What is a substance=monad in Leibniz ? Leibniz's substances (monads) more resemble Plato's forms than being defined by their material makeup. This comes from his use of "parts" to define substances, or monads. Parts are unified regions with borders.
Monads or substances are mental (therefore nonextended ) representations of singular material (therefore extended) bodies which are unique, and have no parts, so that they can not be subdivided. However, they may have variations within and may change within. The elementary particles, being indivisible, might seemingly qualify as substances or monads, but in our view, these particles have no substantial existence, since they cannot be located to any precision according to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. There's no "there" there. Thus a corporeal body can not qualify as a monad due to the fact that the material of which the body is made can not be subdivided, but rather because its bulk may be considered a "unity". How about a cheese sandwich? This could not be a monad because its slices of cheese or bread can be cut in half. How about a man ? My argument here is that his body is a whole as long as he is alive. So his monad must be the whole man. Which is indicated by his monads' rating as being a soul (here technically called a spirit by Leibniz) . Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 10/12/2012 "Forever is a long time, especially near the end." -Woody Allen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
