The Perspectivism of Leibnizs Monadology

Author: asonosakan
asonosakan@gmail.com
Suppose a person, a messenger of the gods perhaps, were to appear in front of me with a brain in a vat and
told me: this brain is what is creating your world. And indeed, he demonstrates this by performing certain
operations on the brain, which are then followed bymost likely because of the operationscertain sensations, say, a pain in my left arm, a patch of red in my field of vision, and the sudden transition from day to
night. Now supposing that I were to believe this messenger, there is something quite strange, indeed twisted,
about what he is telling me. It is as if I were dreaming, and something from outside the dream were invading
into my dream and telling me: this is all a dream. But insofar as that messenger is in my dream, shouldnt we
say that he is also a part of the dream? But then the brain in front of me wouldnt be the real brain, the brain
that is creating my world.1
The strangest thing, however, is that this is not a mere thought experiment but an illustration of what we
actually experience. The twisted structure depicted above is the structure of our reality. How can we make
sense of this twisted structure? Leibnizs monadology, I will argue, is an answer to this question. 2 And one of
the key concepts in his theory is the concept of perspective. We shall see how Leibniz, by positing the monad,
which is at once a constituent element of the world and a perspective upon the world, is able to provide a
Weltanschauung which renders the twisted structure of our reality intelligible. Indeed Leibnizs theoryor at
least the core insight of the theoryis, I believe, the only possible solution to the mind-body problem known
today. Before delving into the monadology, however, I want to give a brief clarification of what is at stake in
the so-called mind-body problem.

1.

The Asymmetry of the I and Thou

How may we be able to convince a skeptic or non-philosopher that there is such a thing as a mind-body
problemthat it is a real problem and not a mere pseudo-problem? First we have to show that there is something over and above what we call the physical, something irreducible to matter. At this point we need not
concern ourselves with the issue of what we mean by physical or matter; that is rendered clear enough by
common sense, although this common sense conception may require revision in light of further inquiry.
Let us then imagine the world of the bee. It is an established scientific fact that bees are capable of perceiving light in the ultraviolet wavelengths, which we humans cannot see. How do we know this? By observing their behavior, that is, by observing them from the outside. But what would the ultraviolet light look like
from the inside, from the viewpoint of the bee? This there is absolutely no way of knowing, for the only way
1

The above vignette has been taken in all essentials from a book by the Japanese philosopher Hitoshi Nagai.
See Nagai (2004: 73-74).
2
When referring to the text, I will say Monadologie; when referring to the doctrine, I will say monadology
or theory of monads.
1

to know what it is like to see ultraviolet light is to actually see it, which we humans cannot do. Of course we
may appeal to analogy with human vision and say that ultraviolet is a kind of purple, and that bees are experiencing what we may call bee-purple. But this is only an analogy; it is not what the bee is experiencing. It
thus follows that there is something that cannot be known no matter how far our scientific investigations take
us, an unexplained residue as it were. By residue I do not mean this or that particular sense quality, but the
general fact of experience as suchthe bees sense of vision is only an example meant to highlight the irreducibility of experience in general to facts.
It may be objected that this residue is a mere illusion, and that the philosopher is creating a problem
where there really is none. But even if there were any meaning in calling the whole of experienceas opposed to a particular part of experiencean illusion, the illusion is itself something whose presence must be
acknowledged and somehow explained.
The bee affords a perspicuous example, but we need not limit ourselves to beings so different from us in
their organic make-up. For the same argument applies in the case of our fellow humans. How do I know that
what you are experiencing is the same as what I am experiencing, other than by way of analogy from my own
experience? The answer is that we do not, hence the myriad of philosophers arguing about zombies, inverted
qualia, etc. We may say that there is a fundamental asymmetry between the I and Thou, between my
experience and your experience, inasmuch as I know my own experience by immediate acquaintance, but
can know the experience of others only by hypothetical inference.
Does this mean that every living being is living his/her/its own unique world? So it seems. We may call this
way of looking at the world the first-person perspective. This is a solipsistic perspective, since from this
viewpoint everything that appears does so as a modification of myselfthe world is my world, it is in me, so
to speak. But clearly this is only one side of the matter. For even if the world is in me, at the same time I know
that I am in the world. That is, I know that I am a constituent element of an objective reality, for there are
things that I am unable to control, something hard and brute, the non-self as it were. We may call this way of
looking at the world the third-person perspective. The question is how to synthesize these two perspectives,
these two ways of looking at the world, into a unified system. This brings us to Leibnizs monadology.

2.

True Unities as the Foundation of Multitudes

By Leibnizs monadology, I refer to his doctrine of substance after the publication of the Systme nou-

veau in 1695. It is in this text that Leibniz expounds for the first time his theory of true unities (des units
vritables), or substantial forms (formes substantialles), which are endowed with something analogous to
sensation [sentiment] and appetite [lappetit] (G IV: 479, AG: 139). These are what he will later call monads,

from the Greek , meaning unity. He explains that his motivation for introducing these entities was to
provide the foundation for multitudes:

after many meditations I perceived that it is impossible to find the principles of true unity
[les principes dune vritable Unit] in mere matter, or in that which is only passive, because
there everything is but a collection or mass of parts ad infinitum. Now, multiplicity cannot have
its reality except from real unities [des units vritables], which originate otherwise and are
entirely different things from the points of which it is certain the continuum could not be composed. Therefore, in order to find these real unities [units reeles] I was compelled to resort to
a formal atom, since a material being could not at the same time be material and perfectly indivisible, that is, endowed with true unity. (G IV: 478, AG: 139)

Leibniz held throughout his life that matter is not only capable of being divided infinitely into smaller and
smaller parts, but is also actually divided to infinity.3 Thus any given piece of matter must always be a plurality, but being a plurality, matter presupposes the existence of indivisible substances, for a plurality of being
can neither be understood nor can subsist unless one being [ens unum] is first understood, to which the multitude is necessarily traced back [referatur] (F: 320, AG: 103). Now since a material thing is always divisible,
it follows that the indivisible substances which matter presupposes must be immaterialthat is, they must be
real and animated points (G IV: 478-479n).
A potential confusion that should be dispelled at this point is that for Leibniz, monads are not parts of matter in a spatial sense. Bertrand Russell, in his famous exposition of Leibnizs philosophy (Russell 1900), falls
prey to this confusion when he accuses Leibnizs theory of monads of inconsistency.4 Namely, he charges
that Leibniz assumes that matter has many parts, but then is compelled to deny this premise in order to show
that these parts are immaterial (Russell 1900: 110). The truth, however, is that Leibniz never maintained that
monads are parts of matter:

... there is an infinity of simple substances or creatures in any particle of matter; and matter is
composed from these, not as from parts, but as from constitutive principles or immediate requisites [requisitis immediatis], just as points enter into the essence of a continuum and yet not
as parts. (F: 324)

[E]ach portion of matter is not only divisible to infinity, but is also actually subdivided without end
(G VI: 618, AG: 221). This view first appears in the Theoria motus abstracti of 1671 (Garber 2009: 14).
4
For a detailed exposition on this point, see Arthur (1989).
3

Again: Monads should not be confused with atoms. Atoms (as they are imagined) have shape. Monads no
more have shape than do souls; they are not parts of bodies but requisites (letter to Bierling, 7 July 1711, G
VII: 503). And again: Substantial unities, in fact, are not parts but foundations of phenomena (letter to De
Volder, 30 June 1704, G II: 268). The assumption that for Leibniz monads are parts of matter has been the
source of so much confusion among readers of Leibniz to this day, that I am tempted to think that the influence of Russell has been a major cause of this misunderstanding.
This is very unfortunate, because it is precisely this confusion that leads people into the labyrinth of the
continuum: It is the confusion of the ideal with the actual which has muddled everything and caused the labyrinth of the composition of the continuum (G IV: 491, AG: 146). The problem of the continuum is the problem of how a continuum could be composed from points. The answer is that it cannot. A composition can only
be a composition of actuals. The continuum, however, is something ideal, that is, it is a collection of possible
points, indeterminate yet determinable. Another way of putting this is to say that in continua the whole is prior
to its parts, whereas in actuals the parts are prior to the whole (G IV: 492, AG: 147). Thus mathematical points
are mere extremities of the process of specifying smaller and smaller magnitudes, and are therefore entia rationis. Metaphysical points, on the other hand, being the foundations of masses, are entia realia, and indeed
the only entia realia. When Russell attributes to Leibniz the view that monads are parts of matter, he is in
effect confounding metaphysical points with mathematical points, the actual with the ideal.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this distinction for Leibnizs theory of substance. Monads are
not denizens of this world; they exist in a space-less and timeless realm, the realm of the intelligible, and it is
only from the relative configurations and ordinal sequence of their perceptual states that the metric for space
and time that we experience in the phenomenal world can be derived. Let us not mingle the realm of the sensible with the realm of the intelligible. We shall see the significance of this distinction when we turn to Leibnizs discussion of the relation between the soul and body.

3.

Pre-Established Harmony
We saw above that for Leibniz, monads are animated points, endowed with something analogous to sensa-

tion and appetite. The appetite of a monad is the internal principle by which its perceptual states change.5
What, then does Leibniz mean by perception or sensation? In the Systme nouveau he writes:

We could call them [substantial unities] metaphysical points: they have something vital, a kind
of perception, and mathematical points are the points of view from which they express the
5

Alluding to Leibnizs characterization of the monad as a spiritual or formal automaton (AG: 144), Soshichi Uchii has aptly called the appetite of a monad its transition function (Uchii 2014).
4

universe. (G IV: 482-483, AG: 142)

And since monads are self-sufficient unities, they cannot receive anything from without. Thus:

we must say that God originally created the soul (and any other real unity) in such a way
that everything must arise for it from its own depths [fonds], through a perfect spontaneity relative to itself, and yet with a perfect conformity relative to external things ... This is what
makes every substance represent the whole universe exactly and in its own way, from a certain
point of view, and makes the perceptions or expressions of external things occur in the soul at a
given time, in virtue of its own laws, as if in a world apart, and as if there existed only God and
itself ... (G IV: 484, AG: 143)

The perceptions of a monad, then, are expressions of the universe from a certain point of view, which arise
spontaneously from its own depths. The universe as represented by any given monad is therefore the world as
seen from the first-person perspective that I discussed in the first section. This, in essence, is what defines a
soul: it is a perspective upon the world, and the world exists only within such perspectives. Indeed, we should
suppose that the entire universe is contracted within every monad, although no finite monad can distinctly
perceive the universe in its entirety: One could know the beauty of the universe in each soul, if one could
unfold all its folds [deplier tous ses replis] (G VI: 604, AG: 211). It is in this sense that Leibniz calls the
monad a living mirror [miroir vivant] of the universe (G VI: 616, AG: 220).
Now the question arises as to how these perceptions can occur with perfect conformity relative to external
things. The common but misleading answer is that they concur because of the pre-established harmony that
Leibniz supposes between the soul and body. It is true that Leibniz writes in this manner in various places. For
example, in a postscript to a letter to Basnage de Beauval, 1696, he explains his doctrine of pre-established
harmony using the analogy of two clocks that have been synchronized from the start with such skill and accuracy that they always agree with each other, and says let us now put the soul and body in the place of these
two clocks (G IV: 498, AG: 148). And in the Principes de la Nature et de la Grce, fonds en raison (1714)
he writes that there is a perfect harmony between the perceptions of the monad and the motions of bodies,
pre-established from the start between the system of efficient causes and that of the final causes (G VI: 599,
AG: 208).
If these statements are understood as proposing a theory of the relation between two different types of substances, however, then that would be a complete mistake, since for Leibniz bodies are not substances but mere
phenomena, although they have a real foundation in substances. It must be supposed that Leibniz, in state-

ments like the ones quoted above, is sacrificing technical detail in order to make himself understood to a popular audience. In order to be more precise, we must inquire into Leibnizs conception of what it means for
something to be a body.
I just said that bodies are mere phenomena, although they have a real foundation in substances. This
statement is ambiguous in that it contains two ways of looking at the same object. When I say that bodies are
mere phenomena, I am speaking from the first-person perspective. From this standpoint bodies are conceived as existing within the perceptions of a monad. On the other hand, when I say that bodies have a real
foundation in substances, I am speaking from the third-person perspective. But what does it mean for a body
to have a foundation in substances? We saw in the previous section that a body cannot be composed of monads in a spatial sense, since monads do not exist in space (or time). But there must be some relation between
monads, something analogous to spatial contiguity, that furnishes the conditions of their being the basis of a
given body. Since monads are self-sufficient unites, they cannot have any intrinsic relations with one another.
The relation must therefore be an extrinsic relation, i.e. an ideal relation. And since the only way a given
monad can be distinguished from another is by their perceptual states, the relation must be between the perceptual states of monads. This is the relation that Leibniz has in mind when he says that there is a
pre-established harmony among substances. As Donald Rutherford, in his penetrating analysis of Leibnizs
monadology, puts it:

To talk of bodies at all in his [Leibnizs] scheme must be regarded as a type of shorthand.
What exist ultimately for Leibniz are soullike monads and their intrinsic accidents. Nevertheless, God has seen fit to arrange things in the world such that finite monads express the actions
and passions of other monads as the actions and passions of bodies operating in accordance
with the laws of mechanics. Furthermore, God has deemed that each monad should express the
actions of a limited subset of these monads as those of its own organic bodya relation that
underwrites the appearance of communication between them. On the basis of this last point, we
may conclude that the preestablished harmony of soul and body ... [is] at bottom ... actually a
harmony preestablished between a soul or dominant monad and the plurality of lesser monads which that soul represents as its corporeal mass. (Rutherford 1995: 217-218)

I am persuaded that this is the only intelligible interpretation of Leibnizs statements on the subject.
The above passage, however, should not be understood as saying that the pre-established harmony holds
only among the dominant monad and the lesser monads that compose its body. The harmony, as Leibniz
makes clear, is not limited to any subset of existing monads but is universal in that it embraces every monad

whatsoever. Pre-established harmony can thus be understood as the hypothesis that there is a single world
which every monad expresses. Consider the analogy of the city that Leibniz gives in section 57 of the Monadologie:

Just as the same city viewed from different directions appears entirely different, and, as it were,
multiplied perspectivally, in just the same way it happens that, because of the infinite multitude
of simple substances, there are, as it were, just as many different universes, which are, nevertheless, only perspectives on a single one, corresponding to the different points of view of each
monad. (G VI: 616, AG: 220)

Just as we know that a city viewed from different viewpoints is nonetheless the same city, so we know that the
universe as seen from different perspectives is nonetheless the same universe. But how do we know this? Because of pre-established harmony. This really is the essence of the doctrine of pre-established harmony: it is
the hypothesis of the unity of the world, that there is a structure preserved under the translation of perspectives. The harmony perceived between soul and body is only a special case of this universal harmony. Furthermore, we can see that pre-established harmony furnishes the condition for the possibility of the
third-person perspective. As we saw in the first section, from the standpoint of the first-person perspective, I
can only say that the world is in me. The I is a point from which the world is able to unfold itself; it is the
origin of all that is , of all that may possibly present itself as a phenomenon. What allows me to say,
at the same time, that I am in the world, that I am a constituent element of an objective reality, is the
pre-established harmony between the representations of every first-person perspective. Our perceptions may
be confused, but they are not so confused that we cannot dig down, as it were, into the supersensible reality
that underlies the content of our perceptions.

Concluding Remarks
With Leibnizs theory of monads in hand, we can return to the vignette that I presented at the outset, that of
the messenger with a brain in a vat. We can make sense of the twisted structure of this story by distinguishing
the two ways of looking at the world, the first-person perspective and the third-person perspective. From the
first-person perspective, the world, we should say, is a dream. It is a mere phenomenon, the perceptions arising from the depths of myself. But the problem, it may be recalled, is this: shouldnt we then say that the brain
in front of me is also part of the dream, and hence not the real brain that is creating my dream? Leibnizs
reply would be that while the brain is only a phenomenon, it has a real foundation in substance; it may not be

real, but it is semi-real. And we know this because we are capable of adopting a third-person perspective upon
the world, which in turn is made possible by pre-established harmony. The correlation between the operations
of the messenger on the brain and my perceptions is a special case of this universal harmony.
In the introduction I remarked that Leibnizs theoryor at least the core insight of the theoryis, I believe, the only possible solution to the mind-body problem known today. Here I do not have the space to
argue for this claim. But I want to explain my qualification or at least the core insight of the theory. Although I accept the basic structure of Leibnizs approach to the mind-body problem, I reject his idea that multitudes presuppose true unties. Consequently I am inclined to opening the windows of the monads, which in
turn renders the doctrine of pre-established harmony otiose. For the harmony does not have to be
pre-established; it can be brought about gradually as the result of mutual interaction between minds, with the
alternative assumption that there is a universal tendency among ideas towards the establishment of consistency. I think this assumption is borne out well enough by observation.
Some may say that this is all counter-intuitive. I reply that although intuition may be an invaluable source
of novel hypotheses, it has absolutely no role to play in judging the truth or falsity of propositions. That is a
question of fact, not of the reaction of the spinal cord. Anyone who is not afraid of taking premises to their
ultimate conclusions, no matter how radical or counter-intuitive those conclusions may be, anyone, that is,
who is not afraid of chasing Truth into the deepest forests of philosophy, will, I am convinced, find Leibnizs
monadology to be worth serious consideration.

References
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