LEIBNIZ’S MONADOLOGISM AND THE CHALLENGE OF SOCIAL ORDER

Abstract

Monadologism, a philosophical idea depicting a non-communicative, self-actuating system of windowless, individualistic and deterministic beings, has implications for understanding the challenge of social order. Philosophical discourses on social order have focused mainly on the Cartesian mind-body interactionism and its implications for human society, to the neglect of insights from other perspectives like Leibniz‘s monads, which could improve the understanding of the challenge of social order. The study was, therefore, designed to examine Leibniz‘s idea of monadology, with a view to establishing the relationship between the metaphysical and the physical in the structure of the human society. Thomas Aquinas‘ Principle of Participation, which advocates communication and inter subjectivity, was adopted. Interpretive design was used. Texts examined in Metaphysics included Leibniz‘s Monadology and Discourse on Metaphysics (DM), Carr‘s The Reform of the Leibnizian Monadology (TRLM), and Russell‘s Some Problems in the Philosophy of Leibniz (SPPL). In Social Philosophy, Bhikhu‘s Unity and Diversity in Multicultural Societies (UDMS), Offor‘s The Modern Leviathan and the Challenge of World Order (TMLCWO), Oyeshile‘s Reconciling the Self with the Order (RSO), and Held‘s Democracy and the Global Order (DGO) were interrogated. These texts deal with critical issues relating to social order. The philosophical tools of conceptual elucidation, critical analysis and reconstruction were used. Monadology, DM, and TRLM revealed that monadologism, which is a closed system that puts forward a platonic argument for the forms against the substantiality of bodies, excludes the notion of interactionism exhibited by gregarious beings, which inheres in Cartesianism. Beings, being monads, are metaphysically constituted, non-interactive and owe their harmony to a force external to them (Monadology, TRLM). This attempt to exclude monads from interactionism and to explain their harmony in relation to an external force further complicates the knowledge of humans as social beings possessing freewill (Monadology, SPPL, TRLM). The RSO and UDMS show the need for interaction, since there cannot be social order without the ‗Other‘. Social order requires a set of linked social structures and values which maintain patterns of relation, communication and participation between the physical self and the metaphysical other. Communication and participation encourage inclusiveness and inter-subjectivity in the system, where all the parts work in harmony towards achieving common objectives (DGO, TMLCWO). Critical intervention showed that establishing a proper relationship between the metaphysical and the physical, though a necessary condition for interaction and participation, is not sufficient for solidarity which is a sine qua non for social order. Monadologism and Cartesianism, by appealing to principles like interactionism, participation and communication, could not adequately account for social order. A better account of a society derives from a framework of shared relations between the self and its others