Monadology.. (original) (raw)
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In this essay I discuss Leibniz's monadology: its motivations, its meanings (partly resting on Samkya Hindu Philosophy), and legacy today.
How persistence and change are compatible has been the subject of important metaphysical analysis. Today there is a tendency to focus this inquiry in persistence, leaving change as something obvious. Taking a different approach, I try to clarify the concept of change, using the figure of " situations ". A " situation " is defined as the set of elements and relations known by who is making a judgment about a change. In this view, change is characterized as a special type of relation between two different situations, which are linked by means of a partial sameness. This idea can be extended to the concept of time. Under this perspective, a series of parallel sequences of situations having successive changes provide a basis for understanding time, which seems to emerge as a derivative concept that encompasses these series of situations in a global unity.
Aristotle on the Unity of Change
Ancient Philosophy, 2010
Although the stated purpose of Physics viii 8 is to prove that only circular locomotion is infinitely continuous, it is generally recognized that a major sub-theme of the chapter has to do with the unity of change and centers on Zeno's dichotomy paradox. According to one influential account of this sub-theme, Aristotle returns to the dichotomy paradox in Physics viii 8, primarily to engage in a defensive maneuver. In Physics vi, while focused on the infinite divisibility of change instead of its identity conditions, Aristotle left open the possibility that occurrences that are 'one change' could have infinitely many parts that are also 'one change'. 1 By Physics viii 8, however, Zeno has brought Aristotle to realize that if this possibility is admitted, then what one chooses to call 'one change' is to a large extent arbitrary. But this Aristotle cannot countenance, because his entire theory of change is built upon the concept of a change as a thing uniquely definable as the passage from a particular state to a particular state. In Physics viii 8, then, Aristotle seeks to avoid this result by 'refining' the definition of 'one change' so that 'one change' can no longer have parts that are also 'one change' and by invoking the metaphysical machinery of the act-potency distinction to give a positive characterization of the difference between change parts and change wholes. 2 According to Michael White, Aristotle 'refines' his definition of 'one change' in Physics viii 8 by strengthening the criteria of Physics v 4; criteria, which, White is correct to point out, do nothing to prevent this result on their own. 3 According to White, this 'refinement' consists in adding, to the criteria of Physics v 4 (i.e., the criteria that 'one change' must be in a continuous time, have a single subject throughout, and proceed throughout from a terminus of the same species to a contrary terminus of the same species), the additional condition that an occurrence that is 'one change' must be bracketed by periods of rest and contain no periods of rest. This condition is never stated as such in Physics viii 8, but it can be inferred from the doctrine, explicitly invoked in Aristotle's discussion