"To say that souls are intelligent points is to use an expression that is insufficiently exact. When I call them centers of concentrations of external things, I am speaking analogically."
— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Work Title
Date
1716
Metaphor
"To say that souls are intelligent points is to use an expression that is insufficiently exact. When I call them centers of concentrations of external things, I am speaking analogically."
Metaphor in Context
I confess that my opinion, according to which matter cannot pass for a real substance, will surprise some minds who thing superficially, having been led to believe that matter is the only substance in the universe; but my hypothesis is no less true for this. To say that souls are intelligent points is to use an expression that is insufficiently exact. When I call them centers of concentrations of external things, I am speaking analogically. Points, strictly speaking, are extremities of extension, and not, in any way, the constitutive parts of things; geometry shows this sufficiently.
(p. 228)
(p. 228)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Leibniz, G. W. Philosophical Essays. Ed. and Trans. Roger Ariew and Daniel Garber. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., 1989.
Date of Entry
06/26/2007
