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Week 8
Leibnizian Substances and what they represent
Last time I tried to explain what is meant by a substance having a ‘complete
concept’, and I ended with an argument Leibniz offers to explain why he
thinks substances must be like this. We took this further in the seminars. An
argument emerged fairly clearly I think. It may not be quite the one I rehearsed
last time. But let me try and catch it anyway.
ARGUMENT FOR EVERYTHING HAVING A COMPLETE CONCEPT
Leibniz is envisaging God at the moment of creation. S/he is a perfect being:
omnipotent
omniscient
omnibenevolent
S'he must accordingly make the best of all possible worlds.
Leibniz' point is: how can S/he unless it is clear at the moment of creation what all the possibilities are, and how good each of them is?
It is often said that a world in which there is free-will might be better than a world in which there is not. Leibniz agrees.
As God surveys the possibilities, S/he must consider all those possible worlds in which there is free will. One possible world might be one in which bats had free-will. Another might be one in which free-will was enjoyed by toasters. Obviously a lot of possibilities.
And of course each possible world in which there is freewill will subdivide into a host of subpossibilities, in each of which the granted free-will is exercised in a different way.
God has to consider each of these, and evaluate each. But he can only do so if he takes everything into account. That is why Leibniz insists that all the choices that people would make in each of the possible worlds must be available to God at that moment of creation. S/he must know all the choices, and their consequences. And S/he must evaluate each. Otherwise S/he couldn't be sure that the world he created would be absolutely the best. If S/He chose one with free-will in it no matter how promiing it looked, those given free-will might exercise it in the wrong way and everything might end up in ratshit. So to be sure of choosing the best of all possible worlds all the possible choices have got to be known to God at the moment of creation, and the world S/he creates must be created in all its specificity.
I think the arguments Leibniz uses here, and elsewhere, are best used to present dilemmas. He is showing the logical consequences of certain beliefs about God and creation and knowledge and power and possibility. You could take him to be saying: if you believe in such and such a God, you will have to believe in certain other things as well, like that history must be written in advance. Someone else would use the same arguments as a reductio ad absurdum: the consequences of such and such beliefs are X, and X is clearly absurd. Therefore such and such beliefs must be wrong.
If you believe that God is
omnipotent
omniscient
and
omnibenevolent
and you believe in free-will
and you believe God created the universe
then
you must believe history is written in advance.
______________________________________
'... [T]here is an infinity of possible first men, each with a great following
of persons and events, and ... God chose the one who together with his following
pleased him.' Leibniz, Correspondence with Arnauld, Parkinson, p.58.
AN ATTEMPT TO DEFEND LEIBNIZ' CLAIM THAT A SUBSTANCE CAN HAVE REPRESENTATIONS
OF THE FUTURE IN IT AND YET ENJOY FREEDOM
How to understand Leibniz' thesis that a knowledge of history can be available to God at the moment of creation is compatible with human beings exercising freedom?
The only suggestion I can make is this:
There is no problem with understanding how a detailed narrative of the exercise of free-will can be written after the events are over. Can we not think of th narrative God peruses at the moment of creation as like that?
ANOTHER ATTEMPT TO DEFEND LEIBNIZ' CLAIM THAT A SUBSTANCE CAN HAVE REPRESENTATIONS OF THE FUTURE IN IT AND YET ENJOY FREEDOM
Maybe Woolhouse's notion of a 'script' is wrong. Maybe all you have in the substance are traces of the future. The substance performs in a way that reflects those traces, but not because it is following those traces. Is this defensible?
Maybe all that is in a substance's script are ripples arriving from the future.
Let me explain.
[I can't explain the following until after I've explained how the present of
the whole universe is represented in a substance:
Then perhaps we can say that the traces of the future are there in the way that
the traces of the universe as it is at any one time are there.
Traces of everything contemporary are there in virtue - can we say? - of close-packed substances. What if they are close packed in time as well? Would it then be true that every change in the future would be refelected in the present? Ie the present would have a unique configuration governd by what was to happen in the future. Does this escape determinism? The present state would not be determined by the future state, but would be tied in with it.]
A SUBSTANCE'S SCRIPT HAS A REPRESENTATION OF THE WHOLE UNIVERSE
Here now is something you will want to know:
Leibniz holds that each substance has within it a complete representation of
the universe.
The quotation I gave last time, Leibniz' saying that there are, in a person's form,
'traces of all that has happened to him [sic] and marks of all that will happen to him [sic] ...'
continues;
'... and even traces of all that happens in the universe' DM 8
In this way:
'each singular substance expresses the whole universe in its own way, and ... in its concept are included all of the experiences belonging to it together with all of their circumstances and the entire sequence of external events.' DM 9.
What reason may be given for this?
EVERY CHANGE IN A SUBSTANCE REFLECTED IN EVERY OTHER
If we assume that substances affect one another causally, what are the spatial limits of such interaction? Substances in contact with each other could not move, could they, without disturbing their neighbours?
Is this strictly true? It would depend on how close the neighbours were.
We discussed earlier the question of whether there could be movement in a plenum.
Leibniz seems to have held in fact that all substances have neighbours, and that no change in a substance could occur without a change being induced in all its immediate neighbours.
A simple idea, but one with rather large implications. Because what follows is that every change that occurs occasions a ripple which runs throughout the substances with which the changing substance is in direct or indirect contact. I.e., in a close packed universe anyway, each change ripples out throughout the whole universe.
This yields immediately, doesn't it, the conclusion that each substance registers within it each change that happens, wherever in the Universe it occurs.
'[E]very substance sympathises with every other and receives some proportionate
change, corresponding to the least change which occurs in the universe; though
this change is more or less noticeable in proportion as the other bodies or
their activities have more or less relation to ours. On this point I think M.
Descartes himself would have agreed; for he would certainly grant that because
of the continuity and divisibility of all matter the effect of the least movement
is extended over all the neighbouring bodies, and consequently from body to
body ad infinitum, though diminishing proportionately. Thus our body must be
affected to some extent by the changes in all the others.' (Leibniz, Correspondence
with Arnauld; Parkinson, p. 72.)
So we have the conclusion that any change occurring in a substance causes a
change in every other substance.
So in each substance there will indeed be a 'trace' of everything that happens.
EVERY BODILY CHANGE REFLECTED IN THE MIND
But there is more.
Leibniz thinks that every change in a mind is reflected in a change occurring in the body which the mind informs.
And he also thinks that corresponding to every change in our body there is a change in our mind. (This is part of the principle of Pre-Established Harmony.)
'[T]o all the movements of our body there correspond certain more or less confused perceptions or thoughts of our soul'. (Leibniz, Correspondence with Arnauld; Parkinson, p. 72.)
The sophistication of his concept of mentality comes out when we realise he
does not think we are equally conscious of all the changes
that occur in our minds. It seems that some of the changes we are not - or hardly
? - conscious of at all.
We may think he says that many of the changes within the body proceed without
our being conscious of them at all. But he questions whether this is in fact
so. 'Apperception' of each of these changes contributes, he seems to suggest,
to the general feeling tone we are aware of at any one time, and in that sense
each contributory apperception is something we are conscious of.
He suggests we think of the parallel situation with regard to our perception of things in the external world - our hearing from a distance the roar of the surf breaking on the beach. What is the noise of the surf but the sum of the noise each wave makes as it rolls up the beach and breaks. But if this is so, in hearing the roar we are aware - in a certain sense - of each individual wave-break. If we weren't, we would hear no roar:
'It must be the case that I have some perception of the movement of each wave on the shore if I am to be able to apperceive that which results from the movements of all the waves put together, namely the mighty roar which we hear by the sea.' Leibniz, Correspondence with Arnauld; Parkinson, p. 72.
It is the same with perceptions of bodily changes:
'Similarly we feel some confused result of all the movements which take place in us, but, being accustomed to this internal movement, we do not apperceive it distinctly and reflectively except when there is a considerable change, as at the beginning of an illness.'
He goes on:
'And it would be an excellent thing if physicians devoted themselves to distinguishing more exactly the kinds of confused sensations which we have of our bodies ...' Leibniz, Correspondence with Arnauld; Parkinson, p.73.
If we have conceded that every change in a substance is reflected in
every other, we have again the conclusion that in our mind, as well as in our
body, there is a representation of every change in the universe.
RIPPLES ACROSS TIME?
Some time ago we set out to look for ways of reconciling Leibniz' belief in human freedom with his idea that as substances each human being must have a 'complete concept'. One idea was that we are to think of the complete concept as like a narrative record of choices written after the event - like, except for being written before.
Another idea is this.
Maybe we are wrong to follow Woolhouse in glossing 'complete concept' as 'script'. Maybe we should concentrate on the language of 'traces'.
I have tried to render intelligible Leibniz' idea that every change in a full universe will ripple out and affect every substance, no matter how distant geographically
Could the same concept apply in the temporal dimension? In a temporally full universe, could there be a future change that would not have a ripple effect on the past?
Last revised 22:01:04
Prepared by VP