PhilosophersGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
We live in the best of all possible worlds.
Rationalism1646 – 1716 GermanyRationalistBelieverMathematicianMetaphysical optimist
Pourquoi il y a plutôt quelque chose que rien ?
Why is there something rather than nothing?
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Les Monades n'ont point de fenêtres
Monads have no windows.
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le meilleur (optimum) parmi tous les mondes possibles
The best (optimum) among all possible worlds.
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le présent est gros de l'avenir
The present is big with the future.
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Misconceptions
Nuanced
For Leibniz, everything in the world is fine.
He grants that evil is real: "one must confess that there is evil in this world". His claim is that the world, taken as a whole, is the best possible, and that even the best of worlds contains evil. Voltaire's Pangloss, for whom "all is well", is a caricature.
False
Monads are tiny grains of matter.
A monad has no parts, hence neither extension nor shape. They are "atoms" in the sense of ultimate units, but not material ones: what characterises them is their perceptions.
Nuanced
Leibniz denies freedom, since everything is settled in advance.
He holds that everything is certain but not necessary: our choices always have reasons, which "incline without necessitating", and the opposite remains possible. Whether this is enough for real freedom is still debated.