Work · Rationalism
Monadology
The world as windowless monads in pre-established harmony.
Introduction
A summary of Leibniz’s metaphysics in 90 short paragraphs, written in French in Vienna in 1714 without a title. It first appeared in a German translation in 1720 (“Monadologie” comes from this edition) and in Latin in 1721; the French original was printed only in 1840. In the same year Leibniz wrote a related text, the “Principles of Nature and Grace”, for Prince Eugene of Savoy. The Monadology describes simple substances that have perception and appetite but no parts and no “windows”. A famous paragraph imagines walking into a thinking machine enlarged to the size of a mill: one would find only parts pushing one another, never a perception.
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Connections
Criticizes
- Meditations on First Philosophy1641 · René Descartes
- Ethics, Demonstrated in Geometrical Order1677 · Baruch de Spinoza
Taken up in
- Foundations of Physics (Institutions de physique)1740 · Émilie du Châtelet
- Monadology and Sociology1893 · Gabriel Tarde
- On the Plurality of Worlds1986 · David Lewis
Criticized in
- Critique of Pure Reason1781 · Immanuel Kant
More works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
- 1710Theodicy
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