The Oxford Handbook of Leibniz by Maria Rosa Antognazza

Author:Maria Rosa Antognazza
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2018-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY AND SOUL-BODY UNITY

Although pre-established harmony explains the apparent interaction of soul and body, I will argue that it does not explain how soul and body together constitute an unum per se, although it does explain union in another sense. Before we can address this issue, however, we must consider whether and to what extent Leibniz is committed to the unity of soul-body composites in the first place.

There is an ongoing controversy in the literature concerning Leibniz’s commitment to corporeal substances. Daniel Garber has suggested that Leibniz’s basic ontological commitments change dramatically between what he calls the “Middle Years” (roughly 1680–1700) and the “Mature Period” (roughly 1700–16).13 (There is also controversy about where to draw the dividing lines between the different periods of Leibniz’s thought, although nothing I say here turns on the particular dates I have chosen.) Garber’s contention is that, in the Middle Years, Leibniz is committed to bona fide corporeal substances, composites of soul and body that have true, substantial unity, and that these corporeal substances are the basic constituents of reality. Later on, this commitment disappears and the fundamental constituents of reality come to be simple, partless, active substances, which Leibniz calls “monads.” However, others, Robert Adams and Robert Sleigh to cite two canonical sources, argue that Leibniz’s commitment to simple substances is already implicit in his views during the so-called Middle Years.14 That the commitment to simple substances comes to take center stage does not, therefore, betray a radical change of mind on Leibniz’s part, but instead is just the natural development of his implicit commitments or maybe just an original commitment being made explicit. A third option worth noting, which has been highlighted by some of the recent literature on this topic, is that, even during the Mature Period, Leibniz uses the language of corporeal (or sometimes composite) substance.15 This suggests that the shift between corporeal substances and monads may not be primarily a developmental shift. Perhaps a better way to understand what is going on is to think of Leibniz as wrestling with different conceptions of substance throughout his entire career. I do not aim to settle this issue here, but merely to keep it in view while considering Leibniz’s engagement with the question of soul-body unity.

This dispute has clear implications for the topic of soul-body unity because, if Leibniz was always a monadologist, it is possible that he never took seriously the view that soul and body together make up an unum per se. If this is correct, any search for Leibniz’s account of soul-body unity will be in vain. I cannot definitively rule this option out. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that there are texts in which Leibniz at least seems to characterize soul-body composites, the human being in particular, as per se unities.16 For this reason, it seems worthwhile to look for an account.

A good place to start the search is with pre-established harmony itself. A prima facie reason to think pre-established harmony is a good candidate is that Leibniz often presents pre-established harmony as an account of soul-body union.

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