display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
12747 | Monads are not extended, but have a kind of situation in extension [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Even if monads are not extended, they nonetheless have a certain kind of situation in extension. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8 | |
A reaction: This is the kind of metaphysical mess you get into if you start from the wrong premisses (in this case, a dualism of the spiritual and the material). Later (Garber p.359) he says they are situated because they 'preside' over a mass. |
12748 | Only monads are substances, and bodies are collections of them [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: A monad alone is a substance; a body is substances not a substance. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.01.21), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8 | |
A reaction: So how many monads in a drop of urine, as Voltaire bluntly wondered. I take the Cartesian dualism (without interaction) that ran through Leibniz's career to be the source of most of his metaphysical problems. In late career it went badly wrong. |