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Abstract
This article examines the rift in Leibniz’s conception of determinism after being rebuffed by the Parisian theologian Antoine Arnauld in their correspondence of 1686. As, in addition, his study of surds infracted his confidence in the “complete concept,” Leibniz embarked on a new, dynamic doctrine of substance or “law of the series.” In the literature, this strategy has been widely (mis)understood as “tweaking” the system to allow some self-assertion of free will. But as this article will show, it amounts to a revolutionary conception that culminates in the unmasking of determinism as an insupportable, indeed incoherent doctrine. As all forms of determinism are profoundly entangled with human self-perception, the Leibnizian Kehre invites us to a new engagement with human freedom and autonomy and the disentanglement from a philosophical position for which neither a metaphysical nor an empirical proof can be given.
Notes
1. Adams, Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist. For the purposes of this article, I divide determinism into two broad classes: (a) those which are concerned with the free will of the human agent and include genetic and theological determinism as subclasses; and (b) those which constrain free will. It seems unnecessary to consider the second group, as it comprises factors and features which impose not on free will itself, but on its exercise—e.g., biological, environmental, economic, ideological and social constraints (the latter including religion, technology, psychology and social stratification).
2. Arnauld, LA/G 17.
3. For example, early versions of the New System and the Monadology exist, whose effective contents differ in both detail and overall tenor from the canonic papers and represent significant “improvements” in terms of clarity of exposition; indeed, to such an extent that their authentic meaning could only be established after the recent publications of these drafts. Cf. the remarks in note 23.
4. Leibniz, “On Freedom,” P 106.
5. Aristotle, Cat. 2a 11–13.
6. Arnauld, LA/G II 76.
7. Sellars, “Meditationes Leibniziennes,” 105–17, §6.
8. Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics, §13, P 23.
9. Garber, “Motion and Metaphysics,” 61.
10. Leibniz, Specimen of Discovery, P 75.
11. Leibniz, Necessary and Contingent Truths, P 97.
12. Ibid., P 99–100.
13. Leibniz, “On Freedom”, P 109.
14. A very simple illustration may be appropriate: The sequence ½+¼+1/8+1/16+1/32+1/64… has neither a first nor a last term, but is instantly recognisable as having ‘1’ as its result—not perfectly, but “as close as you wish,” as Leibniz says.
15. Gurwitsch, Leibniz: Philosophie des Panlogismus, 298–99.
16. This may be illustrated by way of a photograph of a horse race. Depending on how “fast” the film is, the picture will either show a still of the spectators with horse and rider blurred, or else the horse and rider in sharp focus with the background audience blurred. In living bodies, this dichotomy becomes a “pantotomy,” as most processes will be in various states of incompleteness and would not appear, for example, on a total body scan suitable for reconstruction in another world, as in many of our sci-fi fairytales.
17. De Volder, G II 262–5, L 533ff.
18. Rémond, G III 611–13.
19. Indeed, in La théorie leibnizienne (139ff), Jalabert mistakenly proposed two views of the substance: first as the law of the series, and second as the principle of inherence. But we already saw that this is incompatible with the identity of substance/monad and the law of the series.
20. Leibniz, Philarete (Conversation of Philarete and Ariste), A & G 265.
21. Bourguet G III 558.
22. Wilson, Leibniz’s Metaphysics, 279–80.
23. As a thorough discussion of the concept of randomness must be omitted due to space constraints, I am hopeful that this footnoted resumé conveys the gist of my Leibnizian interpretation. Randomness is generally associated with the unguided percolation of matter and energy through the universe; but this cannot hold, as “unguided” serves merely as a substitute for ignotum per ignotius. Paraphrasing Laplace, “if only we knew the exact location and momentum of a single atom, we could reconstruct the history of the universe,” meaning: it is possible in principle. True randomness, however, is a result of the Leibnizian principle of indifference, as mentioned in the text. As many intentional choices are rooted in equipollence, and broken by spontaneous acts, the accumulating asymmetry continually decreases all possibility of reduction to one final cause. Thus the second-by-second spontaneous choices of the billion-fold multitude of living things on earth are the authentic cause of a truly random landscape. Add to this that adaptivity involves changes to the habitat which engender further spontaneous adaptive measures, ad infinitum—a consideration not without its implicit message to the contents of this essay.
24. Cover and O’Leary-Hawthorne, Substance and Individuation, 229
25. Ibid., 238–39.
26. Theodicy. II 201, G VI 236.
27. Barbour and Smolin, “Extremal Variety.”
28. Clarke, Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence.
29. Barbour, The End of Time; Smolin, Life of the Cosmos.