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The Monad and its Critics

ManiacJack
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Posted 09/17/09 - 11:40 AM: Subject: The Monad and its Critics	#1
stanford wrote: 5. Metaphysics: Leibnizian Idealism 5.1 Monads and the World of Phenomena ... According to Leibniz, if the only genuinely real beings are mind-like simple substances, then bodies, motion, and everything else must result from or be derivative of those simple substances and their perceptual states. In a typical statement of his idealism, Leibniz says, “I don't really eliminate body, but reduce [revoco] it to what it is. For I show that corporeal mass [massa], which is thought to have something over and above simple substances, is not a substance, but a phenomenon resulting from simple substances, which alone have unity and absolute reality.” (G II 275/AG 181) Yet, this position, denying the reality of bodies and asserting that monads are the grounds of all corporeal phenomena, as well as its metaphysical corollaries has shocked many. Bertrand Russell, for example, famously remarked in the Preface to his book on Leibniz that he felt that “the Monadology was a kind of fantastic fairy tale, coherent perhaps, but wholly arbitrary.” And, in perhaps the wittiest and most biting rhetorical question asked of Leibniz, Voltaire gibes, “Can you really believe that a drop of urine is an infinity of monads, and that each of these has ideas, however obscure, of the universe as a whole?” (Oeuvres complètes, Vol. 22, p. 434) Well, if you are Leibniz, you can. But how so? It is quite wonderful to see a man who is regarded as a great contributor of logic fail to understand from whence the logic he employed originated. Thank you, Bertie. What Leibniz denies is that extension is primary- that is, that mass is primary. Seeing as how most of the universe is full of space and time, it isn't exactly rocket science. He claims that, in regards to metaphysics, the monad is primary, and it represents. This became the basis for Pierce's semiotic, as he likewise disregarded the Cartesian view. Voltaire's critique expresses his own empiricism, as he thinks something he has named has thusly been established as real. What does the urine imply?: well, penises and vaginas, and animals, and waste management, and smells and tastes[?], and probably a whole universe- seeing as how we are talking. And poo, urine implies poo, too. So, then, what is the difference between a monad and a sign?
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Cadrache
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Posted 09/17/09 - 04:18 PM:	#2
Pika? Hmmm.. I have to actually think prior to writing on this one. k'-done. Not really. The only word that really comes to mind 20 seconds after the 3rd line is 'dependance'. It doesn't quite fit.
"...There was a writer who asked why it was that when we find positive experiences we say that only the physical facts are real, but in negative experiences we believe that reality is subjective. He made an example of those who say that in birth only the pain is real, the joy a subjective point of view, but that in death it is the emotional loss that is the reality." - Tony Ballantyne, Recursion. _____________________________________________ Truth is want. - The internal state of matters. Truth is Need. - The external state of affairs.

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