In light of our recent Spinoza discussions, it seems an apt time to review Leibniz, whom we talked about way back in Episode 6.
This video (and its two sequels; the author's intended "10 small videos" did not not materialize), with its deadpan German narrator and its low-budget visual aids, provides an introduction to monads for those of you like myself with short memories and/or an appreciation of cheese.
Watch on youtube: http://youtu.be/pFzV5Dan09o.
By: Mark Linsenmayer
Wes Alwan says
September 14, 2010 at 10:28 amWild
Wes Alwan says
September 14, 2010 at 10:29 amactually, creepy
burl says
September 14, 2010 at 12:01 pmI have never seen an apple breakdancing. Lady GaGa does not have a stranglehold on talent after all!
burl says
September 17, 2010 at 8:20 am“Leibniz’s notion that each Monad represents the rest of the universe is something to which comparable ideas turn up in rare but curious places. Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), who produced one of the rare Rationalistic systems of metaphysics in the 20th century, postulated something similar to Leibniz’s Monads, the “actual entities,” which, although momentary and not permanent substances like the Monads, do also reflect in themselves the rest of the universe. Most interestingly, however, both Leibniz and Whitehead are often compared to Hua-yen Buddhism in China. In classic Buddhist metaphysics, the dharmas, which are rather like Whitehead’s momentary entities, are “empty,” which means that they have no essence or nature of their own. This is contrary to Leibniz, except that the Monads possess their own identity by a representation of the entire universe, which is pretty much where the dharmas get their nature also, by “relative existence,” the relation of the dharmas to everthing else. The Hua-yen doctrine is of the “interpenetration of the dharmas,” whereby “relative existence” is developed into something rather like the representation of everything in the Monads. All these doctrines, of course, including Aristotle’s intentional forms, are responses to the continuing epistemological challenge of accounting for objective knowledge when the subject is actually not the object. It has always been tempting to pack the deck metaphysically in such a way that the epistemological question will answer itself.”
http://www.friesian.com/leibniz.htm