more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Why not assume that God initially created the soul and body with so much ingenuity that, whilst each follows its own laws and properties and operations, all thing agree most beautifull among themselves? This is the 'hypothesis of concomitance'.
Gist of Idea
Assume that mind and body follow their own laws, but God has harmonised them
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (A Specimen of Discoveries [1686], p.80)
Book Ref
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'Philosophical Writings', ed/tr. Parkinson,G.H.R. [Dent 1973], p.80
A Reaction
They may be in beautifully planned harmony, but how do we know that they are in harmony? Presumably their actions must be compared, and God would even have to harmonise the comparison. Parallelism seems to imply epiphenomenalism or idealism.
| 21860 | Ideas and things have identical connections and order [Spinoza] |
| 5038 | Assume that mind and body follow their own laws, but God has harmonised them [Leibniz] |
| 2596 | Maybe mind and body are parallel, like two good clocks [Leibniz] |
| 5046 | The soul does know bodies, although they do not influence one another [Leibniz] |
| 19350 | We should say that body is mechanism and soul is immaterial, asserting their independence [Leibniz] |
| 19421 | Souls act as if there were no bodies, and bodies act as if there were no souls [Leibniz] |
| 19351 | Perfections of soul subordinate the body, but imperfections of soul submit to the body [Leibniz] |
| 3449 | If parallelism is true, how does the mind know about the body? [Crease] |