What are Leibniz's possible worlds and monads?

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz proposed that God chose to create the best of all possible worlds, selecting a reality where all events and individual properties harmonize. Within his philosophical framework, a possible world consists of compossible individuals whose combined properties can coexist without contradiction. This concept of modal reality remains influential in contemporary analytic philosophy and modal logic.

What we know

• The phrase the best of all possible worlds was coined by Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work Essais de Théodicée. [2]
• A possible world is defined by Leibniz as being made up of individuals that are compossible, meaning their existence does not negate one another. [5]
• Leibniz used his doctrine of philosophical optimism to address the problem of evil by arguing that the actual world is the best God could have created. [2, 4]
• Modern analytic philosophy and modal logic adopted Leibniz's term possible world to provide formal semantics for modal notions. [3, 4]

Still open

• The precise metaphysical status of alternate possible worlds remains a subject of controversy among philosophers, debated through views like modal realism versus non-existent alternate realities.

Where to go next

• the bigger pictureWhat is modal realism in contemporary philosophy?
• how it workedHow do compossible individuals form a world?
• compared withWho were the major 17th-century rationalists alongside Leibniz?
• what caused itWhat role did the Theodicy play in Leibniz's work?
• an unexpected connectionHow did Voltaire satirize Leibniz's optimism?

Sources

• [1]best of all possible worlds (Wikidata Q1217908) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Best of all possible worlds · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Possible world · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Compossibility · CC BY-SA 4.0

Your path

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7. /What are Leibniz's possible worlds and monads?