Self and Substance in Leibniz
Marc Elliott Bobro
Language: English
Pages: 144
ISBN: 9048165725
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
There is a close connection in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s mind between the notions of self and substance. R. W. Meyer, in his classic 1948 text, Leibnitz and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution, writes that “the monad … is nothing but a 1 représentation (in both senses of the French word) of Leibniz’s personality in metaphysical symbols; and there was, under contemporary circumstances, no need 2 to ‘introduce’ this concept apart from ‘propounding’ it. ” It is not clear what Meyer means here except that from the consideration of his own self, in some way Leibniz comes to his concept of simple substance, or monad. Herbert Carr, in an even earlier work, notes that Leibniz held that “the only real unities in nature are formal, not material. … [and] [f]or a long time Leibniz was content to call the formal unities or substantial forms he was speaking about, souls. This had the advantage that it referred at once to the fact of experience which supplies the very 3 type of a substantial form, the self or ego. ” Finally, Nicholas Rescher, in his usual forthright manner, states that “[i]n all of Leibniz’s expositions of his philosophy, 4 the human person is the paradigm of a substance.
personal identity, at least when it comes to memory and self-consciousness. Mentioning only memory (souvenir) seems perfectly acceptable since selfconsciousness follows automatically. On the other hand mentioning only selfconsciousness is likewise acceptable. For it would be redundant to then adduce memory as a further condition. Indeed, Leibniz does not say “memory and selfconsciousness,” or something to that effect, in any of the passages discussed thus far. Nor does he do so in any other when
would be the property of perceptual continuity. An example of a ordinary property would be the perception of pain in one’s left foot. The former kind of property is not listed, as it were, in a substance’s complete concept whereas the latter kind is. A substance has the property of perceptual continuity only insofar as its activity conforms to the law of continuity. Could a change in its categorical properties “change the real identity” of a substance without destroying that substance, and thus
existing as united with a body. But it is possible that a simple substance, even a thinking one, not be embodied. However, insofar as thinking machines could be moral agents, Samuel Scheffler agrees with Vailati’s assessment: “Leibniz concedes that it is within God’s power to allow moral identity to attach to a mere aggregate of matter, without depending on any human substance.…”18 Compare what Catherine Wilson says about the thinking machine passage: “If God could somehow attach consciousness to
substance—but to provoke further discussion. NOTES 1 I take it that Meyer is speaking of représentation both as description and as portrayal. 2 R.W. Meyer, Leibniz and the Seventeenth Century Revolution, 120. 3 Herbert Wildon Carr, Leibniz, 83. 4 Nicholas Rescher, G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology, 82. 5 Rescher, G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology, 82. Compare Benson Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz, 40. 6 Grua, La Justice humaine selon Leibniz, 213. 7 See Paul Lodge and Marc Bobro, “Stepping Back Inside
perhaps even as a mere means of deterrence. Of course, as we have already seen, Leibniz denies that moral agents will permanently lose the memory of what they have been. 112 Chapter Six 6. Conclusion This chapter began with the question of meaningful survival: Under what conditions does person A secure over time what matters in survival? This question is qualitative, insofar as person A continues to exist in a significant, meaningful manner. Leibniz, we concluded, holds that meaningful