The Concept of Love in 17th and 18th Century Philosophy

Leibniz on Love

Leibniz on Love Gábor Boros, Eötvös University Budapest We rarely think of Leibniz as a philosopher whose thinking primarily revolved around the passionate relationship we call love. Nevertheless, if we read his works on natural law or practical philosophy, we find the frequency with which he speaks about love (or, say, charity) startling. When imagining the mutually involved, intense relationship between Leibniz and the Prussian Queen Sophie Charlotte, who is not tempted to think about love? In what follows, I shall try to connect the threads running through Leibniz’s remarks on love into an integrated theory of the passions. I shall begin with an investigation into how Leibniz understood passion and action in general. I will proceed then to explore the metaphysical sense of love in his work. Finally, I will turn to love’s role in Leibniz’s natural law theory. 1.1. Passions, Passivity The word “passion” stems from the Latin patior, which means that something undergoes something. This means that something becomes the object of an action involuntarily. When analyzing a particular theory of passions, it is important to see who or what undergoes what sort of action and who or what is the agent, according to the theory in question. In Descartes, for example, we find that “we are not aware of any subject which acts more directly upon our soul than the body to which it is joined. Consequently we should recognize that what is a passion in the soul is usually an action in the body.”1 But what is the agent and what undergoes the action in Leibniz’s theory? Is it the body that acts upon the soul, as in Descartes? Or is it that the soul – itself having a bodily nature –suffers agitation from other parts of the body, as in Hobbes? Or is it like Spinoza’s theory, where the soul and the body, being one and the same thing, act and suffer together , not really suffering at all except from the active power of the rest of nature? We can only answer such questions by looking at the metaphysical foundations of Leibniz’s thinking. A permanent element within his metaphysics is the idea 79 1 CSMK 1, 328. “[N]ous ne remarquons point qu’il y ait aucun sujet qui agisse plus immediatement contre nostre ame, que le corps auquel elle est jointe; et que par consequent nous devons penser que ce qui est en elle une Passion, est communement en luy une Action” (Les Passions de l’âme, Art. 2). 06_Boros_Boros.qxd 12/17/2007 2:30 PM Page 79 that, far from being able to act on something on its own, the body in itself is incapable of forming a real unity, i.e., a real entity. Bodies cannot form substances on the basis of what constitutes their bodily nature; they need something else that is non-corporeal. This thesis turned Leibniz against the corpuscular thinkers, who held that there is something substantial in matter made up of small, perfectly rigid globes. Leibniz offers the counter-hypothesis that primary matter is perfectly fluid and has no internal limits or interconnections whatsoever. It is indeed rather hard to explain cohesion. But this cohesion of parts appears not to be necessary to make an extended whole, since perfectly rarefied and fluid matter may be said to make up an extended thing, without its parts being joined to one another. In fact, though, I think that perfect fluidity is appropriate only to primary matter – i.e., matter in the abstract, considered as an original quality like motionlessness . But it does not fit secondary matter – i.e., matter as it actually occurs, invested with its derivative qualities – for I believe that no mass is ultimately rarefied and that there is some degree of bonding everywhere. This is produced by motions, when they all run the same way so that any division would have to set up crosscurrents , which cannot happen without some turbulence and resistance... On this, however, I believe that the doctrine of substantial unities – monads – will throw a good deal of light.2 According to Leibniz (and here he agrees with Spinoza), the body alone is incapable of performing any action “upon” (contre) its soul. What makes the body subsist is, paradoxically, something that has no bodily character, something that has the nature of a soul. Consequently, even if nothing prevents us from speaking about a body making the soul undergo its action, we must...