PHIL 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Mental Property, Indiscernibles
4 May 2018
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History of Modern Philosophy
2.16.18 Lecture Notes – Leibniz, Clarke
- Lieiz takes issue ith Clarke’s eplaatio of sesor pereptio
- Received through senses, transmitted to the brain via the nerves, the soul is present in
some way and its able to perceive through presence
- Presence is not sufficient, L says
- L introduces pre-established harmony
o Occasionalism – finite substances do not have causal powers
▪ For instance, the marker does not cause us to have a perception of it –
God caused such occasion
o IMO: ould’t that otradit ith God’s perfet foresight?
- When substance A appears to have an effect on substance B, things happen inside of A
and B that arise out of their own nature and make the phenomena that we see
o Let’s sa A is od ad B is id
o There’s alas goig to e a haroious orrespodee
o The actual cause of anything that happens to the body is understood in terms of
efficient causes (pushing over the marker) and mechanical laws
o Anything that happens to the mind is governed in terms of final causes (we can
only think of mental properties in terms of final causes)
▪ Remember final cause = purpose
o Mind is not subject to the efficient causes or mechanical laws of the body
o Pre-established in that God lines everything up as a correlation between mind
and body
o Not occasionalism
o Looming problem – What about free will?
- Monads
o Souls are monads
o Monads are small particles that make up everything, not actual matter
o There is a hierarchy of monads
o Intelligent in that they can represent things around them
o They are all different
o Monads are the true reality, most fundamental level possible
o Leibniz says that God created the mind, which is a single monad, and the body,
which is a collection of monads
o The mind monad is superior
o Created in perfect harmony with one another
o Double kingdom – two kingdoms of monads that are governed by a different set
of laws
o Monads are not atoms (since atoms are all the same), are also indivisible
o Argument against atomism is that all atoms have the same properties
- Another consequence of the PSR
o Principle of the identity of indiscernibles
▪ No two individual things in the universe are exactly alike
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