Abstract
Markku Roinila (University of Helsinki, Finland), in Affects and Activity in Leibniz’s De affectibus, discusses the doctrine of substance that emerges from Leibniz’s unpublished early memoir De affectibus of 1679. The memoir marks a new stage in Leibniz’s views of the mind. The motivation for this change can be found in Leibniz’s rejection of the Cartesian theory of passion and action in the 1670s. Leibniz’s early Aristotelianism and some features of Cartesianism persisted, to which Leibniz added influences from Hobbes and Spinoza. His nascent dynamical concept of substance is seemingly a combination of old and fresh influences, representing a characteristically eclectic approach. The author argues that the influence of Hobbes is especially important in the memoir. To do that, he examines Leibniz’s development in the 1670s up to the De affectibus and considers the nature of affects in the memoir, especially the first affect which starts the thought sequence. This first affect of pleasure or pain is the key to Leibniz’s theory of active substances and in this way to the whole of Leibniz’s moral psychology and ethical metaphysics.
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Notes
- 1.
Schepers (2003, 133–135) speculates that by analysing Descartes’s and Spinoza’s views on passions or affections Leibniz sought to find material for his planned scientia generalis. Di Bella argues along the same lines (2006, 194). As I will argue later, I think Leibniz saw affections as important in his moral philosophy, as Elementa juris naturalis of 1671 already shows. Therefore I think that his interest in passions was fired up by the need to explain human behavior in general. In the previous year he also read and copied passages from Spinoza’s Ethica, parts III–V, noting in his letter to Vincent Placcius of 14. February 1678 that Spinoza had said many good things about the affects (A II, 1, 593).
- 2.
See, for example, Discours de metaphysique, §10.
- 3.
Active powers are potentialities, which are external principles of change or being at rest (Metaphysics 9. 8, 1049b5–10). Thus they are essential in explaining causes.
- 4.
On the nature of the soul, see Second Meditation, CSM II, 19–20.
- 5.
- 6.
Leibniz wrote a marginal note on the relationship between love and joy (A VI, 4, 1704). In 1671 he had discussed the essence of pure love in Elementa juris naturalis (A VI, 1, 431–485).
- 7.
See especially his own definitions in A VI, 4, 1426.
- 8.
The division A-J is made by the Academy editors. See A VI, 4, 1410.
- 9.
- 10.
“Passio est status aliquis qui causa proxima mutationis est” (A VI, 4, 1411). In much later Monadologie of 1714 Leibniz argues in §49–52 that mutual action and passion among substances is regulated by the pre-established harmony. In De affectibus Leibniz discusses in terms of individual minds which are either spontaneous in the sense that they are active or the opposite case.
- 11.
A VI, 4, 1428–1429; translated in Di Bella (2006, 113).
- 12.
Compare Passions, §24 (CSM I, 337). Referring to §27–28, Leibniz argues that affects are perceptions which are related to the soul and not to the body (A VI, 4, 1418). See also Giolito (1996, 198).
- 13.
“Affectus est occupatio animi orta ex sententia animi circa bonum et malum” (A VI, 4, 1412).
- 14.
For another account on Hobbes’s influence to Leibniz’s early thought, see McDonald Ross (2007, 20 and 24–27). I will return to the details of Hobbes’ influence to Leibniz in the next section.
- 15.
“Sententia est intellectio ex qua sequitur voluntas” (A VI, 1412).
- 16.
“Occupatio animi est inclinatio ad aliquid prae alio cogitandum” (A VI, 1412).
- 17.
Hobbes, Leviathan, ch. 6 (1651). At this point Leibniz did not yet have the doctrine of innate instinct of the New Essays (I, ii) where we automatically strive for good or pleasure and avoid evil or imperfection.
- 18.
- 19.
See also Garber (2009a, 17–18).
- 20.
The doctrine of perceiving bodies is also a debt Leibniz owes to Hobbes. See MacDonald Ross (2007, 27–30).
- 21.
- 22.
See also Wilson (1997, 343–344).
- 23.
See also Leibniz (1992, xlv).
- 24.
This view is also present in Theoria motus abstracti, written in the same year. See Busche (2004, 151–153). Compare also De affectibus (A VI, 4, 1426).
- 25.
See also Leibniz (2005, 161, n. 101).
- 26.
Elementa verae pietatis, sive de amore Dei super omnia (A VI, 4, 1357–1366).
- 27.
“Series est multitudo cum ordinis regula” (A VI, 4, 1426). See also A VI, 1424.
- 28.
An interesting comparison can be made to Nouveaux essais II, xxi, §47 where Leibniz argues that we cannot affect our moral action directly, but we should reject our bad habits and adopt new ones in order to reach virtue. The habit is in a sense a series of thoughts which can be maintained by strong willing and developing the understanding (A VI, 6, 195–197). See also Roinila (2006) and Jones (2006, 252–261).
- 29.
I think Di Bella is right in the sense that in Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione (1662?), sec. 85 Spinoza argues that an objective effect proceeds in the soul according to the formal nature of its object. Thus the soul acts according to certain laws, like a spiritual automaton. See Spinoza (1985, 37). It is also true that Leibniz continued to use this description of the soul in many of his later writings, for example in Monadologie, §18. However, he does not use the concept in De affectibus and, as I argue, I think the primary influence can also be Hobbes. See also Monadologie, §37 and Principes de la nature et de la grace, fondés en raison, §8.
- 30.
- 31.
In this, I am inspired by Goldenbaum’s article on Leibniz’s early fascination with Hobbes’s views (2009, 193–196).
- 32.
Hobbes discusses series of appetites and aversions which form passions such as hope or fear. On Hobbes’ views on affects, see also De homine XI, 5 and XIII, 1.
- 33.
See also Goldenbaum (2009, 199).
- 34.
“Affectus est in animo, quod impetus in corpore” (A VI, 4, 1426). See also Schepers (2003, 135).
- 35.
“Series cogitandi oritur vel ex ideis distinctis…vel oritur ex ideis confusis” (A VI, 4, 1424–1425). This passage clearly anticipates NE II, xxi, §39.
- 36.
Although Leibniz does not discuss the topic more extensively, one can easily relate this idea to the classic problem of akrasia or weakness of the will. We are taken by a more vivid thought which leads us to another train of thoughts. The goal, of course, is to turn human attention to the most perfect series. See Leibniz’s later discussion of akrasia in NE, II, xxi, §35 (A VI, 6, 185–188).
- 37.
Of branching, see Blank Chap. 7 in this volume.
- 38.
See, for example, Nouveaux essais, II, xxi, §21–30 (A VI, 6, 181–183).
- 39.
Giolito compares the Leibnizian affect to Cartesian internal emotions of the soul which he discusses in Passions, §147 (CSM I, 381). These are produced in the soul itself and are therefore not dependent on the movement of the animal spirits, although they may be aroused by external events such as a tragic play. However, the Cartesian intellectual passions are defined as particular passions, while Leibniz’s affect is general by nature. See Giolito (1996, 201–202).
- 40.
See, for example, NE II, xxi, §47. See also Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics VII.
- 41.
See also Nadler (2006, 200).
- 42.
Leibniz argues in much the same way in an appendix to Essais de theodicée, titled Remarques sur le livre de l’origine du mal, publié depuis peu en Angleterre: “No agent is capable of acting without being predisposed to what the action demands; and the reasons or inclinations derived from good or evil are the dispositions that enable the soul to decide between various courses…the truth is that the soul, or the thinking substance, understands the reasons and feels the inclinations, and decides according to the predominance of the representations modifying its active force, in order to shape the action.” (Leibniz (1978, 416); Leibniz (2005, 421)).
- 43.
“Determinatur animus ad eam seriem cogitationum quae in se spectata perfectior est” (A VI, 4, 1430).
- 44.
On the development of Leibniz’s views of harmony, see Mercer (2001, 208–220).
- 45.
Leibniz also argues that the series of things is not necessary by an absolute necessity as there are many other series that are possible, i.e. intelligible, even if they are not actually performed. See Leibniz (2005, 119).
- 46.
See also Di Bella (2005, 127).
- 47.
For Descartes, passions are related to the fundamental difference between the soul and the body. See Passions, §2 (CSM I, 328).
- 48.
On this topic, see Rutherford and Cover (2005).
- 49.
Martha Kneale presents five different definitions on action and passion which she suggest were influenced by reading Spinoza. See Kneale (1976, 220–222).
- 50.
In Leibniz’s mature view, the process of action and passion are atemporal although he sometimes sounds a lot like Spinoza. For example, in NE II, xxi, 72 he says: “If we take ‘action’ to be an endeavor towards perfection, and ‘passion’ to be the opposite, then genuine substances are active only when their perceptions… are becoming better developed and more distinct, just as they are passive only when their perceptions are becoming more confused. Consequently, in substances which are capable of pleasure and pain every action is a move towards pleasure, every passion a move towards pain” (A VI, 6, 210; Leibniz (1996, 210)). See also Monadologie §49 and Principes de la nature et de la grâce, §3.
- 51.
I would like to thank Andreas Blank and an anonymous reviewer for comments to this article. The research for it was made possible by a grant 137891 of the Academy of Finland.
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Roinila, M. (2015). Affects and Activity in Leibniz’s De affectibus . In: Nita, A. (eds) Leibniz’s Metaphysics and Adoption of Substantial Forms. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 74. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9956-0_6
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