The Use of Bodies by Giorgio Agamben & Adam Kotsko

Author:Giorgio Agamben & Adam Kotsko [Agamben, Giorgio]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 2015-07-17T16:00:00+00:00

§ 3

Toward a Modal Ontology

3.1. Perhaps never as in the correspondence between Leibniz and Des Bosses did the inadequacy of the Aristotelian apparatus in accounting for singularity emerge with such clarity. What is in question in the correspondence is the problem of how one can conceive the unity of composite substances, in such a way that this or that body does not seem to be only an aggregate of monads but can be perceived as a substantial unity.

“If a corporeal substance,” writes Leibniz in response to the announcement of a dissertation De substantia corporea that Des Bosses is about to send him, “is something real over and above monads, as a line is taken to be something over and above points, we shall have to say that corporeal substance consists in a certain union, or rather in a real unifier superadded to monads by God [uniente reali a Deo superaddito monadibus].” Leibniz calls this absolute principle (absolutum aliquid) that confers its “unitive reality” on monads, and without which bodies would be mere appearances and only the monads would be real, a “substantial bond” (vinculum substantiale). “If that substantial bond of monads were absent, then all bodies with their qualities would be only well-founded phenomena, like a rainbow or an image in a mirror—in a word, continuous dreams that agree perfectly with one another” (Leibniz 1, pp. 435–436/225–227; letter of February 15, 1712).

In the text attached to the letter, Leibniz seeks to specify the nature of the substantial bond, defining it as a “more perfect relationship” that transforms a plurality of simple substances or monads into a new substance:

God not only considers single monads and the modifications of any monad whatsoever, but he also sees their relations, and the reality of relations and truths consists in this. Foremost among these relations are duration (or the order of successive things), situation (or the order of co-existing), and intercourse (or reciprocal action). . . . But over and above these real relations, a more perfect relation can be conceived through which a single new substance arises from many substances. And this will not be a simple result, that is, it will not consist in true or real relations alone; but, moreover, it will add some new substantiality, or substantial bond [aliquam novam substantialitatem seu vinculum substantiale], and this will be an effect not only of the divine intellect but also of the divine will. This addition to monads does not occur in just any way; otherwise any scattered things at all would be united in a new substance, and nothing determinate would arise in contiguous bodies. But it suffices that it unites those monads that are under the domination of one monad, that is, that make one organic body or one machine of nature [unum corpus organicum seu unam Machinam naturae]. (Ibid., pp. 438–439/233)

3.2. What is in question in the substantial bond is the problem of what allows one to consider as one sole substance such and such a “natural machine,” this “horse” or that “dog” (p.

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