Substance Monism and Monadology: A comparison of Spinoza and Leibniz

Robert S. Drake

November 24, 2001

INTRODUCTION

The term monism, on Spinoza’s account, refers to the doctrine that there is only one substance to which everything that exists can be reduced.[1] Everything is a part of a single Substance. This Substance is God.

The objective of this paper is to juxtapose Substance-Monism as Spinoza viewed it and Leibniz’ Monads as Substances. I will provide an exegesis of their arguments and highlight some of the differences between them on their respective accounts of Substance.

SPINOZA

The first 15 Propositions and the Definitions of Spinoza’s Ethics develop the argument for the existence of God as identical to Substance. The most important of these are Propositions 5, 7, 11, & 14.[2] Substance is defined as “that which is in itself and is conceived through itself”. Spinoza defines God as “an absolutely infinite thing,” that is, substance, consisting of infinite attributes. Critical to an understand of the essential characteristics of Substance on Spinoza’s account are the definitions of attributes and modes.[3]

Spinoza defines attribute as “that which the intellect perceives of substance as constituting its essence” (II.P 1, 2).[4] On Spinoza, theough Substance has an infinite number of attributes, the only ones the human mind or intellect can know are thought and extension. Spinoza believed that attributes are intellectual interpretations of essential qualities of Infinite Substance, Infinite Being, God/Nature. For Spinoza, an infinitely real Being/Substance expresses infinite attributes.

Modes are the infinitely varied possible and actual manifestations or modifications of attributes of Substance. Modes are affections, or modifications of the attributes of the essential substance. Spinoza defines a mode as “that which is in something else and is conceived through something else.”[5] A mode is related to Substance/God in that it follows from an attribute of the absolute and infinite Substance. As such, it exists necessarily, and as infinite (I.P 23, 24, 25).[6]

Eternal Substance, then, is known to us (modes) as modifications of modifications of attributes of Itself and only of Itself. For Spinoza argues (Monism), that only one substance can necessarily exist. Arguing from I. P2, Spinoza says “two substances having different attributes have nothing in common.” I.P5 states that since “there can not be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute” and since “existence belongs to the nature of substance” and since one of the infinite attributes of substance is existence, there can only be one existent substance.[7] Proposition 11 states, then, that God must necessarily exist since God/Substance consists of the expression of the essence of infinite and eternal attributes.

Substance is infinite. Being infinite, there can therefore be no room for or cause of another substance, since (I. P13) infinite substance is indivisible. If it were divisible there would follow the contradiction of finite Substance. Substance is God; God is infinite. “There can be, or be conceived, no other substance but God” (I.P 14).

Stated more succinctly, Spinoza’s argument for Substance Monism is this:

In nature, there can not be two or more substances of the same nature or attribute (I. P 5).
It pertains to the nature of a substance to exist (I. P 11).
God, or Substance, consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists (I. P 11).[8]
Therefore: Except God, no substance can be or be conceived (I. P 14).

To carry the argument to its logical terminus, Proposition 15 states that “Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God”. This is Spinoza’s Monism. There is only one substance. That Substance is God. Everything that can or does exist exists in and of God.

LEIBNIZ

Leibniz view of substance is quite different from that of Spinoza. “True substances are monads, that is, perceivers.”[9] Leibniz rejects the notion that substance is equivalent to space, existence and God. He writes that space/substance/existence on an absolutist view would necessarily entail the arbitrary nature of existence/reality. God would have had no particular reason to make space/existence He (She/It) did, or when, or even where He did. This arbitrary nature would violate Leibniz’ principle of sufficient reason.[10] The predicates, including “first cause”, could not, on this account, be found in the subject, thus making such a world logically impossible. For such a world, existence must be relational. We must now turn to Leibniz’s Monadology to explicate the develop0ment of the nature of Monads and their substance. The essential Principles here (from Discourse on Metaphysics) are 8 and 9 and 12-15.

Individual substances contain their predicates. The “this-ness” or “haecceity” of a subject can be seen in its completeness by God a priori.[11] Everything that is, was, ore ever will be about a subject is contained in itself and can be seen and understood by God and only by God. Every substance/monad is complete. It is its own substance. “To be the individual substance…is to be such as to have a notion which includes everything that can truthfully be predicated of the subject….”[12] This is how Leibniz distinguishes the actions of individual beings from the actions of God.

Each of these individual substances expresses in unique ways the nature of the universe as a whole. These monads are indivisible and at the same time they can not be conjoined to create a new substance. They are distinct, eternal perceivers that reflect and together with all the other infinitely diverse monads, comprise the Universe. They severally make up creation. Individually, they contain, at all times, all the truths that entail their history and obtain to their future. “The notion of an individual substance includes once and for all everything that can ever happen to it.” A substance/Monad is the expression, in itself, of the reality of the complete concept. It contains every predicate and every property it has ever or will ever exhibit, “virtually or potentially”.[13] This “simple” (as opposed to a “complex”) is complete and indivisible. Though discreet and complete, it contains at all times, each and every “relation” it will ever have with every Monad in the universe.

The sequence of the universe represents, or better, enunciates the decrees of God’s free will. At the same time, each Monad is allowed the expression of its active power or conatus to achieve its potential. The truths and predicates attached to each subject represent, on Leibniz, contingent truths whose contraries do not imply a contradiction (as opposed to necessary truths whose contraries would imply a contradiction, e.g., a mathematical truth). The contingents can be known in their entirety only by God.[14]

In Discourse on Metaphysics, #14, Leibniz describes how individual substances correspond with and between each other. Though they correspond, they do not interact or influence each other. There is a kind of pre-established universal harmony in their relatedness by which all things correspond. On this view, each substance is a view of the universe, particular to its place in existence and reflecting a particular perspective of God,

The perceptions or expressions of all substances mutually correspond in such a way that each one, carefully following certain reasons or laws it has observed, coincides with others doing the same – in the same way that several people who have agreed to meet in some place at some specified time can really do that if they so desire.[15]

In other words, the actions and existence, both special and temporal, of each substance will coincide with that of every other substance in the universe in a contingent manner. The actions of one monad/substance, vis-à-vis other substances, is seen by Leibniz to be exclusively related to “accommodation” of one to another in so far as they allow the perfect and infinite expression of their natural and true essences as prescribed by God in the creation of the most perfect universe possible.

ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON

On Spinoza’s account of substance there is and can only be one Substance. That substance is God. Everything that exists does so as one thing. I find nothing in Leibniz that posits one universal substance. He describes God as being the creator of everything, and each Monad is one of God’s unique substances. For Leibniz, there seems to be nothing analogous to Spinoza’s Substance as a substrate of existence, whether it is seen on an ideal or material level, or both.

Spinoza’s Substance describes, in a sense, God. For Spinoza, all things are in God, of God and follow causally and necessarily from Divinity. God describes everything that is. Everything that is is a mode or modification of attributes of God/Substance. Leibniz describes Monads, atoms, if you

Will, that are eternal entelechies, discreet souls with their own driving force. On Spinoza, nothing is discreet except God/Substance. Even Modes, though unique, are not really even seen as existent, outside of being expressions of attributes of God. Spinoza would never grant the reality of Monads. Reality, on his account, is just an expression of the infinitely diverse modifications of infinite attributes of God/Substance. In a sense, everything that exists to us, e.g., chairs, tables, pain, joy, etc., are properties of God.

On Leibniz, Modes can not be modified. Both philosophers assert, I think, that these several manifestations of existence (modes and monads) can not really be changed by each other. Both Spinoza and Leibniz would say that there can not be two unique manifestations of existence, whether Mode or Monad -- Spinoza, because there can not be two identical modifications of attributes; Leibniz, because this would violate the principle of necessary reason. Leibniz’ identity of indiscernibles would further posit that however alike two things appear to be, in the fullness of time they will be discernible as distinct substances/monads.

CONCLUSION

The heart of the difference between Spinoza and Leibniz rests on the notion of contingency. For Leibniz, the existence of any Monad, creature, being, does not follow from its essence. There is not “sufficient reason” entailed therein. The essence of all modes is the same – it is God/Substance. Leibniz does say, “all individual created substances are different expressions of the same universe and different expressions of the same universal cause, namely God.”[16] For Leibniz, “sufficient reason” must be outside the series of contingent things, or the thing itself.

For Spinoza, the substrate/cause of all things is Substance/God. All things exist in God. For Leibniz, all things are of God and created by God, but God itself is outside of the created universe/substances/monads. For Spinoza, this apparent contradiction, entailed in being “of”, but outside “of”, would disappear.

On my thinking, the relatedness of functional modes obtaining to one Substance seems “intuitively” truer to reality than does the Monadal model. Spinoza’s model seems more elegant – simpler. Both arguments are brilliant and beautiful.

Bibliography

“A Sketch of Spinoza’s Argument for Substance Monism,” http://frank.mtsu.edu/~rhombard/RB/Spinoza/arg.html.

Baruch Spinoza, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza.

Feldman, Seymoure, Ed., and Shirley, Samuel, Transl., Baruch Spinoza: Ethics: Treatise on the Emendation fo the Intellect and Selected Letters, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1992.

“Gottfired Wilhelm Leibniz Metaphysics” Internet Encyclopedia, http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/1/Leib-met.html.

Hartshorne & Nubuhara, “Re-Envisioning the Absolute: Two Types of Pantheism vs. Spinoza’s Pantheism”, Keiwa College, Japan, http://www.bu.edu.wep/Papers/Cnt/ContNobu.html

Leibniz, G.W., Philosophical Essays Edited and Translated by Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis & Cambridge, 1989

Scott, David, Leibniz’s Model of Creation and His Doctrine of Substance, http://www.mun.ca/animus/1998vol13/scott3.html.

Sprigge, T.L.S., “Panpsychism” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Ed. Edward Craig. 1009Rotledge, New York, http://www.members.ad.com/NeoNoetics/PANPSYCHISM.html.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/1/leib-met.html

[1] “Monism”, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2001, http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/m/monism.html.

[2] Ibid. pp. 4-6, “Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677)”, http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/spinoza.html.

[3] Feldman, Seymour, ed., and Shirley, Samuel, transl., Baruch Spinoza: Ethics: Treatise on The Emendation of the Intellect and Selected Letters, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1992.

[8] See also http://plato.stanford. Edu/entries/Spinoza.

[9] Leibniz, G.W., Philosophical Essays, Edited and Translated by Roger Ariew & Daniel Garmer, Hacket Publishing Company, Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1989, p. 307.

[12] Op. Cit., The Internet Encuclopedia of Philosophy “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), p. 5, http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/1/leib-met.html., Metaphysics”