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WorkGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Discourse on Metaphysics

Thirty-seven sections of metaphysics written in a few idle days, and sent to Arnauld only as headings.

by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz89 passages held

  • French, the original language
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Original title
Discours de métaphysique
First published
(published posthumously)
Original language
French

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Overview

Early in 1686 Leibniz told Ernst, Landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfels, that he had just written a short discourse on metaphysics during a few days with nothing to do, and asked him to pass a summary to Antoine Arnauld. He meant it partly as a contribution to the quarrel between Arnauld and Nicolas Malebranche, the Oratorian philosopher. Against Descartes, who had made the eternal truths depend on God's will, the thirty-seven sections argue that goodness and truth have standards God follows rather than invents; against Malebranche, who held that God could have made a better world, they argue that a perfect God acts in the most perfect way. The centre is a new account of what a thing is. Each individual substance has a notion so complete that everything true of it, down to Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, is contained in it, and each expresses the whole universe from its own point of view. No created substance acts on another; their agreement comes from God. Against the current of his century, Leibniz also brought back the substantial forms of the scholastics, which the mechanical philosophers had thrown out, while insisting that physics should still explain particular events mechanically. A section on Descartes' mistaken measure of motion announces the dynamics he began publishing that same year. Only the headings reached Arnauld, and the letters they provoked left their mark on the final text. The full treatise stayed in Hanover, unprinted until 1846; it is now taken to mark the beginning of Leibniz's mature metaphysics.

Key concepts

Whom is the Discourse on Metaphysics arguing against?

Descartes and Malebranche, from opposite sides. Descartes had made the eternal truths depend on God’s will; the Discourse answers that goodness and truth have standards God follows rather than invents. Malebranche held that God could have made a better world; the Discourse answers that a perfect God acts in the most perfect way. Leibniz meant it partly as a contribution to the quarrel between Arnauld and Malebranche.

What does the Rubicon example show?

That an individual substance has a notion so complete that everything true of it is contained in it. Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon is not something that merely happened to Caesar; it belongs to the notion of Caesar himself. The example makes vivid what Leibniz means by an individual, and at once raises the question how such a crossing can still be free.

What does it mean that each substance ‘expresses the whole universe’?

That every individual substance represents, from its own point of view, everything else that exists. No created substance acts on another, so this agreement is not produced by interaction; it comes from God. Substances differ in the point of view from which each expresses the same universe.

What are substantial forms, and why did Leibniz bring them back?

The scholastics’ principles of what makes a thing the kind of substance it is, which the mechanical philosophers had thrown out of nature. Leibniz restored them as part of his account of substance, against the current of his century, while insisting that physics should still explain particular events mechanically. Forms belong to the question of what a thing is, not how an event happened.

Why did Arnauld see only the headings, and when was the text printed?

Leibniz asked Ernst, Landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfels, to pass on only a summary, and the full treatise stayed in Hanover. The headings provoked the letters with Arnauld, which left their mark on the final text. The Discourse remained unprinted until 1846, and is now taken to mark the beginning of Leibniz’s mature metaphysics.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Standards God Follows Rather Than Invents

Is something good because God wills it, or does God will it because it is good? Leibniz takes the second answer against Descartes, then turns it against Malebranche.

Descartes had made the eternal truths depend on God’s will, so that goodness and truth would be whatever God decreed. The Discourse answers that goodness and truth have standards God follows rather than invents. Malebranche, from the other side, held that God could have made a better world than this one; against him the sections argue that a perfect God acts in the most perfect way. The two replies rest on one conviction: God’s choices have reasons, and those reasons are not beyond understanding.

  • divine wisdom
  • divine will
  • perfection
  • divine providence
  • theodicy
  • teleology
  • possibility

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Everything True of Caesar

What is an individual? A notion so complete, Leibniz answers, that everything true of the person, down to the crossing of the Rubicon, is already contained in it.

At the centre of the Discourse is a new account of what a thing is. Each individual substance has a notion so complete that everything true of it is contained in it, and each expresses the whole universe from its own point of view. No created substance acts on another; their agreement comes from God. The account raises at once the question of freedom: if the Rubicon crossing was in Caesar’s notion from the start, in what sense did he choose it? Sent to Arnauld only as headings, the treatise provoked letters that left their mark on its final text.

  • substance
  • personal identity
  • expression
  • perception
  • causation
  • contingency
  • necessity
  • free will
  • moral responsibility
  • metaphysics

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Substantial Forms in a Mechanical Century

Can a philosopher bring back the scholastics’ substantial forms and still let physics explain events mechanically? Against the current of his century, Leibniz wanted both.

The mechanical philosophers had thrown the substantial forms of the scholastics out of nature. Leibniz brought them back as part of the account of what a substance is, while insisting that physics should still explain particular events mechanically. Forms answer the question of what a thing is, not how a particular event came about. The same pages take on Descartes as a physicist: a section on his mistaken measure of motion announces the dynamics Leibniz began publishing that same year.

  • substantial forms
  • mechanism
  • mechanics
  • force
  • motion
  • efficient causes
  • final causes
  • explanation

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Within this work

passages held
89
distinct concepts
181
by passages held, corpus-wide
#531

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “contingency” and “free will”.
Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 9 pairings. 82 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
ConceptPaired conceptShared passages
contingencyfree will4
divine providencetheodicy4
divine providenceteleology3
causationdivine providence2
causationperception2
divine providencedivine will2
teleologytheodicy2
causationteleology1
free willtheodicy1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

  1. 1684 Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas (Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis)

    A journal article of 1684, written into the Arnauld–Malebranche quarrel over ideas; its grades of knowledge return in the Discourse on Metaphysics and the New Essays.

     LA
  2. 1691 Whether the Essence of a Body Consists in Extension (Lettre sur la question si l'essence du corps consiste dans l'étendue)

    Against the Cartesian view that body is nothing but extension: a letter to the Paris Journal des Sçavans in 1691, followed by a second in 1693.

     FR
  3. 1695 New System of Nature (Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances)

    Leibniz's first public statement of his system, printed in Paris in 1695; his replies to Foucher and Bayle kept it in the journals until 1698.

     FR
  4. 1698 On Nature Itself (De ipsa natura)

    An answer to Johann Christoph Sturm in the Acta Eruditorum of 1698, defending forces inside created things and tying the dynamics to the metaphysics of substance.

     LA
  5. 1710 Theodicy (Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal)

    Published anonymously at Amsterdam in 1710, it was the book by which the eighteenth century knew Leibniz, and the one Voltaire answered with Candide.

     FR
  6. 1717 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Recueil des lettres entre Leibniz et Clarke)

    Ten papers exchanged through the Princess of Wales in 1715–16, cut off by Leibniz's death and published by Clarke in 1717.

     FR
  7. 1718 Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason (Principes de la nature et de la grâce fondés en raison)

    A companion summary from the same Vienna months as the Monadology, long mistaken for it and printed before it, in 1718.

     FR
  8. 1720 Monadology (Monadologie)

    Written in French in 1714, it was known for over a century only in German and Latin translation.

     FR
  9. 1765 New Essays on Human Understanding (Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain)

    The book-length reply to Locke, written as a dialogue in 1703–04, withheld after Locke's death and first printed in 1765.

     FR
  10. 1840 Discourse Touching the Method of Certitude and the Art of Discovery (Discours touchant la méthode de la certitude et l'art d'inventer)

    A plea for royal patronage of the sciences, addressed to an unnamed king, apparently Louis XIV, setting out the method of certainty and art of discovery Leibniz pursued for decades.

     FR
  11. 1840 On the Ultimate Origination of Things (De rerum originatione radicali)

    A short Latin essay of 1697 on why there is a world at all, left in manuscript until 1840.

     LA
  12. 1840 Reflections on the Doctrine of a Single Universal Spirit (Considérations sur la doctrine d'un Esprit Universel Unique)

    A French essay written in 1702 at the Prussian queen's palace outside Berlin, and left unprinted until 1840.

     FR
  13. 1846 Discourse on Metaphysics (Discours de métaphysique) you are here FR
  14. 1846 The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence (Correspondance de Leibniz et d'Arnauld)

    The exchange of 1686 to 1690 between Leibniz and Arnauld over the Discourse on Metaphysics, every letter carried by the Landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfels.

     FR
  15. 1854 Refutation of Spinoza (Animadversiones ad Joh. Georg. Wachteri librum de recondita Hebraeorum philosophia)

    Private Latin notes on Wachter's book about Spinoza and the Kabbalah, given their title by the French scholar who published them in 1854.

     FR
  16. 1890 Tentamen Anagogicum: An Anagogical Essay in the Investigation of Causes (Essai anagogique dans la recherche des causes)

    A French essay of about 1696, from the years of Leibniz's dynamics, defending final causes against the mechanical philosophers.

     FR
  17. 1903 New Openings (Nouvelles Ouvertures)

    Written in French in 1686, by the Academy edition's dating, and left in manuscript until Couturat printed it in 1903.

     FR
  18. 1903 Preface to the General Science (Préface de la Science générale)

    Probably from 1677, an unfinished preface to the universal language of reasoning, unprinted until 1903.

     FR
  19. 1915 Confessio Philosophi (Confessio philosophi)

    Leibniz's first developed theodicy, a Latin dialogue from his Paris years; revised after Steno's objections, its account of sin returns much changed in the Theodicy of 1710.

     LA
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