Sennert and Leibniz on Animate Atoms
نویسنده
چکیده
Famously, both in his early and later years Leibniz criticises ancient atomism for describing atoms as absolutely indivisible. According to his view, matter is both infinitely divisible and actually infinitely divided.1 Nevertheless, the early Leibniz in numerous passages nevertheless is committed to entities that he calls “atoms”, and in his later years he continues calling composite substances “atoms of substance”.2 Richard Arthur has recently described this situation as the “enigma of Leibniz’s atomism”: Leibniz consistently rejects the existence of absolutely indivisible atoms, while at the same time he is committed to the existence of atoms that display internal complexity.3 Most occurrences of Leibniz’s early “atoms” and later “atoms of substance” share interesting properties: they are individuated by an immaterial, soul-like entity, and they possess a material body that displays internal complexity.4 Why did Leibniz characterize such complex, composite entities as “atoms”? Arthur suggests that the answer comes easily once we realise that in early modern chemical atomism the conception of atoms as absolutely indivisible was by no means the prevalent one. Rather, atoms were regarded as entities that are either not further divisible by means of laboratory processes or not further divisible without a loss of their chemical properties.
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تاریخ انتشار 2011