Leibniz: A Very Short Introduction by Maria Rosa Antognazza

Author:Maria Rosa Antognazza [Antognazza, Maria Rosa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780191028755
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2016-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

The best of all possible worlds and Leibniz’s theodicy

Of all the infinitely many worlds which are possible, God created (or, more precisely, ‘actualized’) the best. Leibniz’s claim that the actual world, in which we find ourselves, is ‘the best of all possible worlds’ is deceptively simple and easily caricatured. It was mercilessly satirized by Voltaire (1694–1778) in Candide (1759), which recounts the young protagonist’s indoctrination at the hands of his pompous tutor, Pangloss. ‘Everything is necessarily for the best,’ Pangloss explains confidently to his open-hearted pupil. ‘Note that noses have been made to support spectacles: so we have spectacles. Legs are obviously designed to wear breeches, and we are supplied with them.’

Leibniz, however, is not a Panglossian who, having looked here and there, comes to the simple-minded, optimistic conclusion that things are really not that bad, despite recurrent pestilence, devastating mass starvation, and the odd shattering earthquake. His claim that this is ‘the best of all possible worlds’ is based not in superficial observation of the world in which we live, but in the complex logical and metaphysical machinery discussed so far. More precisely, it is an a priori claim in the sense that it does not follow from an observation and evaluation of the balance of good and evil in experience to the conclusion that, all considered, this is the best one can reasonably expect. It follows instead, independently of whatever experience we may have of the quantity and quality of evil mixed with good, from a consideration of the attributes of God, the existence of whom Leibniz regards as a demonstrable truth.

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