r/PhilosophyMemes • u/letsgowendigo The Evil Demon Descartes talked about. • 2d ago
Am I missing something, or is Leibniz's metaphysics actually just stupid?
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u/baordog 1d ago
He’s trying to articulate the argument about whether “concepts” are “real.” Philosophers have argued since the beginning of philosophy about whether concepts have an existence unto themselves and whether/how abstract concepts relate themselves to their concrete forms in the real world.
Many philosophers have come up with their own framework to explain the relation of the abstract and the concrete, monads are just one theoretical articulation. The idea has been highly influential to mathematics and philosophy inspired by mathematics.
“We must begin to understand what a monad is by beginning from the idea of a complete concept. As previously stated, a substance (that is, monad) is that reality which the complete concept represents. Acomplete concept contains within itself all the predicates of the subject of which it is the concept, and these predicates are related by sufficient reasons into a vast single network of explanation. So, relatedly, the monad must not only exhibit properties, but contain within itself “virtually” or “potentially” all the properties it will exhibit in the future, as well as contain the “trace” of all the properties it did exhibit in the past.”
It’s not as silly an idea as the meme suggests, because he’s talking about concepts and predicate rather than physical atomically substances as understood by the modern atomic theory.
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u/NicholasThumbless 1d ago
I really appreciate this comment. I know people on here can often wail on about people learning philosophy poorly from meme pages, but I have found I learn plenty from the corrections and/or refutations in the comments as much as anywhere else. Is it an academically rigorous understanding? Maybe not. But still, I now better understand and appreciate an idea that I was completely unaware of until just now.
Thank you for your effort and time.
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u/jancl0 1d ago
I was just thinking about this earlier today. I say this with love (sort of) but I've never seen an interest based subreddit with such a large portion of the community clearly having almost 0 understanding of the concept, it's honestly a pretty strange outlier
But I realised that I actually love it when I see a bad meme here, because there's always someone who actually understands this stuff ("can play ball" was what I saw in another comment earlier today) and when they correct someone, it usually comes with 3 or 4 meaty paragraphs. It's honestly a pretty good way to learn new concepts when you've spent alot of time in philosophy and just want to hear new things you haven't heard of before, you just have to keep in mind that the value is in the comments, very rarely the posts
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u/ShittyDriver902 1d ago
Makes me wonder how much we learn of concepts from exposure, like do I have 1/10th of a mechanical engineering degree from asking my mechanics questions? Probably not, and if I do it will probably never be more than 1/10th, but cool to think about
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u/Infinite-Radiance 22h ago
Maybe not close to a degree level of knowledge, but there's something to be said about having a base level competency in several fields. Lots of people are only so-so at doing many things, so knowledge in one area helps prop up your lack of knowledge in other areas.
A degree in math might not tell you how to fix a car, but a light interest in one aspect of math, say fluid dynamics, might give you enough of a hold on the thermodynamics of how an engine works, and from there you're learning :)
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u/pluralofjackinthebox 1d ago
I love the idea that each monad — each concept — expresses the entire universe, but from its own point of view.
Like to fully understand the concept “Napoleon”, you really do have to understand how everything in the universe led up to his birth, and how he altered everything afterwards.
Theres something beautiful in the idea that every person is a monad, and each of us contains the universe, that the universe is folded into us, and our existence expresses this infinity from our own point of view.
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u/scrambledhelix 1d ago
Notice how it's also implicitly panpsychist?
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u/NobodySure9375 A Stoic, Rationalist and Racist. 1d ago
So you're suggesting that Leibniz's monads are to concepts what atoms are to physics?
That we're all composed of little concept-kinda-things which perceive things from their own view, like a metaphysical LEGO house? Sounds pretty cool to me.
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u/letsgowendigo The Evil Demon Descartes talked about. 1d ago
Huh, that's actually pretty interesting. Thanks for the insight.
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u/AskNo8702 1d ago
And yet in my history of philosophy textbook. It's explained both as you explain it and as the meme does I believe.
So if somewhere he mentions monads as souls. We shouldn't just ignore it? I mean.. that's charity up to incredulity. If he didn't mean it so. Then he really shouldn't say it so.
It's like some scientists. Who claim the act of observing makes a particle appear. Rather than that the act of interaction with something makes it observable. Huge difference. Huge difference indeed.
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u/thussy-obliterator 1d ago
A monad is simply a monoid in the category of endofunctors
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u/captainsalmonpants 1h ago
Apparently this statement leads down a rabbit hole, or perhaps it's a monad in and of itself?
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u/123m4d 1d ago
The former - you are missing something.
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u/gerkletoss 1d ago
I'll bite
How does the claim that the monads can perceive and desire make any sense?
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u/HerrIggy 1d ago
How about quantum mechanics? Quantum superpositions imply that an atom for instance can occur in multiple states simultaneously much as the monad has been said to contain all possibilities of a concept. At the moment of observation, I do not think science declares who or what actually decides which state the atom will be observed. It seems to me it would be reasonable to claim that the particle itself "decides", and in order to "decide" then it must have some ability to perceive and desire. Though, we would have to discuss what we mean by perceive and desire and realize we are applying those words to atoms comparably to the way we apply them to single celled organisms.
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u/gerkletoss 1d ago edited 1d ago
There are several reasons that I'm sure that's not what Leibniz meant
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u/HerrIggy 1d ago edited 1d ago
Oh, I'm sorry, I definitely did not interpret your question as wanting it answered as Leibnitz would.
I was just providing an example from science of an observable phenomenon that would correspond with a metaphysical framework where our scientific concepts appear to function at the high-level while in reality an underlying force may be the true driver.
As for, why would Leibnitz have created named concepts and attributes for those named concepts, I would direct you to the dizzying influence of gnosticism.
(If you are already well aware of that link, disregard. My argument for why this could be considered a legitimate influence would be dependent on Jung's discussion of the collective unconscious and the value of psychological truths, especially such as those captured by the gnostics of antiquity.)
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u/TimeIndependence5899 22h ago edited 22h ago
Obviously not. He's giving an example of how it may make sense in modern terms, regardless of its validity. Leibniz thinks the only unity worthy of being called substance we have any contact with is ourselves, and he finds it evident that no amount of explanation from matter can give rise to the phenomenal unity that is consciousness. We are capable of representing the world and thus act as a mirror of the entire universe (to confused and indistinct extents, of course.) The force of the soul if it cannot be causal in any sense is its self-capacity for representation. As Kant may say, it's the unfolding of an inner principle given externally (i.e, through God.) The concepts we hold are, in a sense, a reflection of the nature of monads rather than external things, as space is only the relational representation of the pre-established harmony amongst the infinity of monads, a lower-level grasp of our own 'pure' concepts more accurate of their purported objects (monads), which ultimately stem from our very nature as intelligible rather than material beings.
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u/imbecilidade88 1d ago
Yes. The goal is to prove the existence of God. Who can synchronize all the monads and make things work? God.
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u/the_quivering_wenis 1d ago
Who mo-nads
Like God can
Who rights bads
Like God can
Who makes this the best of all worlds
Like God can
He's especially good at perfectorating
Ten prayers for our God
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u/FlashInGotham 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was today years old when i realized Orson Scott Card stole the entire metaphysics that the latter half of the Ender series hinges on from Leibniz.
Philotes, the aiúa, the "binder together ", if it helps jog your memory.
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u/cabweb 1d ago
Isn't this basically atom theory?
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u/ExistentialRosicky 1d ago
It's adjacent to it, but monads are more aligned to metaphysics and epistemology than physics proper (iirc, since I haven't studied Leibniz in over a decade).
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u/Thefrightfulgezebo 1d ago
As far as I remember, the core difference is that Monads are not in time and space. They are ternal and unchangeable things. What we call the world is God facilitating an interaction between them.
What's weird is how well that view works with a video game. The character you play doesn't really exist. There are just lines of code and a machine running that code - and if we get into object oriented programming, the parallels with Monads become even more noticeable.
In short: I read it as closer to simulation theory
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u/triste_0nion dolce & gabbana stan 1d ago
Not really. Leibniz is actually deeply crítical of atomism, at least the form it had back in his day. You have three kind of paths of attacks in his work: 1. The principle of continuity. This is his position that ‘no change happens through a leap’. From what I understand, the gist of his argument is that everything must be elastic to some extent — the hard ball theory of atoms is sketchy because, if two entities which cannot flex collide, then there has to be a sudden, discontinuous change in direction and speed. Insofar as this applies to all levels, Leibniz concludes that you can’t have some indivisible, fully hard layer — instead, the analysis prolongs into infinity. 2. The principle of plenitude. This is the idea that existence and the realisation of possibles is good in of itself (tied to his theological positions) and thus that God creates as much as He can within the bounds of logic (or rather, within logic and His own moral goodness). Atomism, which requires a void within which atoms can be placed, violates this principle. Similarly, by positing finite bodies of matter (atoms) at all is to place a limit of variety — as such, he again says division must go on to infinity. 3. The principle of the continuum (idk if that’s its actual name). Descartes held that (a) the world is a plenum, (b) all motion in a plenum is circular, (c) such motion requires the infinite division (or rather, indefinite division) of matter to account for any bends or narrows within flow. Leibniz agrees, but is more confident about the ‘infinite’ part — he holds that matter can always be more and more divided. This gets quite complicated quite quickly, and eventually leads into all number of paradoxes.
With these critiques in mind, monadology essentially emerges as a metaphysical way to account for ‘true substance’ as composed of unities, not composites. If matter (being non-atomistic) can be forever divided, it cannot be said to be the ‘true’ reality of things. That is, the body isn’t quite a substance. Monads, however, are fully ‘atomic’ and indivisible, just being droplets of soul, mind, intelligence or whatever (incorporeal substance) rather than matter. They are quite firmly metaphysical though, pretty separate from the typical physics that Leibniz was also heavily engaged in.
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