibilis_ has also its
counterpart in the _mundus sensibilis_ in the diffusion or extension of
physical things.
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