Leibniz On The Issue Of Unity: Ideas, Substances, Phenomena

This thesis intends to examine the path of Leibniz's metaphysics system. Following the clue of the issue of unity, we define the system as three levels, which are:universal ideas are unified into the complete concept of substance; substances are unified into the world; and the aggregates of the monads are unified into the life-form phenomenon. What differentiates the three levels is a kind of distinction among different dimensions.Leibniz's system is constructed in order to solve the difficulties in certain other systems which can be seen as its potential opponents. On the one hand, he accepts the absolute self-identity of Plato's eidos, however, refuses to consider it as substance for its lack of individuation and activity. On the other hand, he accepts the individuality and activity of Aristotle's hylomorphic substance after abandoning the heterogeneity between the two elements in it, moreover, criticizes that this type of metaphysics can not offer an individual definition for substance. Hereby, Leibniz's system is constituted of three basic affirmances:first, substance must be a concret individual being with the first class reality; second, substance is formed from the ideas, hence originates from a single source; and third, the ideas have the second class reality, and the world of ideas in a sense exists seperately.In order to satisfy these demands, Leibniz's first step is to affirm the reality of the ideas. He claims that in God's intellect domain there is a world composed of universal essences, which is in the ontological order prior to the world of substance, although it is arranged in the lower place in the order of reality. The second step is that a'torsion'in God's volition domain produces from the one and same world of idea infinite many possible worlds of substance. This is a demension-elevating process, in which the individuality is derived from the universality and the time is created from the timeless. The two-demension theory indicates in the metaphisical level that the power which unifies the ideas into the substance is equated with the 'torsion'which elevates the dimension.To endue the substance with individuality in metaphysical level, Leibniz creates such a theory:each substance is a specialization of the world it is situated in, by means that God in a particular way internalizes the whole world into the complete concept of substance. The world as "the whole" defines the border of substance, out of which the substance becomes a being with the greatest containment, that is, the primary subject or individual in Aristotle's sense. The reason for substances being unified into one world is at the same time provided, since all substances represent the same antetypal world. Another condition for the substance's individuality lies on that it has the unicity in the sense of metaphysics, that is, every substance stands for God's one unique point of view observing the world. The substance's positivity bases on that as an absolute subject a substance can spontaneously deduce its predicates, on the other side, it is endued with a primitive force by God. This force presents as the perception under the drive of desire, the psychological mechanism of which is reflected as the minute perceptions producing the distinct one according to differential laws.The plurality of monads is the precondition of perception as well as the basis of the material phenomenon. The pluralism finds its root in moral necessity, in other words, the variety of the point of views manifests the perfection of God. In Leibniz's opinion, the essence of the matter is not extension but aggregation and diffusion of monads. Therefore, the absolute monadology inevitably leads to animism. The reason that monads are unified into orderly material phenomenon firstly lies in that they internalize in themselves the same antetypal world, more important, in that the principle of harmony which implants a priori in all monads makes them present as living beings, thereby bring a kind of unity to the phenomenon world.