Course description

Titel: Een systematische inleiding tot (neo-)monadologisch denken Engelse titel: A systematic introduction to (neo-)monadological thinking Onderwijsvorm: Hoor-/werkcollege 1x per week 3 uur Toetsvorm: essay Doelstelling: to gain insight into Leibnizian metaphysics, into the ways it has been continued by contemporary philosophers, and into its relevance for actual problems.

Leibniz is a classical philosopher, for whom system and philosophy are identical. This does not imply, however, that philosophy must form a closed system. In this course we will therefore approach Leibniz not primarily from a historiographical perspective, but from the perspective of an ontology of the present . Taking Deleuze s studies of Leibniz as a starting point, we will investigate in which ways the work of Leibniz has been extended by twentieth century and contemporary philosophers, artists and scientists.

This course begins with a systematic introduction to Leibniz s metaphysical writings, during which we will make use of a variety of sources, including his letters and both well-known and less well-known papers. These fragments will be related to texts of later, monadologically inspired philosophers, such as Gabriel Tarde, Henri Bergson, Alfred North Whitehead, Edmund Husserl, Walter Benjamin, Michel Serres, Peter Sloterdijk and Isabelle Stengers. Their texts will be read against the background of an actual topic: What is the status of speculative philosophy today? What remains of classical oppositions such as those between rationalism and empiricism or between idealism and materialism? Can t we retrospectively speak of a Leibnizian transcendental philosophy or a philosophy of differences based on Leibniz? To what extent are we currently experiencing a neo-Baroque age in art (literature, cinema, digital art)? How does Leibnizian process philosophy count as a forerunner to sciences of chaos and complexity? How could Leibniz s analysis situs contribute to the contemporary spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences? Which clues do the pluralism and perspectivism of the monadology provide for a socio-political network theory?

Literature

Leibniz, Philosophical Essays, edited and translated by R. Ariew and D. Garber (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989).

Other reading material will be announced during the course and distributed at least a week in advance. For the reading assignment of the first meeting, see the announcements on Blackboard.

Recommended reading

Leibniz: Leibniz, New Essays on the Human Understanding, edited and translated by P. Remnant & J. Bennett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).

Gilles Deleuze on Leibniz: Leibniz colleges 1980 and 1986-1987, http://www.webdeleuze.com/php/sommaire.html. Deleuze, Gilles, 2001, Difference and Repetition, transl. Paul Patton, NY / London:

Continuum. Deleuze, Gilles, 1990, The Logic of Sense, transl. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale,

London/NY: Continuum. Deleuze, Gilles, 1993, The Fold. Leibniz and the Baroque, transl. Tom Conley,

Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

For other recommended literature, see Blackboard.

Course plan and literature

1. Introduction: monadology as systematic and speculative philosophy

Primary literature: Leibniz, Monadology , in: Ariew & Garber, pp. 213-24.

Recommended secondary literature: Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason , AG 206-12.

Leibniz's metaphysics: problems and principles

2. Logic of events (Leibniz s main principles)

Primary literature: Primary truths, esp. AG 32-3 Discourse, §§8-9, 13-4 To Arnauld, esp. AG 69-77 Monadology, esp. §§1-9, 32-60 The Source of Contingent Truths, AG 98-100 On contigency 1686, AG 28-9

Recommended primary literature: Deleuze, The Fold, ch. 4-6 (Section II Inclusions ) Deleuze, Logic of Sense, Series 3, 16, 24

3. Freedom and Damnation

Primary literature: Leibniz, Confessio Philosophi, in:L Robert C. Sleigh Jr. (transl & ed.), Confessio z philosophi. Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil, 1671-1678, Yale UP. On Freedom and Possibility, AG 19-22 On Freedom, AG 94-7 Dialogue on Human Freedom and the Origin of Evil, AG 111-6 Letter to Coste, On Human Freedom, AG 193-5

Secondary literature: Deleuze, The Fold, ch. 4-6 (Section II Inclusions )

4. Why physics needs metaphysics: a vitalist rejection of Cartesian extension

Primary literature: New System of Nature, AG 138-42 To Arnauld, esp. AG 79 To De Volder, esp. AG 171-2, 179 Conversation, esp. AG 258, 260-2 Discourse §§10-12, 15, 17, 21 A Specimen of Dynamics, esp. AG 123-4 On Nature Itself, §§11, 13 To Lady Masham, 30 June 1704 To Queen Sophie, esp. AG 191-2 On the Nature of Body and the Laws of Motion, AG 245-50

Recommended primary literature: Deleuze, The Fold, ch. 1 The Pleats of Matter

5. Why the soul needs to have a body: idealism and realism?

Primary literature: To Arnauld, esp. AG 85-90; New System of Nature, AG 142-5 Leibniz, Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason , §§ 2-6. Monadology, esp. §§61-90 To Des Bosses, AG 197-206

Recommended primary literature: Deleuze, The Fold, ch. 8 The Two Floors

Recommended secondary literature: B. Look & D. Rutherford, Introduction , The Leibniz-Des Bosses Correspondence, (Yale UP), xix-lxxix.

6. Baroque chiaroscuro: the virtuality of ideas

Primary literature: Preface to the New Essays on the Human Understanding, AG 291-304 Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas, AG 23-7

Monadology, esp. §§10-30 New Essays on Human Understanding, Book II, ch. xi, pp. 144-5

Recommended primary literature:

Deleuze, The Fold, ch. 7 Perception in the Folds

Leibniz and process philosophy

7. Reason, ground and representation: Heidegger and Deleuze

Primary literature: -Martin Heidegger, 1997 [1957], Der Satz vom Grund (Neske): Vortrag Der Satz vom Grund , pp. 189-211. -Gilles Deleuze, 1994, Difference and Repetition, London/NY: Continuum, ch. 1, pp. 28-30 & Conclusion, pp. 272-7.

Recommended primary literature: -Heidegger, Vom Wesen des Grundes , in: Wegmarken, 177-202. -Heidegger, 1997 [1957], Der Satz vom Grund (Neske), pp.11-188. -Foucault, Michel, 2002, The Order of Things, Oxon/NY: Routledge, part I, ch. 3 Representing , pp. 51-85.

Recommended secondary literature: -Cristin, Renato, 1998, Heidegger and Leibniz. Reason and the Path, translated by Gerald Parks, Dordrecht: Kluwer.

8. Leibniz and process philosophy I: Bergson

Primary literature: -Leibniz, On the Ultimate [Radical] Origination of Things (1696) -Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics (Palgrave, in other editions aka The Creative Mind): ch. 1 Introduction I and ch. 3 The Possible and the Real .

Recommended primary literature: -Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution, ch. 1 -Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind, ch. 6 Introduction to Metaphysics .

Recommended secondary literature: -Deleuze, Gilles, 2004, Desert Islands and Other Texts 1953-1974, ed. D. Lapoujade, transl. M. Taormina, New York: Semiotext(e): Bergson, 1859-1941 , pp. 22-31.

9. Leibniz and process philosophy 2: Whitehead

Primary literature: -Whitehead, 'Nature and Life', in: Modes of Thought, pp. 127-69.

Recommended primary literature: -Whitehead, 'Process', in: Process and Reality, pp. 208-15.

Recommended secondary literature:

-Deleuze, The Fold, ch. 6, What is an Event?

10. Deleuze: a cruel consistency devoid of God, World, Self

Primary literature: -Gilles Deleuze, 1994, Difference and Repetition, London/NY: Continuum, ch. 1, 42-58, ch. 4, pp. 196-8, 208-14, ch. 5, pp. 252-54, Conclusion, pp. 262-4, 277-85.

Recommended primary literature: -Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, 1994, What is Philosophy?, London/NY: Verso Publishers, ch. 1 'What is a Concept?', pp. 15-28, ch. The Plane of Immanence, pp. 35-42 and ch. 6 'Prospects and Concepts', pp. 135-62.

Leibniz and politics: constitution versus composition

11. Husserl and Sloterdijk: monadological intersubjectivity and foam

Primary literature: Edmund Husserl: -On the Method of Distinguishing Real from Imaginary Phenomena, L 363-6 -Edmund Husserl, Cartesianische Meditationen (Felix Meiner Verlag), ch. IV & V.

Peter Sloterdijk: -2004, Sphären III: Schäume, Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, pp. 48-65, 250-308, 501-7, 545-60, 568-607, 654-670.

Recommended primary literature: -Deleuze, Logic of Sense, Series 14-6 -Deleuze, The Fold, ch. 8, pp. 106-10 -Michel Serres, Hermes II: Interference, ch. 3 Interference of monads: The fixed point and intersubjectivity -R. Cristin & K. Sakai, 2000, Phänomenologie und Leibniz, Freiburg/Munich: Verlag Karl Alber.

12. Tarde: monadology and sociology

Primary literature: -Gabriel Tarde, Monadologie et sociologie, 1999 [1893], Paris: Les empêcheurs de penser en rond. English: http://re-press.org/books/monadology-and-sociology/

Recommended primary literature: Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 25-6, 76 + footnotes Deleuze & Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, Micropolitics and Segmentarity , 208-31

Tarde, Monadology and Sociologie, Afterword to the English edition

Recommended secondary literature: -Bruno Latour, 2002, Gabriel Tarde and the End of the Social , in: Patrick Joyce (ed.), The Social in Question. New Bearings in History and the Social Sciences, London: Routledge, pp.117-132. -Alliez, Éric, 1999, Tarde et le problème de la constitution , in: Tarde, Gabriel, Monadologie et sociologie, Paris: Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, 9-32. -Lazzarato, Maurizio, 1999, Gabriel Tarde: un vitalisme politique , in: Tarde, Gabriel, 1999, Monadologie et sociologie, Paris: Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, 103-50.

13. Speculative diplomacy: Serres and Stengers

Primary Literature: Michel Serres: -Hermes I: La communication, ch. 2 (Philosophie), The dialogue between Descartes and Leibniz + The communication of substances, demonstrated more mathematica -Hermes III: Translation, ch. II Leibniz, translated back into the language of mathematics

Isabelle Stengers: -Power and Invention, ch. 2 Breaking the Circle of Sufficient Reason , pp. 21-32. -The Invention of Modern Science, ch. 1 The Sciences and Their Interpreters , esp. 15-8. - Introductory Notes on an Ecology of Practice

-Cosmopolitics II (VII): The Curse of Tolerance, ch. 23-28, pp. 351-416, esp. chapters 26-8.

Recommended primary literature: Michel Serres, 1968, Introduction , Le système de Leibniz et ses modèles mathématiques, Paris: PUF. -Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Dynamics from Leibniz to Lucretius , postface in Michel Serres, Hermes. Literature, Science, Philosophy, Johns Hopkins UP, pp.135-57.

Leibniz and the (neo-)baroque

14. The Baroque Gesamtkunstwerk: Deleuze s fold

Primary literature: -Gilles Deleuze, 1993, The Fold, ch. 3 and 9 (pp. 121-5).

Secondary literature: -Sjoerd van Tuinen (2009). Le pli: Deleuzes transformatie van monadologie in nomadologie , in: Romein, Ed & Schuilenburg, Marc & Tuinen, Sjoerd van (eds.). Deleuze Compendium, Amsterdam: SUN, 161-81.

-Angela Ndalianis (2004), Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment, MIT Press.

15. (Neo-)Baroque literature and music

Primary literature: Theodicy §§ 414-7 Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of the Forking Paths

Deleuze, The Fold, ch. 5, esp. pp. 61-3 and ch. 9 The New Harmony

Secondary literature: Ceciel Meiborg & Sjoerd van Tuinen, forthcoming, The Brewing of the Baroque

Recommended primary literature: Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image, ch. The Powers of the False

Deleuze, The Logic of Sense, 10th Series of the Ideal Game, 16th Series of the Static Ontological Genesis, 24th Series of the Communication of Events

Recommended secondary literature: Greg Lambert, The Non-Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, ch. 8, 'The baroque detective. Borges as precursor', pp. 73-89

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