Notes on;
Look, B. (2000) 'Leibniz and the Substance
of the Vinculum Substantiale' . In Journal
of the History of Philosophy 38 (2):
203--20. Online:
http://www.uky.edu/~look/38.2look.pdf
Dave Harris
Look defines the vinculum
substantiale} as the 'substantial
bond'. The context was Leibniz trying to
explain transubstantiation to a Jesuit
correspondent. The notion of the bond is
supposed to explain the reality underneath
transformations, and how things get realized or
reified. Look says that Leibniz used the
term to explain the reality of composite
substance, which had become a problem in his
monadology. He develops the concept to mean
all of substantial form, relation, composite
substance, and 'separate, substance-like
thing'(205), and it is the last one which is used
most consistently. Roughly, the problem is,
that composite materials are made up of the
activities of thousands of separate monads, and
the problem then is to explain how these monads
unite together. In transubstantiation, a
particular aggregate of monads is replaced by God
with another aggregate that looks exactly the
same, but which now contains the body of Christ:
nothing is changed in the phenomenon, but a new
substance comes into being. More generally,
the vinculum is what turns a mere aggregate into a
genuine composite. The substantiation in the
composite can be altered by God in
transubstantiation.
What is at stake is a whole sub
discussion about what composites are.
Sometimes Leibniz seems to be arguing that only
minds are substances, while bodies are {real}
phenomena, although he also has another schema
which suggests that animated bodies are
substances, and composites are unities {substances
are unities?}. The issue is to explain
whether bodies as composites have a reality, or
whether it is only the monads that do, producing
bodies as phenomena. {Solid bodies in
general, with all the things that solid bodies
apparently demonstrate like extension}. This
is where Leibniz considers whether the bond
uniting all the monads that constitute bodies
produces some emergent substantial reality, some
real unity, involving a process of
realization. One possibility might be the
emergence of an automaton from a unity of monads,
an organism: Leibniz discussed this in terms of a
relation of dominance among the monads, but the
vinculum offers another possibility, that a
unified real thing emerges, a 'new
substantiality', or 'organic whole', something
more than just a relation among monads.
Look goes on to discuss what
the vinculum actually is, having discussed what it
does. There seem to be different conceptions
again. It is either the bound substance
itself or the bond, for example; it can be
something added to the monads, or it can be a
substantial form. The underlying issue is
whether the substance that emerges is produced by
combining monads, or whether it is something
completely independent. But behind this is a
further discussion about what a substance is: it
is something that is not modified, or it can be
the source of modifications itself. The
vinculum is the latter, something truly 'in the
subject' {in this case the thing that modifies}
but as a substantial form.
Look thinks that the most
likely definition is that the vinculum is the
corporeal composite, a body in its own right, a
multiplicity of monads, a unity in 'secondary
matter', from the point of view of the dominant
monads. There is a link with Scholastic
notions of substance 'the complete being, the
composite of matter and form, or the composite of
monads in a corporeal substance'(213). This
is a new substance after all: there is something
more than just the monads and their aggregates, a
new composite, something real, something which
'"realizes" the phenomena'.
This still causes problems with
the debate with the Jesuit {and because it does
look like a bit of a bolt on}. Here, Leibniz
runs into difficulties because he says that the
vinculum has to be something completely external
to the monads if it is really going to change the
substance of the bread. He seems to have
persisted with this view after all. Later
work suggests that the vinculum is particularly
connected to the dominant monad. It has to
be something that works with monads and is
compatible with them, but it is external to them
and detachable from them {almost a force of
nature, or dynamic potential in substance
itself}. It is the real relations between
monads in the vinculum that produce our thoughts
about relations between them.
There is one final
possibility—that the vinculum is the relation
between the monads, the specific relation found in
composites. There would be problems in
explaining how this relation works, though, and
there is less textual support.
Overall, Look says that the
notion of the vinculum is not very satisfactory,
and is inconsistent with other arguments in
Leibniz: it seems to have no perception of its
own, for example, and it seems to imply there is
some causal action after all in uniting the
monads.
back to Deleuze on Leibniz
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