Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour Rocco Gangle - Leibniz's Monadology
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Oct 12, 2025 Rocco Gangle, a Professor of Philosophy at Endicott College and expert in semiotics and metaphysics, dives into Leibniz's Monadology. He explores the nature of monads, emphasizing their inward qualities devoid of external interaction. Rocco explains Leibniz's concept of pre-established harmony and debates divine freedom alongside moral optimism. He intriguingly connects Leibniz's ideas to contemporary thoughts, including Wolfram's Ruliad and Deleuze's philosophical inquiries, while also discussing the implications of monads for political structures.
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Personal Path Into Leibniz
- Rocco discovered Leibniz through reading Spinoza and felt Spinoza's ghost in Leibniz's text.
- He suggests Leibniz met Spinoza and that encounter profoundly shaped Leibniz's thought.
Monads As Partless Theaters
- Leibniz's monads are simple, partless substances that serve as self-contained theatres of perception.
- They function like substantial forms, individuated by qualitative internal principles rather than spatial parts.
No Windows, Only Interiors
- Monads "have no windows": they change only from internal principles, not external interaction.
- Leibniz treats each monad as an infinite interiority that mirrors the universe internally.
