Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Volume 18 Article 10

January 2005

Leibniz and on the One and the Many

Tinu Ruparell

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Recommended Citation Ruparell, Tinu (2005) "Leibniz and Ramanuja on the One and the Many," Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies: Vol. 18, Article 10. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7825/2164-6279.1343

The Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies is a publication of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies. The digital version is made available by Digital Commons @ Butler University. For questions about the Journal or the Society, please contact [email protected]. For more information about Digital Commons @ Butler University, please contact [email protected]. Ruparell: Leibniz and Ramanuja on the One and the Many

Leibniz and Ramanuja on the One and the Many

Tinu Ruparell University of Calgary

THE polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1. The , which we shall discuss (1646-1716 CE) and the Visistadvaita here, IS nothing but a simple theologian Ramanuja (c. 1017-1137 CE ) substance that enters into both face a similar conceptual problem: composites - simple, that is, without each holds that the is composed of parts. a single substance yet is experienced by us 2. And there must be simple in the phenomenal realm as plural. The substances since there are problem, simply put, is that they must both -composites; for the composite is show how it is that our of nothing more than a collection, or diversity arises from ontological unity - aggregate, of simples. how the many comes from the one. In what 3. But where there are no parts, neither follows I suggest that reading Leibniz extension, nor shape, nor divisibility through Ramanuja in the way suggested by is possible. These monads are the the structure of metaphorical as true atoms of and, in brief, elucidated by Ricoeur and exploited by the elements of things. Clooneyl (among others) casts Leibniz's 4. There is no dissolution to fear, and problem in a more helpful . As I show there is no conceivable way in below, such a reading facilitates for Leibniz which a simple substance can perish Ramanuja's dialectic or 'polarity' naturally. theological method In order to nuance S.For the same there is no Leibniz's discussion of well-founded conceivable way a simple substance phenomena. This provides a better can begin naturally, since it cannot understanding of the relationship between be formed by composition. fundamental or primary monadic substances 6. Thus one can say that monads can such as and non-primary monadic only _begin by creation and end by created . Firstly, however, we must annihilation, whereas composites rehearse a little of Leibniz's Monadology in begin or end through their parts. order to indicate where Ramanuja's method 7. There is also no way of explaining might usefully be employed. how a monad can be altered or changed internally by some other Leibniz begins his Monadology creature, since one cannot transpose with a very simple and brief argument: anything in it, nor can one conceive -of any internal motion that can be

_Tinu Ruparell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, Canada. Dr Ruparell works in the area of comparative of religion, focusing on Vedantic and . His areas of interest include , interreligious dialogue, and philosophy of . He is co-editor of Encountering Religion (Blackwells) and author of the forthcoming Dialogue and Hybridity (SUNY). He is currently working on a project on Indian and European as well as a forthcoming book on Hindu thought.

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excited, directed, augmented or agree with Leibniz's fairly innocuous diminished within it, as can be done premises. Premise 3 is the most important in composites, where there can be for our purposes. If a thing has no parts, change among the parts. The then it follows that it has no front side, or monads have no windows through part, nor a backside, left or right. If it has no which something can enter or leave. sides or parts then it cannot be extended in Accidents cannot be detached, nor space, and if it is not extended in space, then I can they go about outside of . it is not material in the ordinary (Cartesian) substances, as the sensible species way.3 Monads are also, Leibniz goes on, of the Scholastics once did. Thus, indivisible, since if they were divisible they neither substance nor accident can could in principl~ be divided into left and .1 enter a monad from without. right, or greater and lesser parts. But 8. However monads have some defined as simple substances they cannot qualities otherwise they would not have parts and thus they cannot be divisible. even be . And if simple These three premises are actually substances did not differ at all in quite radical and certainly ahead of their qualities, there would be no Leibniz's time for they foreshadow both way of perceiving any change from modern atomic theory as well as aspects of , I its simple ingredients; and if the quantum theory. They are also in many monads had no qualities, they would ways the foundations of Leibniz's mature be indiscernible from one another, thought. Indeed the importance of the idea since they also do not differ in of the monad can hardly be underplayed in quantity. As a result, assuming a the full flowermg of Leibniz's metaphysics; plenum, in motion, each place however the full implications of this notion would always receive only the were hardly felt in his time. The monad is a equivalent of what it already had, perplexing creature and we shall see just and one state of things would be how queer it is below. Three further indistinguishable from another. , premises need comment at this stage. 9. It is also necessary that each monad Premises 4-6 are also corollaries of be different from each other. For the basic notion of a simple substance. there are never two beings in nature Leibniz argues that a monad cannot perish that are perfectly alike, two beings naturally since natural construction and in which it is not possible to destruction are in fact simply the breaking discover an internal , that down or building up of composites. When is . one founded on intrinsic we naturally destroy a brick, we get dust - denomination. the brick is a composite, and, in crushing it 10. I also take it for granted that every we have simply made it a large pile of created being, and consequently smaller composites. We could go on every created monad as well, is crushing this dust ad infinitum, and while subject to change, and even that this eventually it may look like we have change is continual in each being. 2 destroyed the brick entirely, the law of conservation of tells us that the atoms We can see that his argument follows of the brick are not destroyed but rather deductively. Premises I and 2 are merely transformed into invisible atoms or perhaps definitions, 2 being a corollary of 1. Simple into different kinds of atoms. The basic substances, which Leibniz calls monads, are units cannot be destroyed and for the same defined as entities without parts, and reason caruiot be created either: for Leibniz composite entities are those made up of they come into being and are annihilated parts. As two sides of a coin the two are solely at God's behest. So we arrive at the both mutually exclusive and dependent. So notion that a monad is a simple, immaterial far so good; I expect that most people would substance able to aggregate into composites

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol18/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1343 2 Ruparell: Leibniz and Ramanuja on the One and the Many 42 Tinu Ruparell

" and which can neither be destroyed nor our experience of the of matter is created naturally. either in significant ways false or deluded Now most of what Leibniz has just and hence we must revise our view of the stated should be familiar enough to modem physical world. Leibniz inherited Descartes' scientific realists. Leibniz's premises make legacy of the problem of interactionism: in our experience of the world. We how it is that res (cogitans (thinking stuff, now accept that we do not destroy matter mind) relates and i'nteracts with res extensa nor create it so much as simply push it (extended stuff, bodies)? This was a serious about or pull it apart. Secondly the difficulty for Descartes who never definition of a simple substance seems non­ developed a convincing' explanation for controversial: simples cannot have parts and everyday occurrences such as human complexes are made of simples. But the locomotion. Spinoza and Leibniz provided consequences of ~hese few premises are two coherent responses to the problem of . staggering. That the world is made of interaction, Leibniz's being to deny that complexes seems patently true; however corporeal matter existed, or rather he Leibniz has argued that the simples making asserted that matter was in fact monadic in up these complexes must be immaterial. To composition. For Leibniz, all that exists is , put it another way: if the primary substance mind D or rather soul-like entities some of of creation is immaterial then the world of which exhibit properties of mind6 D which complexes, the world we experience in merely appear to be substantial in the way normal sensory life, must be very different that we regularly experience the physical than it appears. world. Clearly. for Leibniz, the universe is The counter-intuitiveness of this not in itself the way we normally experience position is difficult to exaggerate. Indeed' it. It is very different from what our i I the claim that the world is at its foundations tell us it is, though of course at the level of II immaterial was one of the why ordinary the world does work in Leibniz's mature metaphysics have not only. regular harmonious ways. That the universe been disputed but also derided. How is it functions harmoniously and predictably was that the patently hard substance making up important to affirm in the early modem all material things in the universe could be period as the then nascent science was composed ultimately of incorporeal quickly coming fo dominate the intellectual ,~ I" : ! substance?4 How do conglomerations of tradition of western Europe. Importantly, Leibniz's immaterial entities add up to the the world as describable through science very real impenetrability experienced when I was for Leibniz entirely compatible with stub my toe, on the leg of the table on which monads. We should not therefore think that I now write? To dispute the materiality of the world is some kind of illusion.7 Leibniz the cosmos might seem counter-intuitive at emphatically maintains that the world is best, but Leibniz's premises are difficult to real, but monadic, that is immaterial. reject out of hand. As mentioned above, , Now (let us very quickly take this they do follow deductively, and the train of thought to its ultimate end. If the foundational premises - those that count - universe is immaterial and this means that it seem to be analytically true. I find it , is composed of what Leibniz terms 'soul­ difficult not to be convinced by Leibniz's like entities' (some of which have the basic arguments, but as we shall see later, properties of ) then how is it that what Leibniz does face some significant we see around us has effects on other problems.5 things? If a train is a composition of Now before we consider monads monads, or soul-like entities, how is it that further, let us first follow our train of so much death and' destruction ensues when thought through so that we are sure just what it goes off the rails or collides with another is at stake if Leibniz is right. If the basic train, or should we say, another collection of substance of the universe is immaterial, then soul-like entities? Leibniz's answer is that

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monads as immaterial atomic entities identical - clearly logically impossible. perceive or cognize each other. 8 Leibniz draws an even stronger conclusion Furthermore there is a natural tendency however in that not only are all monads in within monads for to change, to principle distinguishable, they must all be be in process and drive forward as a measure individually unique - each monad must be and element of time - this Leibniz calls a different from every other monad ..". monad's appetition or desire. So Leibniz In § 10 Leibniz further states as an suggests that a monad is related to other axiom that 'every created being, and monads through thinking them, and being consequently the created monad as well, is thought by them in a continuing process. subject to change and even that this change And because in principle anyone monad, is continual in each thing.' Weare now whether singly or in concert, can come into getting closer to a complete picture of contact with any other monad, each monad monads. Monads are fundamental principles is related to all others - each monad of action whose state at any time is defined perceives and is perceived by all other by a multitude of cognitions, that is relations monads.9 to other monads, and subject to constant How is it that monads are able to do change reflecting their continuing alteration this? Leibniz holds that they were created to with respect to other monads. The relation of do so by God who organises all of these monads forms a dynamic network where relations in the most harmonious way. Each each node (each monad) continually alters monad is related in a particular way to all and 1~ altered by the other continuously other monads in a system of pre-established changing nodes in real time. harmony. The principle of pre-established At this point let me summarize what harmony, for which Leibniz was equally we know about monads: firstly they are celebrated and ridiculed,IO follows from simple, eternal and immaterial. Secondly Leibniz's view of God's , they form together in composites to make up and goodness. Being what we experience as the world around us. omniscient, God knows the ideal state of the However as immaterial entities, they cannot universe, being omnipotent God can create be related in a Newtonian sense, but rather this state and being absolutely good, God is are interrelated through perception and duty bound to actually create it. The world appetition: they think and are thought by as we have it is, for Leibniz, the best of all other monads. Thirdly they are individual possible since it actualises the most and particular - each monad being unique harmony between all of its related monads. by · of its particular intrinsic relations We should note here also that God is seen to all others. Now the main problem that by Leibniz to be a monad as well, though a arises for Leibniz is how to explain the monad distinguished from all others by 'hardness' of the exp~rienced world. 12 having all perfections and being, uniquely, a How is it that we seem to experience necessary monad. 11 objective material reality when in fact all Now that we have a clearer view of that there actually is in the universe are just the kind of world Leibniz is letting us immaterial entities and the subjective into, we can return to the notion of monads relations between them? Leibniz seems to and their nature. In §7-8 of the have two stories to tell at this stage. The Monadology, Leibniz states that for things to first makes bodies the appearances of have different qualities, yet all be composed collections of monads. This is the of immaterial monads, monads must each phenomenalist interpretation where bodies have the possibility of multitudinous do not themselves have independent simultaneous modifications. Monads must but are the appearances of collected monads. bear some qualities, for if they were not Just as a flock of sheep is only a flock in the distinguishable in this way, it would be mind of the perceiver, bodies do not have possible for two different monads to be independent realities apart from their

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol18/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1343 4 Ruparell: Leibniz and Ramanuja on the One and the Many 44 Tinu Ruparell

appearances. Bodies are what collections of concepts with Leibnizian idealism: indeed monads look like to other collections of reading the first part of the Monadology monads. This interpretation makes Leibniz through Visistadvaitan eyes is revealing. In rather close to Berkeley's esse est percipi the fIrst sections of the Monadology one where bodies rely for their on their could read (or jivatman as the being perceived. particularised form of. atman associated with The other, and some argue prakritic bodies) for monad. In this sense incompatible, interpretation is the the jivatman is simple, immaterial, and aggregationist view. . Here bodies are well eternal. It is also, as related to Bralupan (as founded (benefundatum) phenomena, to use maha atman), the fundamental element of Leibniz's phrase. Bodies are real (though the universe -with the prakritic or material dependent) aggregates of real substantial elements with which it is associated being unities. On this view what you get when merely the primeval evolutes-' of original you analyse bodies 'all the way down' as it (). Each jivatman is also were, are nothing but simple, immaterial unique, differing from each other in unities, which are, of course, monads. Ifthis precisely the same way that monads differ: is the case, moving back to the level of our they have varying degrees of perfection normal experience must yield bodies which partially due to their specific co-relation to are merely the aggregates of monads. These all other jivatmans and to Brahman. Where monadic aggregates perceive themselves as the monad and jivatman differ is in the fact an, "embodied creature that stands in spatio­ that the jivatman does not aggregate into temporal and causal relations to every other composites to form phenomenal bodies. body in the universe, and hence to every The relationship of individual souls other body that is represented by another (jivatmans) to each other and to their creator monad as its body.,,13 (Brahman) is the subject of Ramanuja's While sometimes complicated to principle doctrine of the world as God's distinguish, these two interpretations are, I body, and it is to this that we now turn. suggest, pulling in opposite directions. The Ramanuja construes the God-world phenomenalist sees the material bodies relationship along the general analogy that which make up our normal experience as God is to the universe as our souls are to our unreal but understandable appearances of bodies:14 To develop this Ramanuja uses the immaterial monads. The aggregationist primary relationship of mode (prakara) and demurs maintaining that material bodies are mode-possessor (prakarin) to describe how well founded phenomena - the real it is that a body is related to the self or aggregates of real substantial unities. atman. This relation is further subdivided Now there is a great deal of debate into three sub or correlative relationships: in Leibniz studies on this problem but I (1) the support (adhara) J thing-supported cannot here run through the . various (adlieya) relationship; (2) the controller arguments on both sides. Suffice it to say (niyantr) / thing-controlled () that the situation seems to be at a stalemate, relationship; and (3) the principal (sesinJ-l/ the various responses dependent on what accessory (sesa) relationship. I do not have one sees to be at stake in the question: the space to consider each of these relations sensibility of I"eibniz's metaphysical system separately, but a consideration of the prakara or the corporeal reality of the physical / prakarin paradigm do for our purposes. world. It is here where I think we can profit Put very simply, the mode (prakara) by bringing Ramanuja into the fray. is that which is made manifest and the Of the large corpus of Ramanuja's mode-possessor (prakarin) is that which thought I will focus only on those- aspects manifests the mode. In Leibnizian terms, which I will put to use for Leibniz. We the mode-possessor is the monad and the should note, -however, that prima facie mode its perceptions. Ramanuja explains it Visistadvaita shares some significant thus:

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possessor). Carman explains this view thus: This is the relation between the self "to say that something is a mode is just a (atman) and its body (in the sense . brief way of stating its relationship of utter we are considering): the relation dependence, but to state that something is a between support and thing­ body is to state an irreducible and supported such that the latter is fundamental fact. Therefore it is this incapable of being realised apart category which is fundamental. If a material from the former, that between thing is the body of some intelligent self, controller and thing-controlled, and then it is a mode.,,18 This is an important that between principal and point since it allows that bodies, that is, a accessory. The atman [ . . .] is that kind of material substance (), can be which in every respect is the modes of selves (atman) - which are also support, controller and principal of substances, and that, by analogy, creatures what is the thing -supported, such as humans can thus be modes of the controlled and the accessory, viz. supreme self, Brahman. 19 If we accept the 'body' or form which exists as a Ramanuja's argument here, we can mode (of the mode-possessor, i.e. immediately lay to rest the question of how atman), incapable of being realised atmans, which are substances, can be modes apart (from the latter). Now this is of another substance, Brahman. the relationship between the (finite) This is also rather important for our individual self and its own comparative exercise since if we appropriate (material) body. 15 Ramanuja's notion of the world as God's body for Leibniz, then the mode/mode Lipner points out that there are both possessor relationship entails that not only ontological and epistemological implications are physical/phenomenal bodies modes or of the mode/mode-possessor relationship.16 forms of their monadic selves, but each The ontological aspect is brought out in the created monad (which are substantial quotation above by the phrase 'incapable of unities) can be seen as bodies of the ultimate being realised apart from the [mode monad which is God. This is a significant possessor].' This is a dependence of being re-narration of Leibniz who assumes the such that the mode cannot exist without the Christian ultimate separation of God and absolute support of the mode-possessor. creation D even though by his own Moreover, this is true regardless of whether" both creation and God are monadic in the mode is material or not. Carman notes, nature. Leibniz's view of God, which I only in this regard, that Ramanuja privileges the touched on earlier, is that God is the perfect, body-self relationship as more fundamental uniquely self-created monad. As such God than the mode-mode possessor differs from all other mon~ds not in kind but relationship. I? The latter is a general in degree only. Ramanuja's view of the relationship, and it is clear, for Ramanuja world as God's body is ironically more that general characteristics depend for their consistent with God as a monad than existence on their being possessed by some Leibniz's capitulation to the conventional substance. So, for example, 'heaviness" (a Christian standpoint, since on Ramanuja's mode) is a general characteristic which view there is no substantial distinction requires for its existence the existence of between creation and the divine. something else (its mode-possessor). Lipner's epistemological aspect of 'Heaviness' cannot exist on its own - the mode/mode-possessor relationship unpossessed by some substance. But this shows that the mode does not 'make sense' general characteristic is secondary to the without reference to the mode-possessor, particular 'body-self relationship. The that is, the mode lacks a raison d'etre. body is, for Ramanuja, paradigmatieally the Lipner alludes to Ramanuja's example of mode of the self or atman (the mode- staffs and earrings to illustrate. A staff or an

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol18/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1343 6 r I'

Ruparell: Leibniz and Ramanuja on the One and the Many 46 Tinu Ruparell

earring, though they each have their own Having heard Ramanuja, we can individual, substantive existence apart from now return to our Leibnizian problem of anything else, cannot have their purpose giving an account of the 'hardness' of the fulfilled or realised in seclusion. They world - that is an understanding of the require a staff-bearer or earring-wearer to physical world. Either corporeal bodies are fully be what they are. A certain thing can mere appearances, that is the way collected thus only be known as itself within its monads look to each other; or they are the rightful mode/mode-possessor relationship. dependently real result of an aggregation of Leibniz's echo of this is found in the monads. Ramanuja faced a similar problem notion of pre-established harmony. Each in trying to understand the identity-in­ monad can only be what it is by virtue of its difference which obtains between individual correlation to all other monads - that is in its jivatmans and the divine Brahman and he proper relation. No individual monad can be solves it through the particular method of his what it is much less achieve its perfection in . Lipner calls this method 'polarity isolation. And again, Ramanuja's body of theology' aria we can understand it' by God doctrine helps to make sense of this considering again the term Visistadvaita. since this harmony is justified not by' the Visistadvaita, as Lipner has it, is will of God (as in Leibniz) but in the reflected in two complementary discourses, necessity of God's own body. The harmony corresponding to two (great of the universe is transformed from a sayings) of the . As Ramanuja particular and somewhat implausible needed to remain within the theologically proposition about a world apart from God important 'literal' interpretation of the into the perfection found within God itself. scriptures, he needed to affirm both the ' It reflects a more perfect necessity. ' rriayhavakyas of the So on Ramanuja's view, the world (Brahman is saccidananda reality, is God's 'body' in that the universe is the , infinite) and oftheChandogya manifestation of the effected Brahman, Upanishad (tat tvam - That thou art).22 completely dependent for its very being and In order to do so he spoke of the God-world 1:1 , I, meaning on the Absolute One, existing relationship in two ways:' from top down, (ideally) only in order to serve and glorify that is, from the perspective of Brahman, its . In this, respect Brahman is both the and from the bottom up, that is, from our efficient and material cause of the universe­ creaturely vantage point.23 From, top down its creator - as well as the resultant effect, the world is not distinct from Brahman; the universe itself. Ramanuja explains this everything deriving from, gaining sense with as the dual nature of Brahman's existence: respect to, and maintained by the Absolute as Brahman in his causal condition ( One without a second. Here there is no karanavastham) and Brahman in his effected difference between Brah1I).an and the world, condition (brahma karyavastham).2o In the universe being nothing but Brahman in Leibnizian terms the material universe 'effected' or manifest state. This collapsing becomes the body of God - with God being of difference Lipner calls the centripetal the universe's perfect and primary monad. tendency of Ramanuja's theology. From the As its body, the universe shares its monadic point of view of creatures, however, there is Iii nature with God but just as our own bodies great distinction since Brahman is perfect in 'ii, I' do not exhaust our selves, God as the all qualities, infinite and necessary, 24 and !I I monadic maha atman is not exhausted by the thus, of course, very different from creation. universe, and certainly not as we experience Lipner refers to this separating movement as it. Moreover the doctrine of pre-established the centrifugal tendency. The picture of harmony is set in a more elegant context Brahman e'merging 'from Ramanuja is that of when seen not as the fortunate result of a Brahman encompassing a dialectic tension created universe but rather as the inner between the centripetal and centrifugal, harmony of a perfect GOd?l between the One and the many. This view

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makes creation both quasi-autonomous yet inseparable from its source, sustenance and end. It makes Brahman and creation 3 I will here accept Descartes' and Aristotle's identical or non-dual but, in the dialectic of view of extension as a necessary (though perhaps centrifugal and centripetal - a dialectic not sufficient) characteristic of prime matter, and which mirrors that of comparative I also take it that both Descartes and Leibniz conversations such as this -also particular. meant extension to include the idea of impenetrability. I do not here have space to This is what is meant by identity-in­ consider the idea that primary matter is not to be difference or 'qualified non-dualism.' understood as extension. Leibniz himself argued Now Ramanuja:s polarity theology, against this view in an earlier stage of his through which the notion of Visistadvaita is thinking only to accept it later on. [See Daniel communicated, can also be applied to Garber and Jean Baptiste Rauzy, "Leibniz on Leibniz. In what might be called a typical Body, Matter and Extension," Supplement to the Vedantic style Leibniz's solution is found Proceedings of The Aristotelian Society, July not in the either/or of or 2004, (18) voL 78, no. 1, pp. 23-40]. Garber and aggregationism, but in the both-and ,of Rauzy argue that in the period between 1680-90 Visistadvaita. Understood from the bottom Leibniz tried to reduce material bodies to force rather than to extension - the latter of which is up, monads combine to form dependently found in Leibniz's mature view as seen in the real aggregates, while from the top down Monadology. phenomenal material nature is understood'to be founded in and derived from monadic 4 We should not suppose that Leibniz himself reality. We have in this tense dialectic not suggested that dividing up complexes, that is only squared Leibniz's circle but in the material entities, ad infinitum will eventually process given more coherence to his view produce non-material entities. While he that God is a monad as well as greater maintains that primary substance is immaterial, substance to the doctrine of pre-established in correspondence to Samuel Clarke in 1715 he harmony. upholds that infinite division cannot be carried out to this end. But this view is now not Of course this kind of consolation of altogether obvious. While it is significantly Leibniz's metaphysics was .not available to beyond the scope of this paper, according to the Leibniz himself for various historical and, standard interpretation of quantum wave-particle more importantly, theological reasons. One duality, the analysis of the smallest elements might object that on these grounds such a making up the smallest sub-atomic particles' reading of Leibniz is illegitimate. Clearly I leaves the corporeality of such entities must disagree with such a complaint, though indeterminate. I cannot moul}t a defence here. Rather I submit the discussion now concluded as an 5 For instance, the notion of a primary simple experiment in comparative philosophy of substance may be questioned by suggesting that composites may well be primary. There seems religion and leave my readers the task of its to be no necessary reason that complexes must evaluation and, hopefully, continuation. be able to be broken down into simples. The world may well be composed of un analysable, Notes . complex entities. Just such a particularist position was the dominant view of the 1 See Francis Clooney's Seeing Through Te;ts: Aristotelians. . Doing Theology among the Srivaisnavas of South , (Albany, N.Y.: SUNY press, 1996) 6 Monadology § 63-63. for an extended example of this dialectical hermeneutic method at work. 7 I agree with Rutherford's interpretation that the world, while being an appearance of 2 G.W. Leibniz, 'The Monadology,' in G.W aggregated monads, is still a well-founded Leibniz, Discourse on Metaphysics and Other phenomenon - that is it is founded on real Essays, trans. Daniel Garber and Roger Ariew, entities. Leibniz goes to some pains to maintain (Indianapolis: Hacket Press, 1991), p.68. that the universe is indeed real but immaterial,

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/jhcs/vol18/iss1/10 DOI: 10.7825/2164-6279.1343 8 Ruparell: Leibniz and Ramanuja on the One and the Many ·48 Tinu Ruparell

and yet appears to us to be materiaL See Donald views, I will use the accounts given by John B. Rutherford in The Cambridge Companion to Carman, (noted above), and Eric Lott in his God Leibniz, ed. Nicholas Jolley, (Cambridge: CUP, and the Universe in the Vedantic Theology of 1995), p. 147. Ramanuja[QMadras: Ramanuja Research Society, 1976) hereafter referred to as Gu. My own 8 Since monads have no sensory organs their analysis of Ramanuja' s standpoint will be made perceptions cannot be sense-based but rather clear. closer to what one does when one holds something before the mind. In this sense it is an 15 Ramanuja Vedarthasamgraha, as translated 'internal perception.' by Lipner, WGB, pp. 148-9.

9 Monadology §56. This is referred to as the 16 WGB, pp. 150-1. Mirror hypothesis. Each monad is a mirror to all others. 17 TR,pp.126-7.

10 The notion of pre-established harmony 18 TR, p. 127. leading to the best of all possible worlds prompted Voltaire towrite in Candide of the 19 Ibid. views of Professor Pang10ss, a character surely to have been modelled on Leibniz, that if this is 20 WGB, p. 38. Carman notes that Ramanuja the best of all possible worlds, what must the rest accepts as axiomatic the view that the be like? effect is a transformation of the ca1,lse () and the doctrine of Brahman 11 It is beyond the scope of this paper to consider changing from causal to effected conditions Leibniz's interesting variations on the should be seen in this context. TR, p. 134. See . See Graham Oppy's also Gu, p. ISO Ontological Arguments and in God (Cambridge: CUP, 1996) for a good discussion 21 Leibiliz himself uses the analogy of the of these. harmony of the internal workings of the body in order to explain the harmonious subservience of 12 This·prob1em is in a sense the opposite of the monadic creation to the divine. current 'hard problem' in , that is how does mind arise from matter. 22 : 8.7; Taittiriya Leibniz's problem is the opposite - how does UpanishadII: 1.1. The texts are from matter arise from ideas? Radhakrishnan's translation of (Indus: New Delhi, 1994) [first 13 Donald Rutherford, "Metaphysics: the Late published (London: George Allen and Unwin, period", in The Cambridge Companion to 1953]. Pp. 458 and 541 respectively. Leibniz, ed. Nicholas Jolley, (Cambridge: CUP, .. 1995), p. 137. . 23 WGB, 155. The Face of , pp. 38-9 .

14 This fundamental relationship is called in the 24 The Visistadvaitins attributed to Brahman Srivaisnava tradition the sarira-saririn-bhava. itself the qualities of being (), knowledge [John B. Carman, The Theology ofRamamlja: Unanal5liSqananda Onfrnity (anantatva) and An Essay in Interreligious Understanding, (New purity (ama1atva). [WGB, p. 146]. Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974), p. 125, (hereafter referred to as TR)] In what follows I rely mainly on the account given by Julius Lipner both in his, "The World as God's Body: In Pursuit of Dialogue with Ramanuja," Religious Studies, 20 (1984):145-61, (hereafter referred to as WGB) and the more thorough treatment found in his monograph The Face of Truth, (London: Macmillan, 1986). Where they add or differ significantly to Lipner's

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