Leibniz Cultural Pluralism and Natural Law
Leibniz Cultural Pluralism and Natural Law
Leibniz Cultural Pluralism and Natural Law
Hideaki HIRANO
Copyrights Reserved
Professor
Department of Sociology,
Hosei University
(March, 1997)
CONTENTS:
Summary
Foreword
7. Leibniz on Ethica
Conclusion
Bibliography
1) Leibniz’s Works
Abbreviations
2) Other Works
1
Summary
2
Foreword:
the last two of which have been granted research funds from the Japan
for nearly two centuries, is not the only choice even in the European
universalistic logic. I will admit it is true; but this does not mean
that its outcomes and conclusions always have no other way than to become
Acknowledgements:
*
“Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B), 1994-6” to my project entitled:
“A Study on the Intellectual History for the Formation of the Concept: Natural
Law”(Co-investigator: Prof. Yuko TANAKA). My grateful acknowledgment to the
Grant-in-Aid without which this study could not be carried out.
**
As an effort to exchange academic information worldwide, I have submitted
a working paper: “G. W. Leibniz: Cultural pluralism from the pinnacle of
universal logic” on the Internet database since September, 1996. The paper
has been rewritten to make present dissertation with extensive reinforcement
and enlargement on arguments as well as on references.
*** After posting this treatise for two and a half years, I have received many
important comments from scholars in various fields of various Institutes
including Stanford Univ., Pennsylvania State Univ. etc. and also from many
readers worldwide. They are all very sincere and helpful. I would like to
express my special gratitude to Prof. Candice Shelby of University of Colorado
who let me know of possible need for a bibliographical citation note.
3
universalistic. Especially in the studies of human society, to realize
this is often crucial. With a few exceptions like Franz Boas, Thorstein
it. They are apt to believe that studies based on logic have to become
unusual universalism-philia, which has in the end cost the human society
uniform everywhere.
painful example from the Amazon as early in 1950s. The native Bororo
residential formation.
missionaries in the Rio das Garças region were quick to realize that
the surest way to convert the Bororo was to make them abandon it in
No one would doubt that the Salesian fathers did this to the Amazonian
gentiles from good will, as well as from the firm belief in their
doing the same as these Salesian fathers, from the belief in so called
4
science and in logic all over the world. Is our logic rational, and
so called rationalism? Can the fact that scientists pay no more attention
might call it? W. Leibniz was a great Western intellectual who proved
at the cross road of the eastern and the western, and later the American,
cultures. In the West, the concept of rationality has had a long history
since the formulation of the problem back in the days of the Stoic School
Augustine; the main aim of the theology being to seek and prove the
divine grace in the universe which was thought to be the God’s creation
5
together with humanity itself. Later on, the problem has become known
by the name of Natural Law or the “State of Nature”, after the systematic
somewhere around this time, that Auguste Comte, coming right after the
metaphysics were over, and the days of so called positivism were already
there.
importance of this concept: Natural Law; but after him virtually very
the rational order of the nature; in other words, it was the very conformity
6
Already at this point, two serious questions are latent in it:
Firstly, can the fact that all different peoples on the earth, especially
before the modern days and outside the Christian Church, lived in their
own ways of life differing more or less from each other contain anything
to use the same word in the same sense to physical objects or even to
the universe at large, and to human ethics? The western Christian culture
equivalent to, or sometimes even the proof of, the rationality of the
no matter where they lived, should live in one only righteous way of
life that was to be called rational. The latter idea was already
implicated in the former as long as the laws natural and human were
considered identical. So, I will rather not hesitate to call this the
European particularity which had historically flowed out from the concept
unaltered or, as we will see later, even made worse even after it had
become secularized and evolved into what Troeltsch called the “profane
Naturrecht”.
Having this concept of Natural Law and the idea of identity between
7
especially Chinese, or elsewhere outside of Europe. The United States
of America were relatively immune from this type of idea until some
I hold that this is one of the main reasons that forced us to form a
but during that comparative study of mine, I have come to realize the
although not yet many in number, from time to time express their concern
the scholars who worked through the line of Natural Law, Leibniz was
the first, and virtually the last, who positively rejected this identity
it. In order to examine the points in detail, we will first begin with
8
a mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot, who explicitly says he received
wrote:
to calculus, and to other thoughts that have been carried out to completion,
finding that for one moment its hero attached importance to geometric
the whole, and it alone has this property, not only among curves but
among sets.” This claim can be proved today” (Mandelbrot 1977: 419).
9
Bosses to imagine a circle, then to inscribe within it three congruent
circles with maximum radius; the latter smaller circles could be filled
with three even smaller circles by the same procedure. This process
concept. The statement that “the straight line is a curve, any part
the birth of topology well over two centuries. All these episodes tell
us that with how keen interest Leibniz saw the wonder of the nature’s
infinity. And what astonishes us more was that he who knew the nature’s
infinity and its self similarity better than anyone, was at the same
time the man who frankly held that we had to be humble enough to admit,
as we will see later, that our reason naturally fell always short of
this nature’s infinity, and that the confidence that the nature was
rational in the sense it had a priori law was something always for us
to believe in.
Anyone familiar with the work of Mandelbrot would agree that his
major aim is to make mathematics only one more step closer to the nature
that their lengths differ according to the measure one scales them with;
10
finer the measure nearer to the true value of length. It is true as
Two countries sharing a common border line, like Spain and Portugal,
one uses an infinitely minute measure? Obviously not; for thus doing,
one would end up with infinitely long coast or border length. The problem
for a measure works well when one scales an “artificial” object like
stadium; thus revealing the sharp opposition between the nature itself
and exemplar humans can ever acquire. The above example shows that we
11
Equally in physics, it was a German physicist, Herbert Breger,
“...In der Tat konstatiert Leibniz, daß die Physik in ihrer Gesamtheit
niemals eine vollkommene Wissenschaft sei werde. Damit ist aber nur
Phänomene ist nach Leibniz das Unterpfang dafür, daß die Phänomene kein
bloßer Traum sind. Die Lösung des Dilemmas von Individualität und
Gesetzlichkeit der Natur wird durch zwei Begriffe erreicht, die bei
Leibniz, and natural sciences will never be able to cease their effort
to bridge the gap between observed facts and their theorized laws. As
long as the observed facts exist, they can serve as a sure ground ( das
Unterpfang) to believe that such phenomena are not mere illusions. But
this does not mean that humans can obtain from them the natural scientific
line which marks the realm of the “possible”, to which mathematics and
12
nature itself.
sciences, which in their turn have been believed the most exact and
once for all universal law giver. No doubt Breger too believes
mathematics or physics and the nature itself are two different things;
yet. It will be dealt later as one of the most crucial concepts of Leibniz
nature itself on the other. I will add here that Breger continues further
between these two giants, it has been rather limited to the priority
Meli shows us that their difference does not lie in the date of the
13
they saw orbital motion or the nature at large. Whereas Newton never
doubted his mathematical model in his Principia to be the once for all
25). After examining the manuscripts Leibniz left and their relations
concludes that Leibniz did not take for granted the relationship between
that he was a man of some mysticism, neither does it mean that he was
the outer world, in contrast to John Locke who held human sense experience
anti-rationalist.
Rationalism has become one of the most crucial keywords ever since
the day the western civilization felt the Götterdämmerung (God’s waning)
14
an inevitable fact. Many western philosophers and scientists alike have,
and still are, engaged themselves in somehow finding the reason for
variety in methods and outcomes of these efforts and observe the problem
meanings: it could mean either that 1): the order of things is rational,
add to these the other logically possible positions that 3): both are
equally rational and that 4): both are not, we can attain four different
“LOGOS” man with his logic, and use signs “+” and “-” to designate
--------------------------------------------
case a) + +
case b) + -
case c) - +
case d) - -
belief that they are both rational because the God has created them
15
that way. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why many philosophers
or less to the case c). But, interestingly enough, Leibniz did not
hesitate to take this position a); and this fact makes it clear that
Leibniz at least made his start from within the very tradition of Natural
Law.
as “TR”, while for LOGOS to be rational “LR”, then, are “TR” and “LR”
to Him. Somehow by the same token, almost all of those in the line of
Natural Law had answered in the affirmative, until at last they came
answer in the same way, and finally, as I said earlier, it has come
to form a common place idea elsewhere, on which our sciences are supposed
prevent the proposition: that “TR” and “LR” are equivalent from
deteriorating gradually into the case c) of the above matrix. The sole
on a), and yet put definite negation to the vitally important question:
The general historical fact was that, beginning from René Descartes,
16
almost all the early modern and modern western philosophers and
scientists indeed did hesitate to take a); thus they more or less inclined
towards c) in the end; that is to say, the proposition that the world
concept: Natural Law. We can think of many examples in which the West
thought other cultures irrational or, at least not quite rational. There
has arisen, somewhere at the end of the eighteenth century, again out
in man that lies outside of logic, being neither rational nor non-
rational. It is as much alike as to admit that “two and two make four”
and “I believe in such and such god” are different statements; the former
17
sociologists today are conveniently benefited by this concept, this
like Max Weber who contributed much to the dissemination of this concept.
However, even for Max Weber, the reason to discriminate Wert (value)
from Zweck(end) was not much different; he thus sought a way to reconcile
this cultural variety, he thought he was obliged to answer how one could
be consistent with his being rational and at the same time having a
certain value; that is, how a rational being could be consistent with
European Natural Law, was still there growing serious. Yet, we have
18
5. Leibniz against Descartes and Hobbes
that Leibniz’s logical merit was not yet well systematized in his own
aware of the fact that for man to think the world logically, and to
could have had something defective in its essential ground. This lead
19
be his best in his Discours de Métaphysique(GP IV: 427-463) and in his
faith had nothing to do with rational reason, that Leibniz most often
not be considered separable; the union of these was exactly that which
might certainly agree with Bayle’s position which Karl Marx later admired
The controversy around this problem has still longer story. For
one example, Voltaire, who was not much better than an admirer of John
Europe. We might well be able to call him another father of the western
Bayle too.
20
1): that Leibniz, as Russell appreciated, never in his life ceased to
Leibniz called the God was not necessarily the one that the western
people alone were familiar with. Indeed, Leibniz was well known as an
intellectual who not only planned but actually carried out, half way,
and for that sake was often doubted as an infidel from both sides. Paul
Hazard was very right when he said that Leibniz “connaît les prétentions
de Théodicée, might agree with Hazard that it might have been really
very easy for Leibniz to get well informed of “the pretensions of the
two parties, and knew in general that they contained nothing good”.
We are not suggesting that Leibniz was not serious about the Schism.
been rather the political outcome of the Schism than the religious
we might be permitted to state that Leibniz thought the God was important
so long as He could maintain peace among peoples and the order among
them of the day. Leibniz, for his part, was thus equally and completely
rational, even on Deity; although, as we see later, the God for Leibniz
of his day; but among them we find two particular names he most obstinately
21
repeated for criticism. They were René Descartes and Thomas Hobbes.
John Locke whom he was actually informed of in detail only a few years
his own age. Above all, it was the idea of determinism which tended,
in various ways, to see the world in terms of blind necessity that Leibniz
denied most; Leibniz wrote in some place that we were permitted to speak
as being absurd; thus negating the entire view that man can fully grasp
Tönnies was probably the first sociologist, as early in 1887, who showed
In this letter, dated 1670, Leibniz wrote his hope that Hobbes should
desist from abusing physical theory of motion which Leibniz said was
wrong itself, from which Hobbes intended to deduce his theory of Civitas.
22
That is: Leibniz is against 1): Hobbes’ theory of state or republic
all and various kinds of commonwealth activities in it. This was a total
with Hobbes. And it might not be necessary to remind that Leibniz, though
being the most distinguished philosopher of the day, was not a man of
mere scholastic concern, for we have already found the essential nature
only true as for his concern on the Christian Schism but also for almost
23
a sort of non commitment to the political and religious affairs of his
to so many activities and kept himself too busy, he had had well completed
his Opera Magna which could have benefited the later centuries greatly.
for it was to the most important turn of the total European political
system that Leibniz saw with great anxiety; namely the emergence and
the modern political system. It was for them the tyranny of l’ancien
régime that was to be blamed, but not the forming of the sovereign state,
time. As is well known, the political status quo of Germany at the time
without one central dominating power like Bourbon Dynasty under Louis
XIV; under whom the Dynasty became to claim to be the sole Sovereignty
recently, felt sorry for this state of their country, regarding this
24
disintegration, as they saw it, the main reason for Germany to be left
that was the most harmful to the peace and stability all over Europe.
indeed, was the very occasion in the history of Europe in which religion
became deeply involved in the struggle for political dominion; and since
that time, many same examples we are experiencing all over the world
one after another up until present day. And at this critical occasion,
with Bossuet, the superpower of that time, France, would have lost
that is to say, Bossuet on the other side might have felt strong political
25
pressure on him which certainly might have made Bossuet feel very hard
to give in. During the long years of the talk, Leibniz even tried to
gain support from Jesuit fathers, and succeeded to some extent in getting
their sympathy; however, their sympathy was not very helpful in reaching
informed from these fathers on the matters of Asia; thus becoming one
Anyhow, the talk between the two figures finally ended without success.
We see the effort was very much like the peace talk on Palestine today;
Leibniz might not have very much freedom to write ill, for example,
les Chrétiens, the author did not even pretend to hide that he was offending
Louis XIV. In this pamphlet, Leibniz accused the king and its empire
monde”)(F III: 15). His accusation did not seem to condone, at this
occasion, even the Gallican Church itself, stating that the freedom
the Gallican Church felt to enjoy against the Pope and the Catholic
of religion to politics.
26
though only among Leibnizian scholars, writings concerning his view
put into English several selected parts of them. We will see a passage
from it for some length, where Leibniz was referring to the repeated
expressed even sympathy toward his life long contender, the author of
for good men to do it, when one has good reason to suspect the good
faith of others, and when a cautio damni infecti cannot be counted on.
From which the subtle author of the Elementa de Cive drew the conclusion
that peace with a powerful enemy can be nothing else than a breathing-space
of two gladiators, and sometimes does not even have the character of
a truce. This much was shown recently by the almost ridiculous fact
the other hand, increases the appetite of the victor... This, therefore,
27
the geographical or historical situation, a prince must fight
166).
years after the talk with Bossuet was practically abandoned in failure,
illusion as if, apart from the date he wrote, Leibniz was referring
to hold perpetual state of war in his work was not without cause considering
this situation of Europe. He however did not forget to add that Hobbesian
only “to take proper precautions”. Reading the above, together with
what Leibniz really wanted to convey to Hobbes was the fact that promises
could even enhance the vicious threat of already too strong a political
genius of Hobbes probably more than Descartes and his disciples, and
even shared with Hobbes anxiety on the political status of their time,
28
in fact had a good reason in never trusting a peace based upon power,
nor upon pact or covenant between those who thought themselves powerful.
be made public so that “those who deal with public affairs” could
“understand the most important events of the past” and learn that “in
truth, we are reading about the deeds of men, not of Gods; and it is
sufficient for their glory and the records of posterity that there remain
Here Leibniz was also expressing hope that his archive with easier
public access could serve to improve the ability of all who dealt with
public affairs by learning from the history of human deeds. We are even
surprised to find in his idea what today’s reader might call freedom
29
key word of the time, somewhat a counterpart of today’s Welfare or
Sustainable Growth; so, various writers of the day, beginning from Hugo
their idea of the righteous social order. Roughly, there were two main
justice and peace among nations; that the system of law should be deemed
from Grotius who heralded this school about half a century earlier,
it was Thomas Hobbes who added to this term a new implication, arguing
that at his time people had to think a state of permanent struggle between
name Leviathan, his was usually considered also as one of the various
deal with this problem, that is, with his ethics; and after that we
will be able to discuss that in Leibniz for the first time the term
7. Leibniz on Ethica
30
In Riley’s collection, we find a short fragment of Leibniz’s
a duty which preserves society”; and to this, Leibniz added the following
“The signs by which one can conclude that nature demands something,
are that nature has given us a desire and the powers or force to fulfill
“The most perfect society is that whose purpose is the general and supreme
happiness.
societies; firstly it was man and wife; secondly it was parents and
were “to attain happiness for to be secure in it... Its purpose is temporal
welfare”. The sixth natural society was the Church of God, “which would
probably have existed among men even without revelation, and been
31
preserved and spread by pious and holy men. Its purpose is eternal
mine).
To this manuscript Riley added a comment that this shows “how much
some very important points are clear in it. As is shown earlier, the
idea of Natural Law, formed by the Stoics, then developed by the Scholastic,
against, from what Aquinas called juris gentium (folk laws). So it was
maintained that the former, Natural Law, should hold superior and hence
legal system so that peoples could improve their own orders; those in
held they were speaking for the sake of natural law or natural state
of order because they were speaking for the sake of universal reason
and against old regimes; even those in the laissez-faire school demanded
they were speaking for the sake of Natural State, which in reality was
32
no better than a penny-wise paradise coined in justification of the
expanding market economy. This tendency has even been carried on until
today, when many sociologists do not refrain from saying that they
so because they are studying our society as being natural in the sense
since the seventeenth century, or even, since the day of the School.
We are thus compelled to see that this tendency has been one of the
gentium themselves for him that were to be called natural and deserved
natural societies. Even more, what he called the sixth natural society
of their own. No doubt, the fact that Leibniz, throughout his life and
throughout the various fields of his concern, in spite of all the adverse
Leibniz was able to reach to this conclusion and to maintain it, while
33
Albert Heinekamp, in his very voluminous treatise: Das Problem des Guten
bei Leibniz. Although we have some more recent and comprehensive studies
one of the best and the brightest among the studies dealing with Leibniz’s
esse leges, utrobique enim sensus, facit, historiae res agitur, et quod
34
i.e. ex locorum temporumque cognitione’. Die bürgerlichen Gesetze
können darum nicht abgeleitet und begründet werden wie z.B. die Gesetze
128-9).
sequence.
truth, and as such it is not different from natural laws which natural
law. On one side are senses, facts, historical events, and on the other
3) Any civil law is only “contingent”, in the sense “daß auch andere
there are also other different legal systems possible which are in harmony
35
4) Different legal systems, which do not seem similar to each other,
time”, science of law and order, exactly like any other sciences on
sciences which dealt with law and order were able to be established
However, what is the most important begins right at this point. For
what is really existing from human recognition on the other, are two
for granted that what is scientifically true could be, as well as should
36
“possible” and the “contingent” in order to clearly discriminate these
and we do not, and probably can not, know every reason exhaustively
why these phenomena alone have come to exist. For a simple example,
self sufficient nomadic livelihood, etc. “possible”. But the fact that
these are not logically contradictory does not at once mean that such
should exist elsewhere. And only when we can acknowledge that we know
something is logically “possible”, and at the same time know every reason
However, with Leibniz, we have to agree that we usually have only very
which is not complete, but somehow we know that this phenomenon exists,
completely logical, and yet we still do not know every reason why it
has come to exist. Only at this point does Leibniz attribute the reason
37
the God the proof of his being religiously faithful; indeed, some
view, however, I feel one thing is clear and worth noting: that Leibniz
rational and what really exists, he could neatly avoid from rushing
the utmost cosmological importance, we will later come back to it, and
Two points are already made clear: Firstly, this notion of the
God, as we have already admitted, is quite logical and even the most
38
and rational; perhaps as strongly as he believed in a priori rationality
that Bayle’s position would end up to see in God just an almighty tyrant;
and he stressed that the only way to avoid it was to see faith only
by admitting that those which we are able surely to observe fully the
reason of their existence are rather exceptional; and at the same time
that Leibniz thought there has to be certainly the reason this or that
really exists, despite our not knowing why. For an easy instance, if
certain culture or habit exists for a long time in the Bororo people,
exhaust the reasons, which no doubt include each and every detail of
especially when human ethics are concerned. In other words, for Leibniz,
what are contingent make a small subset which we recognize its existence,
out of the infinitely larger set of what are logically “possible”. This
must surely be the reason too, why, as Domenico Meli has made clear
39
in physics earlier, Leibniz, against Newton, did not suffice to see
the universe only from what we observed and theorized; or in other words,
Leibniz took so much caution not to take our observation and theorization
existence of human law and order that had to be accounted “ex geographia
are societies which are only pre-modern and hence irrational. This idea
has even left an adverse effect on our idea of history which often sees
the rational, that is, in terms of progress and development; thus forging
or animal more clever than plant. Despite the fact that in Leibniz’s
days the elaborate idea of today’s evolution and ecology was not yet
known, Leibniz definitely believed that what was irrational could not
(GM VI: 449)”, attempted to see that Leibniz all the way sustained his
concern on the sort of phenomenon where any small part reflected the
40
whole universe; until it finally resulted in his Monadology, manifestly
we know, but often only faintly yet, any culture is a sort of organic
metaphysics, Leibniz marked the pinnacle of logic for all these three
and rational as our science itself is. Although I do not very much feel
had Leibniz had time to engage himself much in the study of folkways
and mores, or in the study of human sciences, these latter could have
man dealt with Natural Law. As early in the end of 1660s, that is in
Juris Naturali:
41
sibi noceant alienis commodis consulens. Grotius negat stultum esse
alienis commodis suo damno consulere. Ego non dubito quin hoc stultum
sit, adeo ut nisi hoc sit stultum nihil sit stultum. Quid est enim obsecro
mine)”.
own loss”; and also citing Cicero, he stressed his belief that giving
mine).
Leibniz position was not changed but greatly reinforced. In that preface
“...it will be useful to say something more about the use of this work
for international law and about [the relation of] natural law to that
of nations ... The doctrine of law, taken from nature’s strict confines,
42
has well said, we ought to believe that we are incapable of doing things
which are contrary to good morals. A good man is one who loves everybody,
man, that is, charity which follows the dictates of wisdom. So that
is natural exactly because people for a very long duration of time get
used to it; and as such, it is exactly that which the nature wants to
for him the common features of natural law and natural justice, virtues
in other words, are those the various groups of humanity have long been
43
people do whenever they want to give to others as much as they can,
rather than to deprive from others as much; that is to say, those virtues
the latter kind seem to be the only ethic we the modern people, as the
that the long confused term the “nature” reacquires in Leibniz its proper
the famous dispute over whether humans have “the innate notion(la notion
the naked self exists, then comes the collection of these individual
44
to this, while Locke, by excluding the innate notion, actually inclined
to affirm it.
We will deal with this antagonism from another aspect here, namely
for man can simply sense it complete. We would probably be able to prospect
at the same time we see what was wrong and perilous in Lockean empiricism
from Leibniz’s eyes. Although this book of Leibniz can be examined from
a variety of angles, we will now excerpt one of the most essential parts
for our present purpose for some length, put it into English, then examine
“...a distinct idea which also contains the definition and the marks
that gold is a sort of metal that can resist cupellation and nitric
and the operation of nitric acid is not very well known to us...(The
45
same is true in complex ideas)... And it is indifferent to the nature
makes up the modal ideas, which are not altogether voluntary nor arbitrary,
find the good and executable ideas which are for us the archetype itself
of the ideas by the Inventor, and at the same time are the archetype
thorough knowledge of the partial ideas which constitute the whole idea:
and this is the mark of a complete idea for it let us know the possibility
knowledge on gold than in his day. Let us try to put its implication
gold), of which we can make two true statements, that 1): “O1 is x11”
(e.g. gold can endure cupellation), and 2): “O1 is x12” (e.g. gold can
resist nitric acid); where “x11” and “x12” are what we call predicate.
Although both statements are true, they are not altogether complete
46
the statement 2) from the statement 1) or vise versa; statements could
true statements assure that this “O1” (e.g. gold) exists in reality,
statement 3): gold has less ionization tendency than zinc. Yet, the
has come to exist. Leibniz requires that a notion, especially for any
factual object, is “complete”, only when we know each and every reason
let “x1” represent all the predicates of “O1”: “x11, x12, x13,... x1i...”;
then this “x1” must be an infinite set perhaps for any ordinary object
whole “x1”, including those pertaining to its existence, from any one
47
of this infinity. This is why, as Leibniz held, that we have to be very
the tradition did not cease to continue in the western world even though
represent another substance, while “x2” the set of its predicates: “x21,
x22, x23,...x2i...”. And thus doing, let “U1” represent the set of all
in our experience or experiment. Then, this “U1” must surely mean this
universe which we live in. This is not, Leibniz says, all we have to
consider. There could also be an object named “P1” where “y1” is the
this is very often the case when we discover something, say, in astronomy,
biology, etc.. Likewise, we can think of, though only logically: another
object “P2(y2)”. Following this line, we can obtain another set “U2”:
48
very highly, seemed somewhat reluctant to admit the importance of this
we take “U1” as the western order whereas “U2” as, for instance, that
of one and the same. And equally, we have to admit that the above notion
of this fact that he wrote to Burnett “il faudroit une nouvelle espèce
new type of logic entirely different from what we have known until now;
III: 183)
49
things, be it material or spiritual, have its own foundation on things
ever protest that this position remains uncertain unless humans can
long as we can see its imperfection none other than by this ability
to hold faith in it. It is also very remarkable that Leibniz does never
apart from human understanding; and yet, at the same time he never gives
properly in this way, that our knowing could, and at the same time should,
go hand in hand with our sense of gratitude that we live in this universe.
Leibniz is also known to have used the expression that we live in “the
50
adaptation better than an arbitrary idea of rationality, which is
believed in the latter especially, but not entirely, while he was studying
Thus, we can now step back to his criticism on John Locke: Nouveaux
are, to me, the only Originals, from whence all our Ideas take their
that the above two orders of rationality, natural and human, could easily
This was something even made worse of Cartesian atomism; and it would
not be difficult to see that this tying together echoes all too amply
have dealt, this latter has been the very origin of the vice of modern
51
or scientists, including those in our time, consciously or not, have
even without knowing that they are thus touching and tampering the vitally
sounds as merely medieval; which most scholars until today seem to have
held. And thus holding, the modern society has come to be founded on
imperfect, notion and judgment; leaving all laws and norms of our
finally, it seems that nowadays humans are brought to the point where
there seems very thin exit left. However, as we have so far discussed,
what lied at the point of departure were rather very simple alternatives:
to hold that there is nothing else than human knowledge which can claim
52
A Typical Distortion
importance for us: they never seem to take into consideration what should
be meant by the word “rational” any more. We will not refrain from
is one thing; and to admit 2): what exists(das Seiendes), which is the
whole world that includes physical and human phenomena alike, is rational
two possible positions: firstly to admit that they are not identical,
and secondly to hold that they are only similar and identical. But,
isn’t it less likely that they are similar? Isn’t it rather arrogant
were similar. This marked the beginning of the tragedy of the modern
world, even if many did not notice it. Towards the end of the seventeenth
its adverse effect seriously, the century in which Paul Hazard saw the
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in favor of the idea that these two orders of rationality were, and
should be, identical. This bizarre idea was typically the spiritual
the next century, the Enlightenment, that human understanding was the
sole basis of what was rational; holding without reservation that the
individual who sensed and thought was the only assurance of rationality
impute him too much, we have to add that it was not John Locke alone
but the growth and expansion of market economy with economists serving
hope. All of the above streams merged into a torrent to crash the door
our imagination centuries back and rethink the whole matters; very hard
arising from market economy, this recognition should have been more
grave. It had had to realize that human societies all over are seriously
human artificiality.
naturally did not mingle himself lost in this torrent. He did not fail
to argue strongly that the two orders of rationality were not altogether
54
in vain”; thus he made solemn breakaway from that European particularity
that we have dealt with. The only voluminous book he himself wanted
nature being rational and the humans being rational. In spite of the
fact that this work of Leibniz has often been taken, even by Leibnizian
the following remark concerning “the part” and “the whole” is only one:
“...Ce qui trompe en cette matière, est, comme j’ay déja remarqué, qu’on
est le meilleur aussi qui soit possible dans chaque partie. On raisonne
la qualité paroit aussi dans nostre cas. La partie du plus court chemin
entre deux extrémités est aussi le plus court chemin entre les extrémités
belle chose n ’est pas tousjours belle, pouvant être tirée du tout, ou
in parentheses mine).
Here he says that, even if geometrically the shortest path between the
55
two extremes is at the same time the shortest path between the other
two extremes inherent in this whole, the same case is not true when
whole is not necessarily the best nor beautiful, “because the part can
universe “the whole”; which idea I feel quite certain that Leibniz himself
had in mind when he wrote the above. All the more, he argues almost
in every page of it that we should feel pious for the fact that what
as well be humble toward the world: the universe; thus making us aware
admired that “next to calculus, and to other thoughts that have been
Conclusion
who, departing from the very long history of the European concept of
Natural Law, had finally put to an end the very misleading synonymy
between human reason on one hand and the nature being rational on the
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the essential insight into human cultural plurality for the first time
but it has still been far from sufficient for us to acquire the genius
of his philosophy. Paul Schrecker back in 1937, just a few years before
the outbreak of the great war of the twentieth century, spoke in his
If we, more than half a century later, are not altogether immune from
scientist who, as early in the seventeenth century and from the highest
when we think of our ethics and virtues. He also convinces us that thus
57
thinking should in the end lead us definitely to the road towards our
resulting from fatally defective logic and reasoning. For one thing,
whom we have to learn many more. He is the scientist we should not leave
ever out of our mind in order to recognize to what extent our notions
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I have two known troubles of code set to tackle with when I intend this
1): Japanese characters utilize a particular code set in 2-byte which can not
go along with single byte set. This is mainly why I refrain from listing up
2): Although there are proposals on PDF, none of them seems to be de facto
standard at the moment. I choose MS-Word simply because it’s the only one
I have. But this will help. The file is tested for MS-Word v.6 or higher.
(Thanks to Adobe, things have changed and PDF is made quite popular these
----------------
59
Bibliography:
1) Leibniz’s Works:
1969 Olms
Riley, Patrick (ed. & transl.); Political Writings, 2nd ed.; 1989
Cambridge
Abbreviations:
60
2) Other Works:
Frommann
Breger, Herbert; Machine und Seele als Paradigmen der Natur- philosophie
bei Leibniz, in Weizsäcker & Rudolph (ed.), Zeit und Logik bei Leibniz;
1989 Klett-Cotta
Heinekamp, Albert; Das Problem des Guten bei Leibniz; 1969 Kantstudien,
Hobbes, Thomas; De Cive: the English version; ed. Warrender; 1983 Oxford
Jolly, Nicholas; Leibniz and Locke: A study of the New Essay on Human
Locke, John; Essays on the Law of Nature, (1676); transl. Leyden; 1954
Oxford
Oxford
61
Meli, Domenico B.; Equivalence and Priority: Newton versus Leibniz,
1993 Oxford
Pufendorf, Samuel; On the Duty of Man and Citizen; Tully ed., Silverthorne
transl.; Cambridge
Cambridge
pp.193-229
H. Beck
1951 Mohr
62