Let's talk abot Leibniz!

[Pedro I Rengel]

"He scanned the landscape one more time.

- No,

he said,

- there are no philosophers here."

[Fixed Cross]

And he turned away from the mirror.

[Fixed Cross]

For who is any and everything good, part of the best of all possible worlds? For who sees it as good. God sees everything as good. When a person sees everything as good, that is that person allowing the Grace of God to guide him.

This is the Ethics side of Leibniz's Ontology and Ethics.

Well if it is this important to you, I'll say "well done chap!" and hope it is of use to you.

[Fixed Cross]

Your rendering of L gives something identical to what they teach in new age ashrams and you always let on hating these.
Im not dissing you, this is true. New ageism is basically this, nothing can be wrong, have faith God wills it.
I have found this philosophy to be deeply corrupting, so much so that it allows mothers to get an ego boost at their sons death.

So I guess I am just worried. I hope you will get back to being a philosopher of Will and Destiny (fun and meaning), rather than of God and Fate (obedience and head-bopping).

[Pedro I Rengel]

Do stupid dirty hippies take away from the power of The Doors?

Certainly not!

[omar]

Two mistakes;

1
That the world is the best of all possible worlds does not imply that everything in it is good.
Only that there is more good about it than any other possible world.
But that doesn't mean that in other possible worlds, some things wouldn't be better at the cost of more other things being worse.

2
Leibniz did not simply state this without reason. It is the logical conclusion of a comprehensive meritocratic argument he intuited but which is first explicated with VO.

Hmmmmm
I don't know. I once read his Discourse on Metaphysics and it seemed that his declaration, or conclusion, (depending on your opinion about deductions from arbitrary premises) was drawn from religious principles, very much in the same vein as Aquinas and the scholastic tradition.

He argued that God does everything in the most desirable way. This is very optimistic given the state of existence we experience. Mosquitos seem to me unnecessary. Of course, he would disqualify my ability to pass judgment on Creation (third proposition). Without the implication of the Biblical God his Discourse would be missing a key part. His Metaphysics is in every way a theodicy.

So, this world is not the best of all because he has assessed other possibilities but from the principle that God does everything in the best possible way, and a critique on Creation shows a lack of love towards God (fourth proposition).

To me, his propositions show an uncritical point of departure. Where such love of God is lacking, as in Nietzsche, the conclusion that this is the best of all possible worlds is not achieved (Although his "Amor Fati" was every bit a blessing on all existence. The Lutheran upbringing perhaps, yet without any appeal to Reason, but rather blood and breeding). I doubt that, as stated in the Discourse, his logical conclusions were the expression of a belief in meritocracy, quite the contrary, on the obsequious premise that God is the best in all He does and that our perspective is never the provider of a standard to judge Creation unless aided by love of God.

[omar]

He said we live in the best of all possible worlds. Because God is.

This is both Ontology and Ethics. For the question we then ask is why or how is any given thing good? Since it is also Ontology, we are not compelled to cheat reality by imposing a reason on her, but rather to seek the answer in the most honest questioning of her.

Why is pain good? Leibniz's ontoethics would not have you deciding. One simply knows pain is good because we live in the best of all possible worlds.

This is also Dualism. The knowledge that everything is good without the knowledge of why or how. It is very sexual, because the knowledge that it is good invites the questioning of how and why!

And since your very questioning exists, and is thus good, there's no pressure.

In short, it is an ethics and ontology because it gives both what things are and what to do about them as a consecuence of what they are.

Pedro
Yo no entiendo muy bien lo que estas diciendo pero no me parece que eso fue lo que Leibniz escribio, o, intento de decir. Yo te aconsejo de mirar su biografía para entender el argumento teológico que estaba haciendo.
His theodicy is not about the most honest questioning of Creation, but questioning out of love of God. Without that love then important first principles would be missing to lead your reason towards your reconciliation with suffering.
Knowing suffering is not good. We suffer from depression, some even kill themselves. What is missing is not reason. It is rather reasonable to feel the loss of a loved one, for example. What is missing is the first principle of love of God, in Liebniz theodicy.

All that said, a person thinking about the subject should regard the Book of Job, and Ecclesiastes, as a counter-argument. Rather than the best of all possible worlds....meaninglessness.

[barbarianhorde]

Isn't it sort of the point in life that some things are really better than other things? I know it is for me and everyone I know. No one likes bad spinach.