Friday, March 11, 2011

Leibniz: Theorist of Spiritual Matter?

From a letter of Leibniz to Johann Bernoulli (Philosophical Essays, p. 169-70):

"You rightly judge that the passive is never actually separated from the active in creatures. What God could have done, I don't venture to say. The passive alone and the vacuum seem, at least, incompatible with his wisdom, even if they aren't incompatible with his power. Neither is it certain that there are intelligences completely separated from bodies except for God. Many Church Fathers have also inclined to the contrary, attributing bodies to angels."

2 comments:

Michael Sullivan said...

This isn't spiritual matter at all. Spiritual matter is when even non-corporeal substances have a material but incorporeal and non-extended substrate. This is just suggesting that angels might be corporeal after all.

Lee Faber said...

There it is then