T. S. Eliot’s Genealogical Exploration of Leibniz’s Monadism and Problems of Substance

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to examine the significance of T. S. Eliot’s genealogical exploration of Leibniz’s monadology in his “The Development of Leibniz’s Monadism” published in 1916. Critical of the contemporary Bertrand Russsel’s purely logical approach toward Leibniz’s metaphysics, Eliot pays keen attention to the theoretical and, especially, theological backgrounds from which Leibniz’s monadology emerges. As an origin of Leibniz’s thought of the monad, Eliot pinpoints Aristotle’s concept of the substance. Merging Aristotle’s concept of the substance with a modern theory of atomism, the monad of Leibniz is immaterial, individable, and eternal. Yet, Eliot makes conclusions that there exist unresolvable gaps between Leibniz’s scientific and theological orientation that underlies his monadology, and that he ultimately fails to accomplish his “ambitious” project to restore Christian belief in the immortality of the soul.