Skip to main content

Monads, death drive and panbiosis

Around section 67 of the Monadology, Leibniz firmly embraces an object-oriented ontology (it is a monad-oriented ontology where the particulars are individuated with respect to the rest of the world, but the rest of the world itself boils down to monads.) Matter is made of monads all the way down and a mind relates to a body only when we consider a single layer; the body itself is made of monads and some matter and this matter is itself made of monads and some more matter and so forth. This recursive operation could also be used by the materialist who would take a mind to be composed of matter and further minds and so on. In any case, it is a thoroughly infinitist ontology. Each monad is singular and everything is full of them - Leibniz panbiosis insinuates a chain of beings that points towards some form of recaptulation thesis where more of the same (not quite the same) is found when we look for what is inside.

Interesting to consider the Leibniz scheme in a Nick Land / Brassier / Nigarestani environment. Monads long to become matter - in their own singular way they thrive for composition that would render them unnecessary. Like a clock-maker who aims to be perfect enough to afford to leave the stage (Leibniz´s God, who seems often to want to disappear in the cogs of the world). Monads entwine a death drive in their dealings with life: mattter is something to aspire to. They compose bodies because they want to dissolve in a world and yet matter is never fully realised as further layers of monads ever appear. The will for anihilation is perpetually postponed, deferred, left for the next layer. The state of pure matter is unreachable.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hunky, Gunky and Junky - all Funky Metaphysics

Been reading Bohn's recent papers on the possibility of junky worlds (and therefore of hunky worlds as hunky worlds are those that are gunky and junky - quite funky, as I said in the other post). He cites Whitehead (process philosophy tends to go hunky) but also Leibniz in his company - he wouldn't take up gunk as he believed in monads but would accept junky worlds (where everything that exists is a part of something). Bohn quotes Leibniz in On Nature Itself «For, although there are atoms of substance, namely monads, which lack parts, there are no atoms of bulk, that is, atoms of the least possible extension, nor are there any ultimate elements, since a continuum cannot be composed out of points. In just the same way, there is nothing greatest in bulk nor infinite in extension, even if there is always something bigger than anything else, though there is a being greatest in the intensity of its perfection, that is, a being infinite in power.» And New Essays: ... for there is nev
1 comment
Read more

Talk on ultrametaphysics

 This is the text of my seminar on ultrametaphysics on Friday here in Albuquerque. An attempt at a history of ultrametaphysics in five chapters Hilan Bensusan I begin with some of the words in the title. First, ‘ultrametaphysics’, then ‘history’ and ‘chapters’. ‘Ultrametaphysics’, which I discovered that in my mouth could sound like ‘ autre metaphysics’, intends to address what comes after metaphysics assuming that metaphysics is an endeavor – or an epoch, or a project, or an activity – that reaches an end, perhaps because it is consolidated, perhaps because it has reached its own limits, perhaps because it is accomplished, perhaps because it is misconceived. In this sense, other names could apply, first of all, ‘meta-metaphysics’ – that alludes to metaphysics coming after physics, the books of Aristotle that came after Physics , or the task that follows the attention to φύσις, or still what can be reached only if the nature of things is considered. ‘Meta-m
Post a Comment
Read more

Memory assemblages

My talk here at Burque last winter I want to start by thanking you all and acknowledging the department of philosophy, the University of New Mexico and this land, as a visitor coming from the south of the border and from the land of many Macroje peoples who themselves live in a way that is constantly informed by memory, immortality and their ancestors, I strive to learn more about the Tiwas, the Sandia peoples and other indigenous communities of the area. I keep finding myself trying to find their marks around – and they seem quite well hidden. For reasons to do with this very talk, I welcome the gesture of directing our thoughts to the land where we are; both as an indication of our situated character and as an archive of the past which carries a proliferation of promises for the future. In this talk, I will try to elaborate and recommend the idea of memory assemblage, a central notion in my current project around specters and addition. I begin by saying that I
Post a Comment
Read more