"That is, a sentient or thinking being is not a mechanical thing like a watch or a mill: one cannot conceive of sizes and shapes and motions combining mechanically to produce something which thinks, and senses too, in a mass where [formerly] there was nothing of the kind--something which would likewise be extinguished by the machine's going out of order"
— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Place of Publication
Amsterdam and Leipzig
Publisher
Chez Jean Schreuder
Date
1765
Metaphor
"That is, a sentient or thinking being is not a mechanical thing like a watch or a mill: one cannot conceive of sizes and shapes and motions combining mechanically to produce something which thinks, and senses too, in a mass where [formerly] there was nothing of the kind--something which would likewise be extinguished by the machine's going out of order"
Metaphor in Context
As for thought, it is certain, as our author more than once acknowledges, that it cannot be an intelligible modification of matter and be comprehensible and explicable in terms of it. That is, a sentient or thinking being is not a mechanical thing like a watch or a mill: one cannot conceive of sizes and shapes and motions combining mechanically to produce something which thinks, and senses too, in a mass where [formerly] there was nothing of the kind--something which would likewise be extinguished by the machine's going out of order. So sense and thought are not something which is natural to matter, and there are only two ways in which they could occur in it: through God's combining it with a substance to which thought is natural, or through his putting thought into it by a miracle. On this topic I am entirely in agreement with the Cartesians, except that I include the beasts and believe that they too have sense, and souls which are properly described as immaterial and are as imperishable as atoms are according to Democritus and Gassendi; whereas the Cartesians have been needlessly perplexed over the souls of beasts. [...]
(66-7)
(66-7)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Written 1703-1705. Published by R. E. Raspe in 1765.
See Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain in Oeuvres Philosophiques (Amsterdam and Leipzig: Jean Schreuder, 1765). <Link to Google Books>
Reading a modern translation: New Essays on Human Understanding. trans. and ed. by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996).
See Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain in Oeuvres Philosophiques (Amsterdam and Leipzig: Jean Schreuder, 1765). <Link to Google Books>
Reading a modern translation: New Essays on Human Understanding. trans. and ed. by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett. (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996).
Date of Entry
12/11/2006
