LEIBNIZ: THE PERCEPTION OF THE UNIVERSE
Karen Møller-Munar
According to Leibniz, there is only one type of substance: the monad. The monad is an immaterial, non-composite and indivisible entity of which everything else is composed. As such Leibniz regards the monads as the “true atoms of nature” and that there must exist infinitely many (Leibniz 1991, § 3, 17). He reasons that because there are composite things in the world, there must be an element of which everything is composed but which is not itself composite. Such an entity must necessarily be immaterial as all matter is divisible by nature. The immateriality of the monad excludes that it can be a quantitively delimited entity and Leibniz argues therefore that monads instead must be delimited qualitatively to have some kind of determination that makes each unique and distinguishable. The uniqu-eness of each is required to be able to explain how two beings in the world never are completely alike. As Leibniz points out, a pure identity between two entities is logically impossible because their indistinguishability would make them the same (Leibniz 1991, § 8-9, 18). All monads differ from each other by having their own unique inner complexity (détail) and an internal principle of change that together represent/reflect two primary laws of the world; all things are unique and are in constant change. These two are in fact the only essential traits the monads have.
Leibniz’s concept of the monad is a way of unifying the simple with the complex, the one with the many, in one single type of substance that is infinitely dispersed to a plurality of different beings, each with a singular identity. The infinite variety of monads creates the diversity and variety of all things in the universe. Far from turning into complete chaos, Leibniz envisions that God, the Supreme Substance, has created the universe as a “plenum” of infinitely many monads that are systematically ordered according to their qualitative difference, from least to most perfect (Leibniz 1991, 210). In this manner, Leibniz is able to explain how an infinite diversity of beings nonetheless can be systematically ordered and thus form a unifying whole. Qualitatively similar monads form together composite organic bodies, from the smallest cells to the biggest animals. In Leibniz’s worldview, dead matter does not exist. All things are made up of monads - all are living, organic, and subject to change. Space is therefore not a thing in itself that exists prior to the monads and which they fill up but is instead a result of the qualitative differences between all monads in the plenum (Leibniz 1991, 210; quote from a correspondance to des Bosses).
What is it then that makes up each monad’s unique inner complexity (their détail) and creates the order? According to Leibniz, their inner complexity is that they each have a particular point of view of the universe, called their “perception”. This form of perception should not be understood as a sense-based impression. On the contrary, because monads are immaterial, they cannot be physically affected by something external to them. Leibniz writes: “Monads just have no windows through which something can enter into or depart from them. (…) And so, neither substance nor accident can enter a monad from without. ”(Leibniz 1991, § 7, 17). Monads are causally independent individual substances that are “self-sufficient” (autarkeia) (Leibniz 1991, § 18, 19). Each monad generates both its perception and its continuous change of the same. But what is a non-physical perception and what is precisely perceived? When first explained, Leibniz calls perception “[t]he transitory state which enfolds and represents a multiplicity in a unity, or in the simple substance”(Leibniz 1991, § 14, 18). What is especially noteworthy here is the word enfold, in French envelopper, which is the manner in which the “inner” complexity, the qualitative multiplicity of the monad, nonetheless surrounds it and clasps it from the outside to unify the many in one. The outside is internally expressed in the monad and is that which makes up the monad, like an inner happening that nonetheless represents the outside/the Other.
How can we understand perception as the monad’s point of view, if it is an entity without extension, non-placeable and non-quantifiable? It is in a way an impossible thought. Impossible for our imagination to envision a ”view”, a unification of a multiplicity, without a place to ground it, a space for it to fill. Leibniz explicitly says “that perception and what depends upon it is inexplicable on mechanical principles, that is, by figures and motions.” (Leibniz 1991, § 17, 19). Perception is not the result of physical or mechanical activity inside the monad; it is solely a result of its being in the world. To be in the world as an individual monad necessarily gives it a unique position and thus perception, compared to the other individual monads who likewise have their own. Leibniz also often calls the monad, in virtue of its perceptions, a ”living mirror” representing “the entire universe” from its point of view. (Leibniz 1991, § 62, 25) The monad is windowless but a mirror reflecting its surroundings – a simple substance representing a unique multiplicity. Paradoxically, the mirroring remains an internal action.
The question remains, how should we understand perception as an internal action within the monad that represents a “without” when the monad is extensionless and all its sur-roundings are too (the other monads)? If the universe is a plenum of immaterial monads that are ordered by their qualitative determinations, the only way of talking about concepts like proximity and distance, within and without, is also qualitative – or perhaps, conceptual. The “without” of Leibniz is not a spatial “without” but a qualitative/concep-tual “otherness”. In this way, when the monad mirrors its surroundings, it is like it mirrors everything else that is not itself. But what is then left of each particular monad but its self? A self whose only determination is but that which is not its Other? Leibniz suggests that in a monad “there is nothing besides this—besides perceptions and their changes—that one could possibly find”(Leibniz 1991, § 17, 19). In this sense, a monad’s individuality is given by the activity of perception which in each moment is an attempt to represent its surroundings from its point of view. The point of view makes perception always proper to it in each moment. Like a subject, the monad’s identity persists despite that its perception is transitory, a singular moment continuously replaced by another. The transition from one to the other is caused by an immanent principle of change in the monad called its appeti-tion (Leibniz 1991, § 14, 18). Sometimes Leibniz characterizes the monad’s appetition as a “force” and a “tendency” that explains its dynamic and “natural” development, where it changes “by degrees”(Leibniz 1991, § 13, 18). The monads are finite and limited beings who continually try to perceive the whole but never get it fully. They naturally tend towards getting a fuller and more complete perception, like God who has the full perception, in the form of knowledge (Leibniz 1991, § 48, 23). According to Leibniz, there are three different degrees of perception that monads can have: (1) simple perception (non-conscious), (2) sentience (conscious, distinct perception and memory) (3) apperception (self-conscious perception and reason) (Leibniz 1991, § 14-30, 18-21). Besides the simple monads, he calls monads with sentience souls and monads with apperception (rational) spirits. Simple perception does not entail any form of awareness, whereas sentience involves conscious and distinct impressions that can last (memory). Apperception is the ability to perform a “reflexive act” where perception itself is perceived. The latter, Leibniz believes, is uniquely part of human beings and it makes them able to reason abstractly and obtain necessary, universal and eternal truths (Leibniz 1991, § 29-30, 20-21). Leibniz argues that every organism and creature each have a dominant monad among the many millions of which they are composed – animals have soul, humans have spirit (Leibniz 1991, § 20-25, 19-20). These three degrees thus function as an explanatory basis for the perceptual capabilities different creatures have in the world.
It can be imagined that the “world” that living creatures experience is an aggregation of all the perceptions of the individual monads – the living mirrors – and mostly the distinct ones that stand out from the rest. Although humans have spirit as their dominant monad, they are still composed of monads in all three degrees. Sometimes, “when there is a large multiplicity of minute perceptions where there is nothing distinct, one is stupefied”, for example when sleeping or in a dizzy state.(Leibniz 1991, § 21, 19).Death is for instance when the simple monads with non-distinct perceptions take over. Leibniz understands distinct perception as when something vividly “springs forth” inside, creating a state of consciousness (Leibniz 1991, § 24,20). He writes: “[The detail of the whole universe] can only be distinct in regard to a small part of things, namely those that are nearest or most extensively related to each monad.”(Leibniz 1991, § 60, 24). Here he suggests that the degree of distinction and confusion in the monads’ representation of the universe depends on some kind of proximity (Leibniz 1991, § 60, 24). The things of their “surroundings” which the monads can perceive most distinctly are the ones they have most in common with – are most related to in a qualitative sense. Leibniz calls this interrelation between monads “ideal”. Although they are not in any causal relationship, monads influence each other “ideally” in virtue of their qualitative difference and similarity - one always being more perfect than the other – that mutually explains their relative position, perception, and thus further development. This ideal relation is constituted by God as their creator, whose attributes (power, knowledge, will) they all try to assimilate (being, perception, appetition), and who orders them according to their success (Leibniz 1991, § 51, 21) The perception of each monad reflects, in other words, its unique position in the harmoniously, well-ordered universe, where all monads and things are parallelly in accordance with each other and thus have “relations that express all the others”(Leibniz 1991, § 56, 24) But this paradoxically means that a monad’s perceptions (and their degree of distinctness) of the universe both determine and are determined by the position the monad has in the order. If all the monads did not change constantly this would create a rather stiff world.
Overall, perception seems to be the glue between the simple and the complex, the singular and universal, that binds multiplicity into one in the monad. Representation as such, the mere happening of perception in itself, is universally shared between all monads as their form of being but is in each - in their singular being - always an individual expres-sion that reflects a unique point of view although its “position” changes continuously. The particular representation happens in each moment in the monad exactly as a mirroring of an other that is more than the one (itself purely). The universe is thus like a plenum of mirrors, that all reflect each other. Is there then anything other in the universe than the constant actualisation of perception as such, the mere constitution of representation? For if the world and the whole consist of monads, which in turn are constituted by their own individual and unique perception of the universe, the universe is constituted by its being perceived in all ways possible and to eternity by its elements. It seems in this way that Leibniz’s monad is the placeholder of perception as a metaphysical happening. Being(God) is there and when perception as a point of view is created, it must completely scatter to an infinity of different infinitesimal – non-extended, but irreducible - points of view that correspond to all the (thinkable) possible perceptions of the whole they constitute. Being perceived is what holds the system together, and the principle of order is the degree of distinction and precision of the détail of the universe as a whole in each representation of it. One could thus conclude, that although Leibniz terms the creator of the world God, its principle of life is indeed perception.
Bibliography
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1991. G.W. Leibniz’s Monadology: An Edition for Students. Translated by Nicholas Rescher. Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press.
