Philosophy
the Reintroduction of Teleology
Table of Contents
TELEOLOGY .................................................................................................................................. 2
DESIRING MACHINE ..................................................................................................................... 2
INTRODUCTION OF GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ (1646-1716) ..................................................... 2
LEIBNIZ’S VIEW OF SUBSTANCE .................................................................................................... 2
MONADS ..................................................................................................................................... 2
MONADS AND IDENTITY............................................................................................................... 3
NO METEMPSYCHOSIS, BUT METAMORPHOSIS ............................................................................ 3
COMPOSITE SUBSTANCES ............................................................................................................ 3
THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM AND MORAL PERFECTIBILITY .............................................................. 3
ANIMALS AND HUMANS .............................................................................................................. 3
METAMORPHOSIS........................................................................................................................ 4
PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON ............................................................................................... 4
PRINCIPLE OF NECESSITY / FITNESS............................................................................................... 4
Teleology
- Teleology comes from two Greek words: telos, meaning “end, purpose or goal”, and
logos, meaning “explanation or reason”
Desiring Machine
Introduction of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
- Last rationalist: last one who has contribution on all the field in science, philosophy,
etc.
- Writing letters instead of books
- Inspired by Conway’s vitalism.
o Everything is a life
- Interested in China
o What do the Chinese know? Will be great of sharing
o Chinese have advanced version of moral
Thinking: who would have benefited the most from the trade of philosophic views?
- The west in getting Chinese practice philosophy? Or China in getting western
metaphysics
- Professors’ point of view-> the west has benefited
o West: everyone is fighting each other -> who has the right view of gods? Who
has the power control over the country?
o China: how this metaphysic? We know that God exists, so?
Leibniz’s view of substance
- Nature based on substances, nature is alive
- Everything is alive and going for somewhere
- But substance might be not materials
Monads
- Disagreed Conway and claimed that there is no “dead mater”
- There is no incomplete activity
- Leibniz believed that substances are self-moving, and they can act with final causes
- Monads: immaterial, inhabit matter that ensure things can move somewhere
o Conway: spirit to make things move
- Kangaroo is not just a robot, because it can be destroyed, but a matter controlled by
Monads
o There are immaterial objects, they don’t have part
o More advanced explanation of soul
o Soul is judged on the judgement day
o Descartes: only human has soul
o Leibniz: everything has soul
- The numbers of monads are always the same (infinite number of monads)
o Might be aware that take one thing from infinity, there is still infinity
- Projector of ideal realm, create material realm (the reality that received it?)
Monads and Identity
- How can we ensure there is an eternity of things
- Internal qualities -> generate the material world
o Perceptions
o Appetition: each monad has the tendency to change its perception
- The sum of perceptions is infinity (which is God?)
- Each monad (including the soul of me and you) has the ability to perceive the entire
universe
o But some monads have a vague perception, while some can perceive more
clearly (e.g. monad of a bottle vs. monad of a human)
- How do we differentiate Monads
o Each monad is an immaterial viewpoint on the world
No metempsychosis, but metamorphosis
- Metempsychosis: a soul leaves one body to move to a new one
- Metamorphosis: a soul that is the dominant monad of a composite substance sheds
some parts of its organic body while gaining new ones (recycling, re-combining all
the time)
Composite Substances
- Monad -> Living mirrors: reflect the entire universe
The mind-body problem and moral perfectibility
- Monads act on their own in order to make themselves better
- Gods make sure that the whole process of humans’ world and Gods’ world run
fluently
o We, monads have free will, and act spontaneously
o And Gods make sure we act spontaneously and end up being closer to gods or
even be gods
o Final causation
Animals and Humans
- Even a bottle includes monad
- Animals are capable of sensation, and can perceive what is happening in the world
(perception accompanied by memory)
o But humans’ soul is a dominate monad with the capacity to “apperceive”
 Have a clear, distinguished perception on things, specialty
 Understand how things work, e.g., 1+1=2
- Animals have memories of effects (realized that the effect of a stick is pain ->
conditional and unconditional effect)
o But humans can have knowledge of causes
o But humans rely on their memories most of the time, like animals
 E.g. sun will rise each morning -> only the astronomer through on
reason knows the cause for the “sun rising each morning”
Metamorphosis
- Soul is the dominant monad
Principle of Sufficient Reason
- There is a reason why it is so and not otherwise
o E.g. the bottle here is not randomly here, but there is a reason of being in here
- God knows the reason why it is so and not otherwise (the ultimate reason for the
existence of anything)
- Leibniz: is it simpler that there is nothing? Why there is something in the universe?
o It is God chose to create something, not chose to create nothing, and therefore
the world is not blank
o God is an active designer (intentional plan)
Principle of Necessity / fitness
- Descartes’ God: He can create anything, and do anything
- Leibniz;s God: He has to work with those rules to create best possible rules
o Some laws in the universe are necessary, action and reaction
o He has a final plan
o The universe does not necessarily follow from God’s nature, it is the product
of God’s free choice
o There is room for the spontaneity that is characteristic of the monads, not all
the things are causes and effects
o Argue to Spinoza: God does not want to make natural disasters, but he tried to
make best possible world.
 We can’t blame God for something bad happening, this is the best
option of God’s decision
 We are living in perfection already, this is it
 We cannot be free randomly
 His power is something else