Leibnizs Distinction Between Natural and Artificial Machines :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

Leibnizs Distinction Between Natural and Artificial MachinesABSTRACT I maintain that Leibnizs preeminence between organic automobiles of nature and the artificial machine that we produce cannot be adequately understood simply in terms of differing orders of structural complexity. It is not simply that natural machines, having been made by God, are infinitely more complex than the products of our own artifice. Instead, Leibnizs distinction is a thoroughly metaphysical one, having its root in his belief that every natural machine is a visible substance, the unity and identity conditions of which derive ultimately from its substantial form. Natural machines are thus true unities, while artificial machines are mere aggregates of substances and are whence only accidental unities. I briefly explore this connection between Leibnizs distinction between natural and artificial machines and his views nearly individuality. I conclude on a polemical note, in which it is suggested that these results undermine the currently popular view that Leibniz renounced corporeal substances toward the end of his life. IntroductionLeibniz often distinguishes between organic machines of nature and the machines that we construct. This distinction might not seem to have been an original contribution on his part. Similar distinctions were drawn by many early modern philosophers, particularly Cartesians, who contrasted our machines with the practically more complex (yet mechanical) products of the divine artifice. Leibnizs distinction was not this simple. For him, the balance between our machines and organic machines of nature was not simply a difference in breaker point it was not simply a matter of Gods machines being more structurally complex than the mechanisms that we produce. More generally, Leibnizs distinction between organic (i.e., natural) and human-made (i.e., artificial) machines cannot be understood as long as we confine our gaze to the realm of mechanical phenomena that are described by physics, for it is a deeper metaphysical distinction rooted in his views about substances.Leibniz does occasionally draw the distinction in terms of structural complexity, claiming that natural machines, since they were built by God, are infinitely more complex than the machines that we make. This might step up to undermine my claim that Leibnizs distinction cannot (unlike similar distinctions drawn by his contemporaries) be understood simply in terms of varying degrees of structural complexity. However, I shall consider that his formulation of the distinction in terms of structural complexity presupposes a more basic difference between natural and artificial machines, a difference that can only be adequately characterized within his metaphysics.