Leibnizs Distinction Between Natural and Artificial Machines :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Leibnizs Distinction Between Natural and soupy MachinesABSTRACT I maintain that Leibnizs distinction between organic fertilizer simple forges of nature and the faux machine that we produce can non be adequately mute simply in monetary value of differing orders of structural complexity. It is not simply that natural machines, having been made by God, ar infinitely much complex than the products of our own artifice. Instead, Leibnizs distinction is a good metaphysical one, having its root in his belief that every natural machine is a corporeal substance, the unity and identity conditions of which derive ultimately from its literal form. Natural machines be thus true unities, while artificial machines are mere aggregates of substances and are therefore tho accidental unities. I concisely explore this connection between Leibnizs distinction between natural and artificial machines and his views about individuality. I conclude on a polemical note, in which it is suggested tha t these results undermine the currently popular view that Leibniz renounced corporeal substances toward the end of his life. groundingLeibniz often distinguishes between organic machines of nature and the machines that we construct. This distinction might not seem to have been an original contribution on his part. Similar distinctions were pull by many early modern philosophers, particularly Cartesians, who contrasted our machines with the much more complex (yet mechanized) products of the divine artifice. Leibnizs distinction was not this simple. For him, the passing between our machines and organic machines of nature was not simply a difference in storey it was not simply a matter of Gods machines being more structurally complex than the mechanisms that we produce. More generally, Leibnizs distinction between organic (i.e., natural) and human-made (i.e., artificial) machines cannot be understood as long as we confine our gaze to the realm of mechanical phenomena that are desc ribed by physics, for it is a deeper metaphysical distinction grow in his views about substances.Leibniz does occasionally draw the distinction in equipment casualty of structural complexity, claiming that natural machines, since they were built by God, are infinitely more complex than the machines that we make. This might appear to undermine my claim that Leibnizs distinction cannot (unlike quasi(prenominal) distinctions drawn by his contemporaries) be understood simply in monetary value of varying degrees of structural complexity. However, I shall contend that his formulation of the distinction in terms of structural complexity presupposes a more basic difference between natural and artificial machines, a difference that can only be adequately characterized within his metaphysics.