Beyond Co-Compensation Clause Samples

Beyond Co-Compensation. In the papers comprising ▇▇ ▇▇▇▇▇ rerum, Leibniz introduces two new elements into his thinking on harmony. The first can be gleaned from the following passage: 2 DSR xxxvi. 3 I say “metaphysical conception” because this chapter will not treat the use of harmony in Leibniz’s mathematics. Though the relationship between the mathematical and metaphysical notions of harmony is a ripe area for further research, a detailed inquiry here would take us too far afield. For Leibniz’s “harmonic triangle” and its role in the development of the calculus, see Historia et Origo Calculi Differentialis, edited originally by ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ and with an English translation in Child’s volume. For recent studies on the idea of harmony in Leibniz’s mathematics, see Serfati (“Leibniz’s Practice of Harmony in Mathematics” and “Mathematical and Philosophical Aspects of the Harmonic Triangle in Leibniz”). (A) After due consideration I take as a principle the harmony of things: that is, that the greatest amount of essence that can exist, does exist. It follows that there is more reason for existing than for not existing, and that all things will exist, if that can come about.4 This remark stands out not only because in it Leibniz for the first time explicitly deems harmony a principle, but also because it introduces a new factor into our understanding of harmony: the maximization of essence. What is new here is not the idea of maximization as such—Leibniz’s principles in the Mainz period already commit him to the position that God seeks the greatest possible diversity, for God seeks the greatest possible harmony and the degree of harmony increases only with added diversity—but the idea that harmony entails the maximization of essence. On a plausible reading of the co-compensation definition of harmony—i.e., identity compensated by diversity, diversity compensated by identity—God seeks to create the greatest possible number of things. With passage A, Leibniz makes clear that more than the sheer multiplication of things, it is the maximization of quantity of essence (or, what amounts to the same thing, of perfection) which characterizes the most harmonious world. These two criteria—the maximal number of substances and the maximal quantity of essence—are not identical. Possible substances in the mind of God are distinguished according to their levels of perfection; each has a quantifiable amount of essence. It is entirely possible, therefore, that a world with fewer entities could have a great...