This week focused on three key philosophers - Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. All three were concerned with the 'Substances' that make up the Universe and the existence of God.
DESCARTES - 1596 - 1650
Descartes is seen as the founder of modern philosophy. He also made important progress in mathematics, with the invention of co-ordinate geometry.
As with the majority of philosophers of his time, he was profoundly influenced by religion, at times arguably to the detriment of his work. As a practicing catholic, Descartes chose not to publish his book 'Le Monde', as it contained two heretical doctrines.
Descartes' most famed and crucial contribution to philosophy was the Cogito. In seeking to prove the existence of the Universe itself, he chose to deconstruct it, doubting everything around him that he could not prove to be fundamentally true, a method known as cartesian doubt. Descartes found that everything could be doubted, as even something as precise as mathematics could be no more than an illusion, or the intentional deceit of an evil demon. He found that the only thing he could not doubt was his own mind, as doubt itself is an operation of the mind. This lead to the statement "Cogito Ergo Sum", 'I think, therefore I am', one of the most widely known philosophical propositions ever.
Descartes was not the first to make a statement of this kind, St Augustine had previously made a similar observation, however Descartes' attributed great value to this statement, something St Augustine had not done. This theory encouraged Descartes' belief that the mind and the body are separate, and furthered his conviction that there were three substances that the Universe was comprised of, God, Mind and Matter.
From the cogito, Descartes went on to believe only those things that are clear and distinct, not based on perception or interpretation.
The religious influence on Descartes then came into play, as he sought to prove the existence of objects around him. First, he had to prove God, which he did by the ontological argument, which basically states that it is possible for a perfect being to exist, and one of the perfections that would comprise such a being would be existence, therefore God must exist. This is an incredibly weak argument, and is used as the basis for Descartes' proof of all other things, therefore devaluing the rest of his work on this theory, being so strongly based on a fundamentally flawed argument.
Descartes stated that as God exists, and God is good, all objects around him must exist as a good God would not deceive him.
While his proof of God was flawed, and thus the rest of his argument was also, the cogito and the method of Cartesian doubt were incredibly important contributions to philosophy.
SPINOZA - 1632-1677
Unlike Descartes' belief that there were three substances, Spinoza believed in only one substance in the Universe, God, and all other things were simply an aspect of the divine being.
Again, Spinoza's philosophy was dominated by God, however despite this, he was despised by Jews and Christians alike. This was partly down to his belief that the Church sould be entirely suborinate to the state.
Spinoza's key work, 'Ethics', was published posthumously, the central argument of which is that everything is dictated by logical necessity. Everything is pre-determined, and as such any incident wich occurs, even if it appears to be negative, is only perceived that way by an individual, as a result of limited perspective. All negative events are necessary to overall good, and we must seek to see the entire Universe as a whole, as God does. Spinoza argued 'passions' obscure our perception of the Universe, preventing us seeing it as a whole and rather focusing on the individual events. A wise man, argued Spinoza, is one who overcomes these passions and self-preservation instinct, and realises that "what is real and possitive in us is what unites us to the whole".
As everything is pre-determined, Spinoza opposed the idea of hope or fear, as we can not influence our future and so must accept those things that happen to us. Once we see the Universe as God does, we see that there is in fact no evil, as evil is a result of external forces, and there is nothing external of the Universe, therefore evil cannot exist, and all things we perceive as bad are simply present to facilitate greater good things.
Once we share God's perception, and become wise, we will have a heightened intellectual love of God, argued Spinoza. God himself is not subject to the 'passions'; love and hate etc, as he is a perfect being, he has only an infinite love for himself, which is comprise of the intellectual love of humans for God.
LEIBNIZ - 1646-1716
Again greatly focused on God and the Universe, however Leibniz had two philosophical perspectives, one which he presented to the public, and another which was restricted to his communication with other philosophers, undiscovered until many years after his death.
Like Descartes, Leibniz also made a substantial contribution to mathematics, conceiving the infinitesimal calculus simultaneously, but in ignorance of, Newton.
Leibniz's philosophy was also based on substances, however where Descartes believe in three and Spinoza in one, Leibniz believed there were an infinite number of substances, called "monads", and that they made up everything around us, a similar concept to that of the atom. Leibniz saw each inividual monad as a soul, each carrying some physical property of the object which it made up.
Leibniz followed the doctrine of some followers of Descartes, believing that substances could not interact, arguing that where monads appeared to interact, it was merely deception. He suggested there was a pre existing harmony between changes in monads, which created the illusion of interaction.
Leibniz also stated that in humans, the soul of a man was the dominant monad inside him.
Leibniz contrasted greatly with Spinoza on the idea of free will. Whereas in Spinoza's system free will was impossible, as everything was pre-determined, Leibniz's perspective was that all things happened for a reason, all men had motives for their actions, but these actions are not the result of logical necessity. He also applied a similar freedom to the actions of God, claiming that he was unable to act contrary to logic, however could do anything withing the realms of logical possibility, giving the divine being a broad choice of actions. This lead on to one of Leibniz's central points, that the world we inhabit is the best of all possible worlds. He argued that God being good, he would have created the best world possible, and thus sin is required, as it exists in this best of worlds. Leibniz argued that some sin is logically bound to good things, for example free will. Free will could not exist if there was not a variety of choices available to make in any given scenario, some of which are negative.
As Descartes before him, Leibniz supported the ontological argument for the existence of God. He also furthered three other arguments for God's existence:
- The Cosmological argument - The basic thrust of this was that the Universe must logically have a reason for existing, and so must have a creator, God.
- The Eternal Truths - Statements relating to essence if true are eternally true, and an eternal truth must exist in an eternal mind.
- Pre-established Harmony - There must be a single outside cause regulating the harmony of things in the universe, such as clocks, which keep in time with one another without interaction. This leads on to the argument of design, which states that some things in the Universe cannot be plausibly explained by natural forces, and must have been designed by some higher power.
The above contains the published work of Leibniz, however, some of his most profound work he left unpublished. Among this unpublished work was the idea of mathematical logic, which, had he published it, would have become known some 150 years earlier.
In his unpublished philosophy, Leibniz suggested that while substances cannot act on one another, they could interact through all mirroring the Universe from their perspective; "because all that happens to each subject is part of its own notion and eternally determined if that substance exists." This statement clearly bears great resemblance to the deterministic view of Spinoza. This was left unpublished as it appeared to contradict the Christian views of free will and sin.
Leibniz also argued that those things which exist do so because they are compatible with the most other things. He said that everything that does not exist struggles to do so, all things cannot exist as they are not all 'compossible', the group of the largest compossibles is that which 'wins' an exists, those things that do not exist cannot because they cannot successfully coexist with as many other objects. This theory is completely separated from God, and comes from a strictly logical approach.
good notes
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