On Leibniz: Expanded Edition

7. Leibnizian Neo-Platonism and Rational Mechanics

136 One of the saliently definitive doctrines of Neoplatonism issues from the teaching of Plato’s Timaeus (29D–30C) that intelligence, reason, and value are the crucial factors for explaining and understanding the nature of the universe. In no other major thinker in the Western tradition did this line of thought play a more central, determinative, and ultimately influential role than in the philosophy of G. W. Leibniz, who often avowed himself to be a follower of Plato and who, in turn, passed his Platonic vision of things on to a longcontinuing tradition. In this brief chapter I can do no more than hint at the various connections that unite these thinkers. I submit three facts to be decisive in this regard, namely: 1. That Leibniz had in hand a characteristic project for the development of physics that was deeply indebted to Neo-Platonism—and indeed to Plato himself, through Phaedo and Timaeus. 2. That this project led—via the principle of least action—to the development of rational mechanics in the era of pre-Maxwellian physics. 3. That significant aspects of this project are very much alive in contemporary science, particularly in the work and thought of Albert Einstein and of Kurt Gödel.1  7 Leibnizian Neo-Platonism and Rational Mechanics Gödel identifies himself with Leibniz more than with anybody else. —Hao Wang, Reflections on Kurt Gödel Leibnizian neo-platonism and rational mechanics 137 1. Leibnizian Physics The Leibnizian program in physics sought to dig through to a stratum deeper than that of the Newtonian synthesis. For Newton’s own program in physics was essentially that of the ancient Greek mechanicians and astronomers . With Archimedes and Ptolemy, it asks “what laws of nature can we stipulate to ‘save the phenomena’ by providing an adequate accounting for why our observations are as they are?” In a like manner, it addresses this question by looking for the laws that challenge the observable phenomena.2 But Leibniz took a different line here, one which in effect says: “Fine. Let us give this program our full support. But let us suppose we are successful in getting our minds around an ample sector of nature’s laws. There still remains the question: viewing these laws themselves as our ‘phenomena,’ how can we best ‘save’ them—that is, how can we account for the fact that these laws are as they are?” Thus even as standard physics studies nature’s phenomena by observation and experimentation to discern the laws governing nature’s phenomenal modus operandi, so Leibnizian physics studies nature’s laws in thoughtexperimental deliberation to discern the “architectonic” principles of rational economy, harmonious order, and functional efficacy governing nature’s lawful modus operandi. With such a methodology as “thought-experimental deliberation” at his disposal, Leibniz explains the need for more elemental principles to buttress, justify, and explain the principles of mechanics for all natural phenomena: All natural phenomena could be explained mechanically [that is, scientifically ] if we understood them well enough, but the principles of mechanics themselves cannot be so explained . . . since they depend on more substantive [that is, deeper] principles. [These involve] sublime principles of order and perfection, which indicate that the universe is the effect of a universal intelligent power.3 Leibnizian physics is thus a two-tier affair as per display 1. It sees the world’s phenomena as explicable by the laws of nature but has it that these laws themselves are to be explained with reference to deeper fundamental principles that are of an essentially evaluative sort. Ultimately, Lebnizian physics is a quest for the intelligent and intelligible design of the universe. 138 Leibnizian neo-platonism and rational mechanics Leibniz wrote with this end in mind in a very interesting and important essay titled “Tentamen Anagogicum,” written in 1696, wherein he states: The principles of mechanics themselves cannot be explained geometrically , since they depend on more sublime principles which show the wisdom of the Author in the order and perfection of his work. The most beautiful thing about this view seems to me to be that the principle of perfection is not limited to the general but descends also to the particulars of things and of phenomena and that in this respect it closely resembles the method of optimal forms.4 Optimal forms, according to Leibniz, are those equations that represent maximality, morality, continuity, and conservation, while the physics he references is one effectively...