What is Leibniz's philosophy of monads?

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's 1714 essay The Monadology presents a metaphysics built on simple substances known as monads. According to this framework, an infinite number of these basic units and immense forces make up the universe. This work stands as a key text of his later philosophy and seventeenth-century rationalism.

What we know

• The Monadology is a short text written in 1714 that presents a metaphysics of simple substances called monads. [2]
• Leibniz's philosophy posits that there are infinite monads serving as the basic forces, elementary particles, or simplest units making up the universe. [3]
• The term monad originates from the Ancient Greek words monas meaning unity and monos meaning alone. [3]
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a leading representative of seventeenth-century rationalism and idealism. [4]

Where to go next

• whoWho was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz?
• the bigger pictureWhat is early modern rationalism?
• compared withHow did Pythagorean philosophy view the Monad?
• how we knowWhat are the core texts of seventeenth-century metaphysics?
• how it workedHow does Leibniz's notion of possible worlds relate to his monads?
• an unexpected connectionHow does binary arithmetic connect to metaphysical monads?The same polymath who conceived an infinite universe of elementary metaphysical monads also devised the modern binary number system used in digital computing.

Sources

• [1]Monadology (Wikidata Q1211539) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Monadology · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Monad (philosophy) · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]History of philosophy · CC BY-SA 4.0