The aim of philosophy, according to Leibniz, is to explain how God does things, “how things are brought about by the Divine Wisdom in conformity with the particular concept of the subject.”[1] In his Discourse on Metaphysics, he already establishes that each substance’s nature already contains all the predicates[2] and is like a “mirror” of all that is in the universe.[3] Leibniz explicitly assumes that God is the creator of all things and the universe – He is the “architect of the machine of the universe,”[4] and being omniscient, knows all the predicates contained in each thing including the future, which is hence predetermined.
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Each substance is acting in its own “sphere”[5] but yet there seems to be an “appearance”[6] of communication between things. For instance, when ball A hits ball B on a billiard table, it seems to cause ball B to move, even though based on Leibniz’s metaphysics, both balls are independent, each doing what it does because it is already predetermined in its nature rather than because of a causal interaction with each other. Leibniz attempts to explain how this is possible in his article, A New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances. He then builds on this theory to explain the mind-body problem, or how can an immaterial soul and a material body of a person interact. Critique of Other Approaches
Leibniz prefaces his solution in New System by responding to Descartes’s and Malebranche’s approach. According to him, Descartes simply gave up while Malebranche explains it through occasionalism, where God acts as an intermediary between the soul and the body, making the body move in response to thoughts in the soul, and bodily movement causing thoughts in the soul. Leibniz felt that occasionalism was an inelegant solution but more importantly, it leaves no room for the freewill and spontaneity of man. While Malebranche got it right when he understood that things have no effects on one another and all things and their associated events are produced by God,[7] Leibniz felt that Malebranche is resorting to “deus ex machina” or “miracles” to explain the problem of communication.
Leibniz’s Solution
Leibniz postulates that each substance contains all its predicates. This requires each thing to have a relationship with God, where God decides the predicates which determines the thing. Things however do not have a relationship with one another, making it “impossible for the soul or any other true substance to receive something from without, except by the divine omnipotence.”[8] Any solution to the communication problem must explain how individual things have both a “perfect spontaneity with regard to itself […and] a perfect conformity to things without.”[9]
According to Leibniz, internal sensations or internal perceptions occur to the soul in accordance to its own individual nature. This nature is given to the soul by God. This nature contains all that had and will happen to the individual, including how it interacts with external things. When this notion is extended to how the nature of everything likewise contains all their individual predicates, including their individual interactions with other things, everything in the universe is hence connected. Hence, in each thing, the universe is represented “in its own way” from its own viewpoint.
Despite each thing acting out its own nature independently of other things, there is a synchrony between things, since the individual predicates of the various things are carried out in what appears to be perfect timing with one another. It is like a well-synchronised stage play performed separately by individual actors in their own rooms. Each only sees his own lines which comes accompanied with exact timing instructions. At a specified time, actor A recites his first line. Actor B, similarly equipped with a clock synchronised to a common standard with A’s clock, will start reciting at a later specified time, for instance when A stops talking. The audience, watching it on a screen with both actors showing, will have the illusion that A and B are interacting, when in fact it is just a well-synchronised performance with both actors completely unaware of each other. There is a semblance of a “perfect accord,”[10] as if the actors or individual things had actually communicated.
In the same way, the body and soul appear to have a union, when in fact it is just a well-synchronised execution of events. The soul acts according to the laws of final causes while the body acts according to the laws of efficient causes or the laws of motion. Though each acts independently, there is a harmony.[11] In this way, Leibniz explains how individual things have both a “perfect spontaneity with regard to itself […and] a perfect conformity to things without.”[12]
Difficulties with Leibniz’s Theory
Leibniz believes that while his solution seems to make us “determined only in appearance”, we are actually independent of external things. While that may be the case, the problem of human freewill and moral responsibility remains unresolved since all things are still completely predetermined in accordance to its God-given nature. This predetermination exists because of his assumptions of an all-knowing God, who must know the future. Hence, what will happen then is already determined.
Within that framework, Leibniz’s solution might seem well-reasoned but if the assumption of a divine creator is set aside, for instance through employing Occam’s Razor where “entities [such as supernatural, perhaps non-existent ones such as God] should not be multiplied without necessity,” Leibniz’s argument would seem to have solved a puzzle constructed based on its own contrived rules which does not, in the first place, correspond to reality.
Conclusion
Leibniz resolves the problem of how individual things communicate and by extension, the mind-body problem. Each thing is already predetermined in accordance to its God-given nature, and they act independently though in synchrony with one another, giving the appearance of communication despite there being none. Leibniz’s solution is constrained by its underlying assumption of the omniscience of God and is elegant within that framework but is undermined if that assumption is set aside.
Bibliography
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. “A New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances.” In Philosophical Papers and Letters, edited by Leroy E Loemker, 453–59. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976.
———. Discourse on Metaphysics, 1846.
———. “Monadology.” In Philosophical Papers and Letters, edited by Leroy E Loemker, 643–53. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976.
[1] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “A New System of the Nature and the Communication of Substances,” in Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. Leroy E Loemker (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976), para. 13.
[2] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, 1846, sec. 8.
[3] Ibid., sec. 9.
[4] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Monadology,” in Philosophical Papers and Letters, ed. Leroy E Loemker (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1976), para. 87.
[5] Ibid., para. 83.
[6] Ibid., para. 14.
[7] Leibniz, “New System,” para. 13.
[8] Ibid., sec. 14.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Leibniz, “Monadology,” para. 79.
[12] Leibniz, “New System,” sec. 14.
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