According to the received view, Kant’s critical revolution put an end to the kind of metaphysics of which Leibniz’s ‘Monadology’ is the example par excellence. This volume challenges Kant’s claim by providing a far more nuanced version of philosophy’s ‘post-Kantian’ tradition that spans from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century and brings to light a rich tradition of new ‘monadologists’, many of whom have been unjustifiably forgotten by contemporary historians of philosophy. Through this complex dialogue, monadology is shown to be a remarkably fecund hypothesis, with many possible variations and developments. The volume’s focus on monadology exposes the depth and breadth of the post-Kantian period in an original and previously unexplored way and opens up numerous avenues for future research. Crucially, however, this volume not only shows that monadological metaphysics did continue after Kant but also asks the critical question of whether it should have done so. Consequently, the question of whether monadological metaphysics could also have a future is shown to be relevant in a way that was previously almost inconceivable. This book was originally published as a special issue of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

The Monadology (French: La Monadologie, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz's best known works representing his later philosophy. It is a short text which sketches in some 90 paragraphs a metaphysics of simple substances, or monads. In it, he offers a new solution to mind and matter interaction by means of a pre-established harmony expressed as the 'Best of all possible worlds' form of optimism.

The impact of the work of German mathematician GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ (1646-1716) on modern science and technology is all but incalculable. His notation for infinitesimal calculus-which he developed independently of Newton-remains in use today, and his invention of binary counting is the basis for modern computing. He was a powerfully influential philosopher as well, and is still considered, alongside Descartes and Spinoza, one of the great 17th-century rationalists. Because much of Leibniz's thinking in the realm of the sciences flowed from his philosophy, understanding how he approached the natural world and humanity's place in it is vital to understanding his contributions to modern science. This edition collects two of Leibniz's foundational works, "Discourse on Metaphysics" and "The Monadology," which expound on concepts of philosophical "optimism"-that we live in the best of all possible worlds-and consequently features Leibniz's thoughts on the nature of physical matter. This classic work will intrigue all students of science and philosophy.

Leibniz's monads have long been a source of fascination and puzzlement. If monads are merely immaterial, how can they alone constitute reality? In Monads, Composition and Force, Richard T. W. Arthur takes seriously Leibniz's claim of introducing monads to solve the problem of the composition of matter and motion. Going against a trend of idealistic interpretations of Leibniz's thought, Arthur argues that although monads are presupposed as the principles making actual each of the infinite parts of matter, bodies are not composed of them. He offers a fresh interpretation of Leibniz's theory of substance in which monads are enduring primitive forces, corporeal substances are embodied monads, and bodies are aggregates of monads, not mere appearances. In this reading the monads are constitutive unities, constituting an organic unity of function through time, and bodies are phenomenal in two senses; as ever-changing things they are Platonic phenomena and as pluralities, in being perceived together, they are also Democritean phenomena. Arthur argues for this reading by describing how Leibniz's thought is grounded in seventeenth century atomism and the metaphysics of the plurality of forms, showing how his attempt to make this foundation compatible with mechanism undergirds his insightful contributions to biological science and the dynamical foundations he provides for modern physics.

Esoteric Science strives to enlarge the domain of physical science by trespassing on the forbidden grounds of metaphysics, so distasteful to some materialists. Though modern scientists, learned as they may be, all their wonderful discoveries would go for nothing, and they themselves remain for ever headless bodies, unless they lift the veil of matter and strain their eyes to see beyond. The extent, depth, breadth, and length of the mysteries of Nature are to be found only in Eastern Esoteric Sciences. So vast and so profound are these that hardly a few, a very few of the highest Initiates are capable of assimilating that which is good, pure, and holy, and penetrate into the arcana behind the veil. Without throwing any discredit upon time-honoured beliefs, we draw a line between blind faith, evolved by theologies, and the knowledge compiled and validated by generations of eastern adepts and seers; in short, between faith and true philosophy, i.e., the Wisdom of Love not the “love of wisdom” as the term is commonly interpreted. The ten precious Cosmic Seeds, brought to Magna Graecia from old India by the great Ionian Sage, eclipsed all those Theogonies and angelologies that ever emanated from the theological brain. The ten mathematical points inscribed within the Pythagorean Triangle transcend the limits of the lower mind and elevate the apperceptions of the spiritual thinker into the realm of primal causes. Along with the plane Cube and Circle, the Abstract Triangle is the cornerstone of cosmic philosophy and symbol of the manifested universe. The equilateral Triangle is the trinity of the first differentiated Substance, or the consubstantiality of Spirit-Matter-Universe, the Son, who unfolds from the Unity of Logos. Aristotle was not an initiate. He misrepresented Plato, mocked Pythagoras, and by omitting the Point and the Circle, and by ignoring the Apex, he demeaned the application of geometry to Cosmic and Divine Theogony. Thus the pupil of Plato succeeded in dwarfing the Majesty of the Ideal Triangle to a simple triad: line, surface, body. His modern heirs, who play at Idealism, have interpreted these geometrical figures as space, force, matter. Those like Aristotle and others, who did not adhere the mathematical correctness of Plato’s deductive reasonings, and did not proceed top-down, from universals down to particulars, begun symbolizing their philosophies and religions by sexual emblems! As an emblem applicable to the objective idea, the Triangle became a solid. When repeated in stone on the four cardinal points, it assumed the shape of the Pyramid — symbol of the phenomenal merging into the Noumenal Universe of Thought — at the Apex of the four triangles. The Apex itself is lost in the Unseen Universe from whence started the first race of the spiritual prototypes of man. The protyle, or undifferentiated cosmic matter, of our most eminent chemists and physicists is the basic line of the Pythagorean Triangle, the grandest conception imaginable, for it symbolizes both the Ideal and the Visible Universes. In the realm of the Esoteric Sciences the unit divided endlessly, instead of losing its unity, approaches with every division the planes of the only eternal Reality, which the Seer can follow and behold it in all its pregenetic glory. The Monads in the present dissertation are distinct atomic Souls, before they descend into terrestrial form. Their descent into concrete matter marks the medial point of their own individual pilgrimage. Here, losing in the mineral kingdom their individuality, they begin ascending through the seven states of terrestrial evolution to that point where a correspondence between the human and divine consciousness is firmly established. At present, however, we are not concerned with their terrestrial trials and tribulations, but with their life and behaviour in Space, on planes wherein the eye of the most intuitional chemist and physicist cannot reach them. Leibniz was not an Initiate, not even a mystic, only a very intuitional philosopher. Yet no psycho-physicist ever came nearer than he has to the mysteries of cosmic evolution. Let not the word “Psychology” cause the reader to carry his thought by an association of ideas to modern “Psychologists,” so-called, whose idealism is another name for uncompromising Materialism, and whose pretended Monism is no better than a mask to conceal the void of final annihilation — even of consciousness. An idea has no subsistence by itself, but gives figure and form unto shapeless matter, and becomes the cause of the manifestation. Once the idea of protyle is accepted, Chemistry will have virtually ceased to live: it will reappear in its reincarnation as New Alchemy, or Metachemistry. For what are the manifested Mother, the Father-Son-Husband,” and the Son — the three First-born — but Hydrogen, Oxygen, and that which, in its terrestrial manifestation, is called Nitrogen? The Monads of Leibniz may, from one point of view be called force; from another, matter. To Occult Science, force and matter are two sides of the same Substance. These Monads, every one of which is a living mirror of the universe, each Monad reflecting each other, are hidden in a veil of thick darkness, forming mirrors of the atoms of the world, and casting reflections from its own face on every atom. Where, then, is the Ultimate Element? As we advance, it recedes like the tantalizing mirage lakes and groves seen by the tired and thirsty traveller in the desert. The very idea of an element, as something absolutely primary and ultimate, seems to be growing less and less distinct. Occult Science teaches that “Mother” lies stretched in infinity, during Pralaya, as the Great Deep, the “dry Waters of Space,” and becomes wet only after the separation and the moving over its face of Narayana, the Spirit which is an Invisible Flame that never burns, but which sets on fire all that it touches, and gives it life and generation. Hydrogen and oxygen (which instil the fire of life into the Mother) is Spirit, the noumenon of that which becomes in its grossest form oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen on earth — nitrogen being of no divine origin, but merely an earth-born cement to unite other gases and fluids, and serve as a sponge to carry in itself the breath of Life — pure air. The is no such thing in Nature as inorganic (inanimate) substances. Stones, minerals, rocks, and even chemical “atoms” are simply organic units in profound lethargy. Their coma comes to an end when their inertia becomes activity. The divisions made by Leibniz, however incomplete and faulty from the standpoint of Occultism, show a spirit of metaphysical intuition to which no man of science, not Descartes, not even Kant, has ever reached. With him there always existed an infinite gradation of thought. Only a small portion of the contents of our thoughts rises into the clearness of apperception, “into the light of perfect consciousness.” From the shock of Leibniz’ and Spinoza’s systems (as opposed to the Cartesian system) emerge the truths of the Archaic doctrine. Both opposed the metaphysics of Descartes: his idea of the contrast of two substances — extension and thought — radically differing from each other and mutually irreducible, was too arbitrary and too unphilosophical for them. What Leibniz calls Monads, and Eastern philosophy Jivas, is the Unity of units, immaterial and infinite. They are with us, as with Leibniz, “the expression of the universe,” and every physical point is but the phenomenal expression of the noumenal, metaphysical point. Leibniz’s distinction between perception and apperception is the philosophical, though dim expression, of the Esoteric teachings. Every Monad differs from each other qualitatively, and every one is a peculiar world to itself. But this is not so with atoms: they are absolutely alike quantitatively and qualitatively, and possess no individuality of their own. To Leibniz atoms and elements are centres of force, or rather “spiritual beings whose very nature is to act.” The molecules of materialistic philosophy are extended and divisible, while Monads are mere mathematical points and indivisible. At this point, the Monads of Leibniz closely resemble the Elementals of mystic philosophy. Every Monad or Elemental is a speaking mirror. Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism, draws a practical distinction between collective illusion, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the objective relations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts. The adept, therefore, may read the future in an Elemental Monad, but he has to draw for this object a great number of them, as each Monad represents only a portion of the Kingdom it belongs to.