Abstract
Enirco Pasini argues that the development of Leibniz’s metaphysics during the 1670s and 1680s shows that its core focus is not a theory of substance, but a theory of essence and existence. The theory of substance is a theoretical middle ground that connects pure metaphysics to the epistemic level of natural science, on the one hand through dynamics, and on the other hand through a theory of the composition of substances. The latter in turn is two-sided, with a permanent component, namely, pre-established harmony, and a variety of solutions to the problem of what will be called by Leibniz “composite substance” – as well more generally, as solutions to the “form-matter” problem that is traditional in the theory of substance and that represents a recurring strain of Aristotelianism, with different phases and versions, in Leibniz’s thought. For Pasini, the relation between the dominating monad and the bodily machine is of particular importance in Leibniz’s multi-level monadological universe. Aristotelian conceptual tools are instrumentally used by Leibniz to provide a theory that can describe its metaphysical structure, but at the core of this theory we can find a peculiarly Leibnizian identification of the true living and the vere unum.
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Notes
- 1.
“Haec propositio: Si possibile est Ens necessarium, sequitur quod existat est fastigium doctrinae modalis”, Leibniz again writes in 1689–1690, “et primum facit transitum a posse ad esse, seu ab essentiis rerum ad existentias” (A VI 4, 1636). On Leibniz’s argument(s) for God’s existence, innumerable pages have been written. I’ll mention here only a recent contribution by Brandon Look, “Some Remarks on the Ontological Arguments of Leibniz and Gödel,” in Einheit in der Vielheit, Akten des VIII. Internationalen Leibniz-Kongreß (Hannover, Leibniz-Gesellschaft, 2006).
- 2.
The identification of essence and possibility is constant in Leibniz: “… possibilitates sive essentias rerum” (A VI 4, 2317), “ipsa possibilitate vel essentia” (GP 7, 303), “essences ou possibilités” (Mon. § 44); see also A VI 6, 293.
- 3.
This can be, of course, as Aristotelian as anything might be. In his reflections on the question of essence, Leibniz could at times be considered to be repeating the arguments used by Henry of Ghent in his controversy with Giles of Rome concerning the real distinction between essence and existence – a distinction that was maintained at least by Giles and, according to Giles and certain commentators, by Thomas himself. However, as far as the question of the real or modal distinction of essence and existence is concerned, Leibniz’s theory of essence is quite strongly influenced by Suarez.
- 4.
- 5.
The metaphysics of the monad, likewise, keeps this ambiguity in its specific language: the monad is the substance, but is also, as the dominating monad, the principle of unity; and yet that of which it is the principle of unity is not univocally substance.
- 6.
“But if we take for the matter of the corporeal substance, not the mass without forms, but a secondary matter, which is the multitude of substances the mass of which is that of the body as a whole, we can say that those substances are parts of that matter, in the way that those which make up our body form parts of it. For just as our body is the matter and our soul is the form of our substance, so it is with other corporeal substances” (Leibniz 1998, 132, slightly modified). The passage won’t be included in the letter and shows different layers of corrections, but even without the later ones it would serve our purpose. Note that Leibniz is not yet in sure possession of the concepts of “result” and “resulting,” but the argument will impose itself on such a reasoning.
- 7.
As far as it is passive, Keplerian matter, endowed only with inertia and antitypy.
- 8.
“And even though I believe that both gravity and elasticity are in matter only because of the structure of the system and can be explained mechanically, nevertheless, as I understand it, two things follow: (i) that the system of the universe is formed and maintained by metaphysical reasons of order; and (ii) that each corporeal substance acts only by its own force and never receives any of it from elsewhere.” (Leibniz 1989, 289, slightly modified)
- 9.
“Dans les corps je distingue la substance corporelle de la matiere, et je distingue la matiere premiere de la seconde. La matiere seconde est un aggregé ou composé de plusieurs substances corporelles, comme un trouppeau est composé de plusieurs animaux. Mais chaque animal et chaque plante aussi est une substance corporelle, ayant en soi le principe de l’unité, qui fait que c’est veritablement une substance et non pas un aggregé. Et ce principe d’unité est ce qu’on appelle Ame ou bien quelque chose, qui a de l’analogie avec l’ame. Mais outre le principe de l’unité la substance corporelle a sa masse ou sa matiere seconde, qui est encor un aggregé d’autres substances corporelles plus petites, et cela va à l’infini” (GP 3, 260).
- 10.
In association with Hermes, as appearing in Achille Bocchi (1555, 138), it has been studied by E. Wind 1968, 12 and Fig. 23; see also B. C. Bowen (1985, 222–29), who points to Plutarch, De garrulitate, 507A, as the source: as the one remains uncommunicated, states Plutarch there, so does a story with a single knower.
- 11.
And to the respective clarity of this representation is due its dominating role, while its “activity” in guiding it is equivalent to an increase in perfection, that is, in the same clarity.
- 12.
“Therefore I distinguish: (1) the primitive entelechy or soul; (2) the matter, namely, the primary matter or primitive passive power; (3) the monad made up of these two things (4) the mass or secondary matter, or the organic machine in which innumerable subordinate monads concur; and (5) the animal, that is, the corporeal substance, which the dominating monad in the machine makes one” (Leibniz 1989, 177).
- 13.
Besides, the monad has no secondary matter in the sense that it is a material soul – Hobbes doesn’t take part in this discussion. The secondary matter, moreover, is mainly the matter of the other monads, since the soul’s own secondary matter is simply the reflection, so to speak, or expression, of the body in the soul’s passivity.
- 14.
“Quaeris 2. quid mihi hic sit incompletum? Respondeo: passivum sine activo, et activum sine passivo (… ). 4. Monadem completam seu substantiam singularem voco non tam animam, quam ipsum animal aut analogum, anima vel forma et corpore organico praeditum” (GM 3, 541–42).
- 15.
“When I say that the soul or entelechy cannot act upon the body, by body I do not mean the corporeal substance of which it is the entelechy, that is one substance, but the aggregate of the other corporeal substances that make up our organs. In fact a substance cannot influence another one, nor, consequently, an aggregate of others”.
- 16.
“Every created monad is endowed with some organic body, in accordance with which it perceives and has appetitions, although [this body] is variously conveyed, developed, transformed, through birthings and dyings, and consists of a perennial flux”.
- 17.
This should raise other difficulties, concerning the relation between matter and form, but, one might suggest, in Leibnizian terms the problem is indeed weakened, since the relation of matter and form is contaminated, so to say, by a concept that is absolutely not Aristotelian, i.e., that of the infinite. His metaphysics of essence entails that there is an infinity of essences, i.e. of individual beings, and in fact it is so, according to him, in created reality. Leibniz can thus afford to take some liberties, much better than keeping faithful to Aristotelian orthodoxy.
- 18.
The secondary passive is here meant as the principle of the secondary passivity that corresponds to materia saecunda, just as the primary passive corresponds to materia prima.
- 19.
He will still be sticking to it in 1716 (see for instance GP 6, 625 or D 5, 173). The arc beginning with the discovery of the essence-existence nexus, and ending with the “substantia-substantiatum” theory of the natural world, encompasses the main phases of development of Leibniz’s metaphysics; its closing accompanies the birth of Leibniz’s final monadology, a complex theory that rejects composed substances and admits composed entities in opposition to simple ones, that includes, or at least engenders, a complex theory of space and continua, and that perhaps has emancipated itself from Aristotelianism and its troubles. Some most useful hints are found in V. De Risi 2007.
- 20.
I refer the reader to my 2006.
- 21.
The essence is even more a distinctive trait of Leibniz’s metaphysics, when there is an implicit theory of the compositio substantiarum; monads have the exclusive right to the individual essence, just as every monad seems to have the right to a biological history, as it is endowed with an instrumental (organic) body, and every monad which is a spirit is entitled to a biography, or at least to a moral history.
- 22.
In fact the “composite substance” theory is to be found in drafts composed while Leibniz is discussing transubstantiation with Des Bosses, the unity of aggregates and of true substances, substantiata and so on, namely, when he is seriously looking for explanations of the reality of phenomenal bodies that might be viable at the level of the theory of substance, both preserving the independence of monads, and not requiring God to create special vincula every time they are needed.
- 23.
German: “a larva”.
- 24.
LH XXXVII, 2, 123v; it is available in facsimile from the Online-Ritterkatalog (http://ritter.bbaw.de). Rather uncanny, and that is in truth the main reason for the quotation, especially the passage on larvae and comedones. But I’d rather not translate it.
- 25.
I must thank Herbert Breger for this information.
- 26.
In the English paraphrases of this text I’ll be following with some modifications G. H. R. Parkinson’s version in G. W. Leibniz 1973.
- 27.
Couturat omitted this very word, making the close of Leibniz’s text somewhat awkward.
- 28.
The most Platonist trait here apparently being the implied panpsychist identification of life and soul. The passage is translated in C. Merchant (1979), at p. 258: “My philosophical views approach somewhat closely those of the late Countess of Conway, and hold a middle position between Plato and Democritus, because I hold that all things take place mechanically as Democritus and Descartes contend against the views of Henry More and his followers, and hold too, nevertheless, that everything takes place according to a living principle and according to final causes – all things are full of life and consciousness, contrary to the views of the Atomists”.
- 29.
This imbalance holds perhaps for completeness too.
- 30.
Transcendental terms and properties, in this sense, are those which, in the Scholastic tradition, belong to every possible being, and, for this reason, are convertible or equivalent with “being” (ens) and with each other. Therefore they transcend, or surpass, distinctions and categories.
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Pasini, E. (2011). The Organic Versus the Living in the Light of Leibniz’s Aristotelianisms. In: Smith, J., Nachtomy, O. (eds) Machines of Nature and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 67. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0041-3_6
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