FEUERBACH'S CRITICISM OF THE LEIBNIZIAN PRINCIPLE OF AUTONOMOUS MONADS

Abstract

This article concerns Feuerbach's critique of the philosophy of Leibniz, more particularly of his Monadology. Although Leibniz originally regarded the monad as the union of spirit and matter, in Monadology, the representation of matter seems rather confused, having neither spirituality nor thought, pure imperfection or the denial of spirit or soul. In principle, Feuerbach saw Leibniz's Doctrine of the Monads as an alternative to the union between spirit and mat­ter. The spiritual monad has form, but it also contains the matter, which is its obscure representation. Whereas Leibniz merely considered the matter as an obscure and confused representation, Feuerbach, on the other hand, regarded it as the positive relation between the outside and the inside that connected the Monads with each other.