Religion And The New Psychology Book

In 1899, when Bertrand Russell was still in his (very) early career, he was asked to fill in for a colleague to give a lecture series on the philosophy of Gottfried Leibniz, the seventeenth century philosopher, mathematician and theologian. It is characteristic of Bertrand Russell that he integrated Leibniz’ own works, published and unpublished, works by contemporary scholars on Leibniz and his own critical analyses into a highly original treatment of Leibniz’ philosophy. Subsequently, he re-wrote some of his material and published it as a book The Philosophy of Leibniz (1900).

In this book, Russell breaks down Leibniz’ philosophy as a whole, in all its aspects. As he mentions, Leibniz never published one magnum opus in which he laid out his system – à la Spinoza’s Ethica – although his system, even more so than Spinoza’s, lends itself to a geometrical format. To understand Russell’s remark, it is necessary to see what his project entails. He sets out to flesh out all of Leibniz’ ideas (again, including the unpublished letters and manuscripts) and offers his own analysis of them as a whole.

Russell first treats the fundamental logical principles of Leibniz’ philosophy. That is, the core of Leibniz’ philosophy consists in some logical assumptions, such as the law of non-contradiction (for necessary truths), the law of sufficient reason (for contingent truths), the concept of substance, the law of indiscernibles (all substances are solely identical with themselves) and the related problem of continuity with the theory of compossibility as a solution.

According to Russell this logical apparatus is the central piece of Leibniz’ philosophy which one has to understand. From these core ideas all of Leibniz’ other theories – his metaphysics, his physics, his logic, his theology, his ethics – can be deduced as applications and solutions to internal contradictions inherent in the core logical apparatus. The key problem in Leibniz is twofold: on the one hand his use of the scholastic notion ‘substance’ leads him into insurmountable problems (the existence of the external world, the possibility of knowledge, etc.) and on the other hand his attempt to model all knowledge on the logic of subjects and predicates. To be more precise: his adherence to the Aristotelean logic of subject-predicate necessitates the adoption of substance, as the substratum in which both the subject and its predicates inhere. And the notion of substance leads to all the aforementioned problems.

Russell’s main criticism on this point is that Leibniz, while attempting to formalize all knowledge through the help of symbolism and deductive logic, instead of realizing the limits of Aristotelean logic in this sphere blindly submitted to the authority of this Greek philosopher. Argument from authority – very un-philosophical.

It would go too far to point out all of Russell’s criticism, but some of the key problems in Leibniz’ philosophy are: the existence of the external world, the implication of substance for physics (especially the nature of matter, continuity and extension), the question as to the status of space and time, the relationship between mind and body, the possibility of knowledge, and the theological problems concerning God and ethics.

Leibniz’ theory of monads plays a key role in all these problems. According to him all that really exists is monads. The universe, itself finite, consists of an infinite collection of indivisible entities. These entities were created by God and in this are necessary, yet in their existence they are contingent – they are particular actualizations of all possible existences. Leibniz claims these monads do not interact with each other, in effect rejecting causality, and are related in a highly peculiar way: they internally mirror the entire system of monads from their creation ever onwards. Since they are purely intensive, all extensive qualities – as, for example, applied in physics, are illusory. Extension, for example, is not the essence of matter (as Descartes claimed), but is solely a quality that matter possesses in virtue of being a collection of monads.

Monads come in three sorts: bare monads, souls and spirits – and are hierarchically ordered in this way. All matter is a collection of monads, animals have souls – feelings, memory, perception – and human beings and higher beings have, by addition, a spirit. All things are determined, ultimately, through God, yet spirits have some of God’s essence, and thus partake (to a certain degree) in His perfection. This allows them to freely act – to the degree that they are perfect – while being determined as monads.

Leibniz’ whole project consisted of integrating Cartesian mechanistic materialism, Aristotelean logic and Christian theology into a coherent whole. That is, he wanted to avoid having recourse to Spinozism – the only alternative to atheistic materialism/atomism and blind religious faith. In this, Leibniz showed his openness for the scientific progress of his time, but in the end his was unable to let go of his theological prejudices, bending and twisting his theories in order to fit the preconceived ideas.

According to Russell, most (or all?) of Leibniz’ inconsistencies flow from his theological and ethical prejudices, and the absurd and ad hoc solutions he offers to these spring from the same source. Whenever he encountered an insoluble problem, he simply inserted God. Since God was defined to be Perfection, this was (deemed to be) the perfect solution. For example, his whole distinction between necessity and contingency is derived from the need for a transcendental ground for all existing things – going as far back as Aristotle’s first mover. Another example is the fact that Leibniz had to explain away evil as a positive thing and thus defined it to be the lack of good – and in so doing allowed himself to claim both the Goodness of God and the beneficence of this universe through its pre-established harmony.

As a matter of fact, as Russell says in the final paragraph:

“In Leibniz’s philosophy everything, from the Law of Sufficient Reason onwards, depends, through the introduction of final causes, upon Ethics. But Ethics, being a subject on which theology is very definite, could not be dealt with by Leibniz in a free spirit. The Ethics to which he was entitled was very similar to Spinoza’s; it had the same fallacies, and similar consequences. But being the champion of orthodoxy against the decried atheist, Leibniz shrank from the consequences of his views, and took refuge in the perpetual iteration of edifying phrases. The whole tendency of his temperament, as of his philosophy, was to exalt enlightenment, education, and learning, at the expense of ignorant good intentions. This tendency might have found a logical expression in his Ethics. But he preferred to support Sin and Hell, and to remain, in what concerned the Church, the champion of ignorance and obscurantism. This is the reason why the best parts of his philosophy are the most abstract, and the worst those which most nearly concern human life.” (paragraph 124, p. 202)

That is to say, Leibniz’ logical apparatus was highly original and if only he could have seen the need to depart from Aristotelean subject-predicate logic, he would have been able to make huge progress towards the symbolic logic which Russell and his contemporaries were working very hard. And his logical treatment of space, time, continuity, infinity, matter and motion would have been much more fruitful if he just had let go of his theological desires – or his personal desires to please his superiors and contemporary.

This final point deserves emphasis, since Russell, throughout the book, remarks that there are two Leibnizian metaphysical systems. The one he published in his Theodicy and which adhered to Christian morality and the one he never published and was only discovered posthumously (some if it only during the nineteenth century in Leibniz’ documentation) – and it is this latter system that showed Leibniz to be aware that some, or perhaps even most, of the inconsistencies in his system stem from ethical-theological problems. The fact that he hid these realizations; and the fact that he publicly distanced himself from Spinoza when the latter was condemned in Holland (while being formerly on friendly terms with him and even having met him in private); the fact that he develops his monadism as an escape from (Spinoza’s) monism; these facts show Leibniz to be a small person. Perhaps a great thinker, but still, intellectually dishonest and humanly inferior to a great man like Spinoza, who never bowed to his critics and drew philosophical consequences from his principles notwithstanding the social response.

In all, The Philosophy of Leibniz is a highly original work – I found Russell’s analyses and conclusions to be fresh and innovative – and a superb exposé of analytic philosophy: careful study of definitions and deductions and critical reflection on these. It is perhaps not one of Russell’s most accessible works, especially since it was his first major work (and he developed his views on logic, metaphysics, physics and psychology much throughout his career – all of which are present in this book) and also since one needs to be somewhat familiar with Leibniz’ own works. Although this latter point is anticipated by Russell: he has added about 100 pages of passages of Leibniz and throughout the book he refers the reader to particular passages – so perhaps this can be read without having a prior knowledge of Leibniz’ philosophy. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed the book!