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Over the past decades there has been an accumulation of a fine body of
scholarly
work indicating that by as early as 1675-1676, the years of writing
of the
collection of essays now generally referred to as the De Summa Re-
rum, Leibniz was in possession of many or even most of the central
doc-
trines of his later philosophy. One scholar has gone so far as to say that
“all
the principle themes” of Leibniz’s later philosophy were already in place
by
the end of 1676.Leibniz et Spinoza
, rev. ed., Paris, 1962, p. 105. (When not otherwise
noted, translations in
this paper are my own.)
standing in this regard are Georges Friedmann, G. H. R. Parkinson,
Chris-
tia Mercer and Konrad Moll.Der junge Leibniz
, 3 vols., Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog,
1978-1996. (For
references to works of the other scholars, v. below.)
such scholars about Leibniz at the time of the De
Summa Rerum :
The works presented [in the
De Summa Rerum]
are of great impor-
tance to the student of Leibniz’s philosophy. In effect, they constitute a se-
ries of sketches of a metaphysical system - a system, far from immature,
which contains many of the doctrines for which Leibniz is best known. ...
[I]n the
De Summa Rerum
we find Leibniz’s first major attempt at present-
ing his philosophy in a systematic form.
G. W. Leibniz. De Summa Rerum. Metaphysical
Pa-
pers,
1675-1676
, translated with an Introduction and Notes by G. H. R. Parkinson, New Haven
and London, 1992, p. xii (here in after abbreviated as P, followed by the relevant page number).
[A]s his stay in Paris comes to an end [in October, 1676], he [Leibniz]
...has already conceived and conjoined, in a first sketch of his system, all
the principal themes of his own doctrine.
Leibniz et Spinoza, p. 105. Friedmann seems to believe that the “first
major attempt” comes even before 1675. That would not contradict the main hypothesis that we
are working with here, namely, that by as early as 1675-76 many of the main doctrines of Leibniz’s
later philosophy were already in place.
For decades, core features of the philosophy of the
Discourse on Meta-
physics
have baffled scholars. Despite extensive analysis and study, its deep
motivations and the precise relations among some of its central doctrines
have remained largely mysterious. We will argue in this section that most of
the fundamental tenets of Leibniz’s mature thought are already in place in
1676 and that they grew naturally out of Leibniz’s early metaphysics.
Discourse on
Metaphysics
’, in
The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz
, ed. by Nicholas Jolley, p. 84. (Mercer
alone is credited above with this statement, which begins section 3 of the Mercer and Sleigh arti-
cle, in accordance with the two authors’ note that “Mercer is the author of sections 1-3; Sleigh of
section 4”. [See n. 1 to p. 67]).
While there is no denying the importance of the work of these scholars,
there is some danger that such statements may have an unfortunate side-ef-
fect. They may conceivably lead to scholars overlooking or discounting
some radical differences, on central points, between many of the essays of
the
De Summa Rerum
and Leibniz’s later, more familiar philosophy. This in
turn could contribute to the missing of what I believe may be a dramatic
moment in Leibniz’s philosophical development, a moment when although
much of his philosophical future was opening itself up to him, much that
was radically inconsistent with that future was vividly alive in his mind as
well.
I emphasize this last point since I think there may arise the easy as-
sumption
that, since, as we are granting, many of the main themes of Leib-
niz’s later
philosophy were already in his possession at the time of the
De
Summa Rerum (1675-1676), the central battles within Leibniz’s mind
with
regard to which philosophical path to choose for himself were
already
largely over also.
other (“Metaphysics: The early period”,
op. cit.,
p. 107), the complete concept theory of substance
constitutes an important
exception to the general principle that Leibniz’s important
metaphysical
principles were in place by 1676. I do not mean to minimize this
point.
assumption in the works of at least some of those, considered above, who
have
contributed so much to our understanding of this period.
For instance, Friedmann says, immediately after the statement quoted
above, and with special reference to Spinoza, that, “therefore, one can say
that Leibniz discovered his master thoughts before the influence of Spinoza
was able to exercise itself upon him”.
Leibniz et Spinoza,
op. cit.,
p. 105. Friedmann contends that Leibniz knew Spinoza’s philo-
sophy only “very superficially” before leaving Paris
ibid.).
had come upon the ideas that turned out to be his “master thoughts”, there
was
little or no possibility that he would be diverted from a path dominated
by these.
Now we will grant that Leibniz had discovered some of the
thoughts that turned out to be the master thoughts of his later
philosophy;
what we are questioning is that these had already taken on the role of mas-
ter thoughts at the time of the
De Summa Rerum
, that is, ideas powerful
enough in Leibniz’s mind to rule out the development
by Leibniz of any
thoughts inconsistent with them. Our countersuggestion is that
these
thoughts were only some among the larger set of seriously
competing
thoughts in Leibniz’s mind at this critical juncture in his
development.
One of Parkinson’s statements seems also to assume more from the
presence of
certain later doctrines in the writings of this period than might
be warranted. He
says, “The Paris writings do not present a ‘secret philoso-
phy’ of a Spinozist
kind, opposed to what some might call the ‘official phi-
losophy’ of such works as
the Theodicy
; on the contrary, they present that
philosophy in an undeveloped, but still
clearly recognisable form”.Studia Leibnitiana Supplementa ,
v. 18, t.
2, p. 89.
put the point here another way: one
assumption, reasonable enough in con-
nection with a single work prepared for
publication, is that if the Paris writ-
ings present the philosophy of the Theodicy
in recognizable form, then they
do not also present philosophical ideas
opposed to this philosophy. But on
the view that the
De Summa Rerum
papers are separate essays, exploratory,
not prepared for publication and
often containing competing lines of
thought, this assumption becomes much less
obvious. We would need to
look to the totality of the texts themselves to settle
questions about what is
not present in the
De Summa Rerum
, without simply drawing conclusions
about the collection on the basis of
finding in some of them clear evidence
for a certain key set of views.
parts of the overall interpretation he
presents of the
De Summa Rerum,
that is, he does look to the
totality of the texts themselves, as well as
presenting his more generai conclusions. Although I dis-
agree with some of the
conclusions he reaches on the basis of this sort of textual work (see,
for
example, my “Did Leibniz Incline towards Monistic Pantheism in 1676?”
Leibniz und Europa: VI.
Internationaler Leibniz-Kongress, part I, Hanover, 1994, p. 424-428), I
agree entirely with this more
thorough textual approach. My reason for focusing
on the statement of his at the beginning of this
paragraph is that I am concerned
that others will be too ready to take those words as licensing a
disregard for
the genuinely radical philosophical suggestions of the
De Summa Rerum,
without re-
membering the qualifications implicit in Parkinson’s more
thorough textual approach.
What I would like to offer in this paper, then, is a sampling of evidence
that a radical Leibniz also existed in about 1676, a Leibniz who, I submit,
must be understood if we are to claim to understand the philosophical de-
velopment of this European genius of the late seventeenth and early eigh-
teenth century. It is a sampling of evidence that may help to make compre-
hensible Tschirnhaus’s message to a key member of Spinoza’s circle, late in
1675, that he had found Leibniz, “free from the usual prejudices of theolo-
gy”.Spinoza Opera , II 235, ed. C. Gebhardt, Heidelberg, 1925;
letter from G. Schuller to
Spinoza, November 14, 1675, quoted in the translated
form given above by C. Wilson, Leibniz's
Princeton,
1989, p. 116. Schuller was apparently
Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study,
transmitting what Tschirnhaus had conveyed
to him. Theodicy
have viewed Leib-
niz in a rather different light, as a philosopher who in fact put rather too
much emphasis on received theological views. If Leibniz were capable of
much more radical views as a young man than as a philosopher in the final
decade of his life, Tschirnhaus’s statement would not be so surprising.
To put the issue another way: if it is true that there are radically com-
peting
philosophical visions alive in Leibniz’s mind at the time of the De
Summa Rerum, then the explanation of how Leibniz dealt
philosophically
with this intellectual cauldron of differing philosophical
tendencies would
be one of the most interesting tasks involved in the matter of
gaining a
deeper understanding of the development of the philosophy of Leibniz.
Al-
though that is not a project that will be attempted in this paper, the
prior
project of documenting the existence of radical suggestions in the
De
Summa Rerum
will be.
Before beginning the examination of the radical suggestions, a few
words of
clarification about the nature of this project are in order. First,
given my
attempts to be brief and to adapt one part of the present project
multiplicity, and without the emphasis on the
“all is one” formulations to be found in Leibniz in
this period - in my “Roads
Not Taken: Radical Suggestions of Leibniz’s
De Summa Rerum”
, in G.
edited by Concha Roldán, a special issue of the journal,
W. Leibniz: Perspectives and Actuality,
Synthesis Philosophica
, vol. 12, fase. 2, 1977, pp. 403-413.
to the themes of this conference on unity and multiplicity, I will
emphasize
only one main radical suggestion (mentioning two others merely in
passing),
the one with the most interesting connections to harmony, unity and
multi-
plicity.
Secondly, having used the word ‘radical’ in my title, I need to say a bit
more about how I am using this term here. My usage, while based on typi-
cal notions, goes a bit beyond them. I put primary emphasis on two criteria
in calling a suggested view of Leibniz’s radical. One that the view in ques-
tion should clash markedly with received opinions
(sententiis receptis
pugnare
, to borrow a phrase from Leibniz which we shall encounter in a
moment) of Leibniz’s age. The other is that the view should be one which
clashes markedly with views taken to be characteristic of Leibniz’s writings
from the
Discour
on Metaphysics
onward.
Finally, although most but not all of the radical ideas I shall treat in
these pages have some relation to Spinoza, I shall not make too much of
this point, mostly simply because of space. To treat with any care the ques-
tion to what extent the radical views I find suggested in the
De Summa Re-
rum
are related to similar-sounding views in the philosophy of Spinoza - let
alone the question whether Leibniz might have been influenced by Spinoza
in these suggestions - would be impossible in the confines of the present
study.
In an essay of the
De Summa Rerum
of late 1676 (tentatively dated in
November of that year), Leibniz wrote the following:
A metaphysics should be written with accurate definitions and demon-
strations, but nothing should be demonstrated in it apart from that which
does not clash too much with received opinions. For in that way this meta-
physics can be accepted; and once it has been approved then, if people ex-
amine it more deeply later, they themselves will draw the necessary conse-
quences.
Some might see in this passage, even taken without any addition, the
suggestion of someone with ideas clashing with received opinions. But it is
not this passage itself, but this passage taken with the addition of its con-
text that I want to use as the first sample of radical strains in the
De SummaRerum:
for Leibniz has just presented a striking one-paragraph argument
for monistic pantheism, beginning with the statement, “It can easily be
demonstrated that all things are distinguished, not as substances (i.e., radi-
cally) but as modes”, and concluding, “Therefore the essence of all things is
the same, and things differ only modally. ... [I]t follows that no thing really
differs from another, but that all things are one”.
on, among other things, definitions of real or radical distinction, essence,
and requisites. The suggestion of the argument, together with the passage
quoted above on the appropriate way to write metaphysics, is that if Leib-
niz were writing his metaphysics for public consumption, instead of for his
private notes of late 1676, he might provide the definitions of the terms just
mentioned, and perhaps some demonstrations based on them, but he would
not himself draw out the radical monistic conclusion of the private notes. In
short, monistic pantheism is the first radical suggestion that we present in
this paper. And Leibniz’s statement on definition and demonstration is evi-
dence that he saw it as radical according to the first criterion set out above.
(Given that monistic pantheism is not a view characteristic of the later
Leibniz, the second criterion is obviously met also).
Since I have treated the theme of Leibniz’s monistic tendencies in this
period on
another occasion,
Leibniz und Europa: VI. In-
ternationaler Leibniz-Kongress, part I, Hanover, 1994, p.
424 ff.
published
shortly thereafter, has confirmed and greatly developed the dis-
cussion of that
theme,
Leibniz:
Determinist
, Theist,
Idealist
, Oxford, 1994, esp. the section entitled, “Is Leib-
niz’s Conception of God
Spinozistic?”, pp. 123-134.
Rather, I shall limit myself to mentioning this strong suggestion, or
perhaps
simply statement, of monistic pantheism as our first example of radical
ten-
dencies in the De Summa Rerum.
in the long-standing debate about
whether Leibniz ever followed Spinoza in pantheism (monism
of a Spinozistic sort
is typically taken as a form of pantheism) have not specially discussed the
pas-
sage stressed by Adams and myself. Some, most notably Ludwig Stein, have,
however, held that
Leibniz did adopt a pantheistic position around 1676 (v.
Leibniz und Spinoza
, Berlin, 1890, p. 51,
citing GP I 129, n. 2). Others have disputed this
claim. Georges Friedmann’s work,
Leibniz et Spi-
noza', rev. ed., Paris, 1962, is best known. G. H. R. Parkinson’s
insightful article, “Leibniz’s Paris
Writings in Relation to
Spinoza” (
Studia Leibnitiana, Supplementa
, v. 18, t. 2, pp. 73-89), is more
recent, qualifying Friedmann’s claims
that Leibniz knew relatively little about Spinoza’s philoso-
phy in Paris (pp.
79-83) and treating with care some pantheistic-sounding passages (pp. 88-89),
but
coming to the conclusion nonetheless that Leibniz was “opposed to pantheism” (p. 89)
in the
Paris writings. Werner Schneiders’ work should also be mentioned, “Deus
Subjectum: Zur Ent-
wicklung der Leibnizschen Metaphysik”,
Studia Leibnitiana, Supplementa
, v. 18, t. 2, pp. 21-31. It
is especially good on connecting the sometimes
pantheistic-sounding ideas of the Paris years with
Leibniz’s concept of harmony,
arising out of the pre-Paris period. But he resists the idea that
Leibniz ever
gave up the idea of a “supramundane” God, a God distinct from the world (v.
esp.
pp. 28-31).
For the purposes of the present short paper, the other two suggestions
of radical views will be mentioned only briefly, since it is this first example
that has the greatest relevance for the theme of unity and multiplicity.
Among the other radical positions suggested in the
De Summa Rerum
are,
first, necessitarianism and, secondly, the idea that one of the attributes of
God is the attribute of extension. Neither of these, of course, is taken as a
part of the views of the mature Leibniz. But each of these strikingly uncon-
ventional views seems present in at least some of the papers of the
De
Summa Rerum.
We turn then to the pantheistic strain in the young Leibniz in its possi-
ble relation to unity and multiplicity. Although both Adams and I have
highlighted the passage quoted above as perhaps the single clearest state-
ment of Leibniz’s Paris years indicating at least a monistic pantheistic mo-
ment in Leibniz’s development, there are also other passages - perhaps less
decisive taken individually - that are, in my view, of most interest in con-
nection with the issue of unity and multiplicity. They are more clearly con-
nected with pantheism in its more etymological meaning, that of God being
all things, than they are with Spinoza’s monistic pantheistic thesis that there
is but one substance of which all finite things are modes. Here is a listing of
some such statements, all ascribed to the period of 1675 to 1676:
There is much to be said about all of these: about their contexts, their
exact dates, their precise interpretation, and the extent to which Leibniz
can be said to have fully endorsed them at the time he wrote them. But
given the present limitations, I can do no more than sketch out, in broad
strokes, a single line of thought that might be based on these intriguing
lines, without, unfortunately, full elaboration or defense. We can focus on
the statement of A vi III 385, that God is one and all, as the most compre-
hensive of these statements. It brings together all three of the criticai ele-
ments, God, one, and all, that are discussed in these passages. The passage,
as I read it, says that God is one, yet God is all. God is, to follow the Latin
perhaps too closely, the One-All. He is both a unity and a multiplicity, a
multiplicity encompassing absolutely all things. Both the etymological sense
of pantheism (not, to be sure, developed in any detail) and the relation to
the major theme of unity and multiplicity are clearly on display here.
It cannot have been far from Leibniz’s thoughts, filled from an early
stage with the idea of Harmony (as Friedmann,
Leibniz et Spinoza
,
op. cit.,
pp. 50-51.
und Kombinatorik bie Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld und Leibniz”,
Studia
Leibnitiana,
v. 5 (1973)
pp. 43-73.
dadori
Paris Writings”,
Studia
Leibnitiana, Supplementa
, v. 18, t. 2, pp. 151-168.
groundwork for a truly majestic harmony, one perhaps more majestic than
anything to be found in the writings of the mature Leibniz, despite his rep-
utation for harmonious constructions.
The groundwork would be laid, in
the mid-1670’s, for the conception that God and all things together consti-
tute a single Harmony:
God, being the one which is all things, would him-
self be the Harmony of all things. For, according to Leibniz in roughly the
same time period, “Harmonia ... est unitas in multitudine”, (Harmony is
unity in multiplicity) (GP I 232) or “harmoniam diversitatem identitate
compensatam”. (Harmony is diversity compensated by identity) (GP I 73)
God, we may assume, was always for Leibniz a unity.
If God is also all
things, or, if one prefers, the “multitude” or multiplicity of all things, then
the multitude is unified, or there is unity in this multitude, and a universal
harmony, by Leibniz’s own definition, would reign. (Note that this would
not be a harmony of merely finite things, a harmony of the universe of finite
creatures, separate from God; this harmony would be the harmony of all
things, an absolutely universal harmony). To approach this idea from the
direction of Leibniz’s second definition of harmony, that of diversity com-
pensated by identity, we would be presented with the diversity of
Omnia
,
or all things, being compensated by the identity or oneness, or unity of
God, the “unus omnia”, the one and all. So there would be a harmony in
the cosmos, and this harmony would be the all-inclusive harmony of God.
But we do not need to proceed so speculatively here. Leibniz himself
brought together the ideas of God and the harmony of all things. In the
Confessio philosophi
of the early Paris period, he speaks of the “harmonia
rerum, sive Existentia Dei” (A vi III 128). And only a bit before, towards
the end of 1671, he had written to Duke Johann Friedrich about the “Har-
monia universalis, id est DEUS” (Aii I 162). These words are given a con-
crete sense in conjunction with the pantheistic statements of the latter years
of the same Paris period that gave rise to the
Confessio philosophi.
Perhaps we can think of this pantheistic harmony as at one extreme of
the spectrum of theological views which may have had an attraction for
Leibniz at one time or another as a systematic thinker. It would provide, in
one sense at least, a most comprehensive solution to one of the major philo-
sophical versions of the problem of unity and multiplicity, while providing
an especially prominent position for one of his most cherished philosophi-
cal ideas, the idea of harmony. But it is, for all its comprehensiveness, a
dangerous and radical philosophical solution, one that will find little if any
expression in Leibniz’s mature philosophy. To be sure, some might even
question whether the position truly finds expression in Leibniz’s philosoph-
ical writings of the 1670’s. It has not been my purpose here to demonstrate
this, only to suggest it and to lay out in broad strokes what the position
might amount to. Be that as it may, the radical position here outlined, in-
cluding both pantheism and an associated interpretation of universal har-
mony, warrants the attention of any student of Leibniz, if only because it al-
lows one to pose more clearly the following question about unity, multiplic-
ity, God and harmony: what, exactly, is the
unity
in multiplicity, and the
identity
compensating diversity, in the universal harmony of Leibniz’s ma-
ture years, where God and the world are said to be distinct, not identical,
and the world is only an aggregate, not a unity, of finite substances?