Question for old-timer's: Peikoff's view on certainty

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

The writings left by an extinct race were knowledge to that race (conceptual beings). Those writings are knowledge to present day people who decode it (conceptual beings). During the time that no conceptual beings were in contact with it, it was only scratchings. It was not knowledge. That previous knowledge was just as extinct as the race that wrote it was. It took conceptual beings, ones with their own language and their own concepts (i.e. knowers), to turn it back into knowledge. Without a separate language and set of concepts, it would have been impossible to decode, since there would have been no code in the first place to decode it with.

Saying that those writings are "obviously knowledge" is like saying that the fossilized bones are "obviously human beings." There is an enormous problem with the verb tense.

There can be no knowledge without a knower.

This is a prime example of the stolen concept. You are attributing a human characteristic to the non-human world simply because there are leftovers from humans. When you say, "The statement "2+2=4" has no meaning to a banana either. This obvious,and potentially infinite point has therefore no bearing on the point you and I agree on," we disagree on the "bearing" of this "infinite point."

In Objectivism, human beings are needed to create and maintain knowledge (not bananas ). You dismiss this as "having no bearing," yet claim that it is "assumed." Which is it? Fundamental (assumed)? Or irrelevant/having no bearing (not needed)? You want to step outside of logic and have it as both?

Your comment about objective and subjective in dealing with the civilization that does not know what Arabic number symbols are is merely applying a standard that is irrelevant. Mathematics using Arabic numbers to that civilization is neither objective or subjective. It is not known to them. Therefore, it is not knowledge to them. It is only knowledge to them when they learn it. It can only be objective or subjective to you or another conceptual being who knows what it means.

Using your "objective/subjective without a knower" standard, all things are knowledge simply because one can know them. That is confusing reality with knowledge. Either that, or you are interpreting the world of others through your own mind as if your mind controlled their existence. Just because an intelligent creature created some knowledge, that does not make what he created objective or subjective to another who has not learned what it is. It is simply nothing to that person except maybe some scratchings or sounds. Without understanding, there is no knowledge.

That's the whole reason we have communication and learning: to make sure knowledge remains knowledge by being in the heads of those who understand it, instead of becoming some scratchings of an extinct race, or worse, a living one that has been oppressed (think Dark Ages). It is entirely possible for knowledge to become lost.

One thing I think we can agree on. The formulation 2+2=4 was created by human beings (conceptual beings).

This being the case, it is easy to turn this into knowledge in the head of another human being by teaching it to him. But then, one can turn the habits of forest animals into knowledge in the head of another human being by teaching them to him (if one has learned them), but that does not make the habits of forest animals knowledge. A knower was needed.

Unlike your insinuation, Objectivism deals with the metaphysical and the man-made. Where it seems to part ways with you is that it claims that man was needed for something man-made to exist. To you, man is not needed to make the man-made (knowledge, for instance), but he is assumed, so he is not relevant and has not bearing on the issue.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>You dismiss this as "having no bearing," yet claim that it is "assumed." Which is it?

No-one is discussing mathematics relevance to a parrot's or a banana's epstemology.

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>Where it seems to part ways with you is that it claims that man was needed for something man-made to exist.

No, simply that while we create our knowledge, once created it can stand outside of us (eg in language) and contain things that we, the original knower, did not anticipate (eg logical consequences that we did not see). Einstein created his theories, but did not know they contained the atom bomb.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

No-one is discussing mathematics relevance to a parrot's or a banana's epstemology.

Daniel,

Then including the knower is relevant and fundamental. If you eliminate him, you have stepped outside your discussion.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

No, simply that while we create our knowledge, once created it can stand outside of us (eg in language) and contain things that we, the original knower, did not anticipate (eg logical consequences that we did not see). Einstein created his theories, but did not know they contained the atom bomb.

Daniel,

We agree here, however the "things that we did not anticipate" or "logical consequences" are caused by other knowers. Einstein's theories without other human beings (other knowers) would not have resulted in the atomic bomb or anything else.

So, once again, the knower is not irrelevant as a component of knowledge, as you have claimed. He is fundamental. Knowledge is an activity of knowers, not the other way round.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>Then including the knower is relevant and fundamental. If you eliminate him, you have stepped outside your discussion.

No-one's entirely "eliminating" knowers, Michael.

The whole thing is a side-track, just as I've noted with my own brief digression into epistemology without a knowing subject. If you really want to discuss that issue, we can do it on another thread.

Just stay focussed on the key point: "2+2=4" is true to a human knower (it goes without saying), regardless of whether a parrot or Leonard Peikoff says it or 2000 monkeys type it or a child guesses it without actually knowing the answer. That is to say, the arbitrary can be a source of truth - which was the point of my comments to date.

You and I agree with this, and we both disagree with Lenny.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

We kinda agree. I definitely think the Peikoff statement is very problematic. But the more I think about it, the more I am having difficulty with the concept of arbitrary. I don't know whether this means causeless or happening from one of multiple causes that pops up at random. And if this happens at random, then that is without a cause.

I am starting to have a real difficulty reconciling the concept of arbitrary with the law of identity/causality in Objectivism.

I will get back to you on this.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Daniel,

You've picked an issue where I think Karl Popper is dead wrong, and another one where he has an excellent point, but somewhat misconstrues its implications.

First, the dead-wrong part:

As a matter of fact, and as a side issue, it can be argued that it does [knowledge does exist without a knower]. Popper puts the case in his important essay "Epistemology Without A Knowing Subject." For example, take the writings left by an extinct race. Later archaeologists may learn to decode the writings, and learn what those extinct people knew.The writing is obviously knowledge, but during the period between the extinction and its rediscovery, there was no knowing subject.

Popper is making two fundamental errors here:

(1) He is confusing external representation (such as the inscriptions left by people from some long-extinct civilization) with internal representation (concepts and images or whatever the psychological means of knowing the world are). External representations constitute knowledge only for organisms with (i) the right kind of internal representations, which include (ii) knowledge of the specific symbolizing or coding relations between the external representations and what they stand for.

(2) He is supposing that because external representations are relatively durable, they can constitute knowledge without a knowing subject. But they are of no epistemic value without an interpreter that already knows (or can reconstruct) the coding relations involved.

The underlying problem is that Popper, although not a logical positivist, rode the same wave that so many analytic philosophers did after Gottlob Frege: the rejection of "psychologism." He cast his main epistemological claims in logical terms, rather than psychological terms. But you can go only so far with that.

From his autobiography and Malachi Hacohen's biography, I gather that Popper tried to do cognitive psychology under difficult circumstances (during the late 1920s), was dissatisfied with the results, and reacted by turning away from psychology altogether.

Epistemology depends way too much on psychology for that strategy to be fully successful.

Second, the excellent part:

Further, the writer of a book often does not know the full implications of their writings. Einstein did not know his theories contained the atomic bomb. Thus, while we create knowledge, it can and does supersede us.

If the writer has anything deep to say, we can amend your "often" to an "always."

This is one of Karl Popper's key insights.

It is not unique to him. In fact, Dr. Peikoff means very much the same thing when he says that human beings are not "Aquinas's angels."

But there is an important difference between stressing the point in your written work, as Karl Popper did, and burying it in a couple of lectures while you take up the pages in your published work with allegedly more crucial matters, as Leonard Peikoff did.

The fact that theories or hypotheses have implications unrecognized by the people who formulated them does not require a notion of knowledge without a knowing subject. It does require a thorough appreciation of implicitness, which is a different matter altogether.

I've written about implicitness in my 2002 JARS article, available here:

http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~campber/goalsvalues.pdf

Robert Campbell

[Daniel Barnes]

Robert:

>Popper is making two fundamental errors here

That may well be. He thought "World 3" was one of his most radical conjectures, and waited a long time to finally put it forward. It has mostly been attacked or rejected ever since. On the other hand, I think it is a highly intriguing idea - I first came across it in a highly critical review of Popper, and thought the idea under attack was nonetheless more interesting than the review made out - and Popper's highly original take on "objective knowledge" is better thought through than many realise. Are you familiar with the essay in question? While I have some problems it myself, I think it has merit, and I would be happy to discuss it further. However, I am travelling for a while, and will pick up on your criticisms when I get back.

>This is one of Karl Popper's key insights....in fact, Dr. Peikoff means very much the same thing...

Yes, but when Popper says "we never know exactly what we are saying" it is hard to imagine Peikoff reacting with anything but outrage at the suggestion. It may indeed be another of those implications within Objectivism that is ostensibly rejected but unwittingly or tacitly accepted. Perhaps Peikoff and Rand did not know exactly what they were saying...;-)

Cheers

D

[Robert Campbell]

Daniel,

Yes, but when Popper says "we never know exactly what we are saying" it is hard to imagine Peikoff reacting with anything but outrage at the suggestion. It may indeed be another of those implications within Objectivism that is ostensibly rejected but unwittingly or tacitly accepted. Perhaps Peikoff and Rand did not know exactly what they were saying...;-)

Oh, I entirely agree. If you attributed to Leonard Peikoff the view that we never know exactly what we are saying, he would flip his lid.

But Karl Popper's deliberately paradoxical utterance is a direct implication of our not being Aquinas's angels; i.e., of our not knowing everything that follows from what we know.

It's been a long time since I read that particular essay by Popper. I'll be happy to take another look at it, though.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Is it me, or is there some kind of time travel involved in Popper's concept?

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>Is it me, or is there some kind of time travel involved in Popper's concept?

It's just you..

[Daniel Barnes]

Robert:

>But Karl Popper's deliberately paradoxical utterance is a direct implication of our not being Aquinas's angels...

Robert's "Aquinas's Angels" refers to a very popular 13th C illustrated manuscript where three beautiful angels, working for the mysterious "Thomas", run around solving various philosophical paradoxes...

[Ellen Stuttle]

Second, the excellent part:

Further, the writer of a book often does not know the full implications of their writings. Einstein did not know his theories contained the atomic bomb. Thus, while we create knowledge, it can and does supersede us.

If the writer has anything deep to say, we can amend your "often" to an "always."

Only if the writer has anything deep to say? ;-) I'm inclined to just make the "often" "always" categorically.

Daniel, do you have an immediately available direct link to the essay "Epistemology Without A Knowing Subject"? I get a whole lot of hits on Google, but so far all the links I looked at are references to the essay not the essay itself. I'd like to read the essay. Like you, I find the World 3 idea intriguing (I read the Tanner Lecture you linked earlier), though maybe wrong for reasons such as Robert gave -- though on the other hand maybe with implications (we never know what we're saying) that maybe Popper himself didn't think of (I don't know enough yet about what he did with the idea.)

Ellen

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Mike:

>Is it me, or is there some kind of time travel involved in Popper's concept?

It's just you..

Daniel,

Do you mean that when Popper says "we never know exactly what we are saying," he is not really including future developments that are not available for knowing at the time?

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Ellen:

>Daniel, do you have an immediately available direct link to the essay "Epistemology Without A Knowing Subject"?

No, sadly. However there is, from the same volume the title essay "Objective Knowledge", at a Marxist website for some reason.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/...s/at/popper.htm

I am going to quote the opening section at length, just because it is beautiful:

"MAN, some modern philosophers tell us, is alienated from his world: he is a stranger and afraid in a world he never made. Perhaps he is; yet so are animals, and even plants. They too were born, long ago, into a physico-chemical world, a world they never made. But although they did not make their world, these living things changed it beyond all recognition and, indeed, remade the small corner of the universe into which they were born. Perhaps the greatest of these changes was made by the plants. They radically transformed the chemical composition of the earth's whole atmosphere. Next in magnitude are perhaps the achievements of some marine animals which built coral reefs and islands and mountain ranges of limestone. Last came man, who for a long time did not change his environment in any remarkable way, apart from contributing, by deforestation, to the spread of the desert. Of course, he did build a few pyramids; but only during the last century or so , did he begin to compete with the reef-building corals. Still more recently he began to undo the work of the plants by slightly, though significantly, raising the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere.

Thus, we have not made our world. So far we have not even changed it much, compared with the changes achieved by animals and plants. Yet we have created a new kind of product or artefact which promises in time to work changes in our corner of the world as great as those worked by our predecessors, the oxygen-producing plants, or the island-building corals. These new products, which are decidedly of our own making, are our myths, our ideas, and especially our scientific theories: theories about the world we live in.

I suggest that we may look upon these myths, these ideas and theories, as some of the most characteristic products of human activity. Like tools, they are organs evolving outside our skins. They are exosomatic artefacts. Thus we may count among these characteristic products especially what is called 'human knowledge'; where we take the word 'knowledge' in the objective or impersonal sense, in which it may be said to be contained in a book; or stored in a library; or taught in a university.

When referring to human knowledge, I shall usually have this objective sense of the word 'knowledge' in mind. This allows us to think of knowledge produced by men as analogous to the honey produced by bees: the honey is made by bees, stored by bees, and consumed by bees; and the individual bee which consumes honey will not, in general, consume only the bit it has produced itself: honey is also consumed by the drones which have not produced any at all (not to mention that stored treasure of honey which the bees may lose to bears or beekeepers). It is also interesting to note that, in order to keep up its powers to produce more honey, each working bee has to consume honey, some of it usually produced by other bees.

All this holds, by and large, with slight differences, for oxygen-producing plants and for theory-producing men: we, too, are not only producers but consumers of theories; and we have to consume other people's theories, and sometimes perhaps our own, if we are to go on producing.

'To consume' means here, first of all, 'to digest', as in the case of the bees. But it means more: our consumption of theories, whether those produced by other people or by ourselves, also means criticising them, changing them, and often even demolishing them, in order to replace them by better ones.

All these are operations which are necessary for the growth of our knowledge; and I again mean here, of course, knowledge in the objective sense.

I suggest that it looks at present as if it is this growth of human knowledge, the growth of our theories, which turns out, human history into a chapter so radically new in the history of the universe, and also in the history of life on earth..." - Popper, 1972

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>Do you mean that when Popper says "we never know exactly what we are saying," he is not really including future developments that are not available for knowing at the time?

It means that what we say or write often transcends our own thinking at the time, thus must be partially autonomous from our consciousness. By this, I do not mean that the implications are necessarily "not available for knowing";indeed others can often see our mistakes or insights clearer than we, the creators, can (hence the practice of peer review, for example).

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

I take your statement to mean that we only see issues from our own perspective, which is limited because we are not omniscient.

This is consonant with Objectivism.

Obviously more information comes with examination by other intelligent perspectives. That does not make what we say become divorced from our consciousness, however. Not even partially. Knowledge is not an entity. It is merely the remembered result of identification and creative integration of individuals. Since human minds work the same, this allows us to share memories and identifications through language.

This might give the appearance that knowledge is some kind of entity that is partially autonomous from those who think it, but this is like an optical illusion. There is no thinking without thinkers.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>There is no thinking without thinkers.

So you assert. Why not hear some arguments - or put some forward yourself perhaps - before making your mind up on the subject?

As I say, I'll elaborate in a couple of days.

Edited August 20, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Ellen Stuttle]

Thanks for the excerpt in your post 66, Daniel.

I somehow managed to hit some code combination which changed my keyboard so it types special characters where I donát .. ex, that was supposed to have been don..apostrophe..t.. want them. So I am currently keyboard tied, rather than tongue tied..can not use quote marks either, btw, or brackets, or parentheses, or hyphens.

I find the passage exciting..my mind going faster than my thoughts can catch up to. The idea is related, very, it appears to Dawkins Extended Phenotype. Objective Knowledge was published in 1972, The Extended Phenotype in 1982. The latter does not refer to the former. I have no idea if there was any Popper influence on Dawkins.

I also see a relationship to an argument Bob Kolker and Dragonfly were having about whether the genetic code is really a code. I thought in reading that argument, depends whether the sequence is essential..as I understand how genetics operates, it is. But the issue is related to varying respects in which it does or does not make sense to speak of information in a particular sense without an aware informed. Also to a problem I keep finding in Dennett, re when the intentional stance becomes intention, an issue I think is central to the real issues of volition..which I see differently from AR.

At any rate, maybe I will..would have typed I, apostrophe, ll if I could have..order and read Objective Knowledge next of Popper..was planning to make Open Society and Its Enemies next.

Apologies for the fractured writing. What the hell keys did I push.. the question mark does not work either.

Ellen

EDIT: I figured out what I'd done. Somehow I'd clicked on a little menu thingy and changed the keyboard to Hungarian. Now I wonder, How does one do apostrophes, quote marks, parentheses, question marks, etc., when using the keyboard for typing Hungarian? Ah, well. Meanwhile, I'd written "don..apostrophe..t" in the second paragraph as "don..hyphen..t." I fixed that, but left the rest of the fracturing as it was.

...

Edited August 21, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

I am listening. I used to be religious and believed in disembodied thought (spirits and so forth). Even then, the thinking needed the thinkers. They were ectoplasm, but they were still thinkers. I never flirted with the concept of the collective unconscious or anything like that.

Recently, I have been questioning the existence of entities from a top down perspective. It is easy to arrive at them from the bottom up by identifying the limits and nature of the building blocks (subparticles). What I have been questioning is what brings X number (and type) of subparticles and not Y number (and type) together in the first place.

There is a fascinating book by a guy named Wallace Wattles entitled The Science of Getting Rich from the beginning of last century. Here are some excerpts.

From Chapter 3: Is Opportunity Monopolized?

Everything you see on earth is made from one original substance, out of which all things proceed.

New Forms are constantly being made, and older ones are dissolving; but all are shapes assumed by One Thing.

There is no limit to the supply of Formless Stuff, or Original Substance. The universe is made out of it; but it was not all used in making the universe. The spaces in, through, and between the forms of the visible universe are permeated and filled with the Original Substance; with the formless Stuff; with the raw material of all things. Ten thousand times as much as has been made might still be made, and even then we should not have exhausted the supply of universal raw material.

. . .

The Formless Stuff is intelligent; it is stuff which thinks. It is alive, and is always impelled toward more life.

It is the natural and inherent impulse of life to seek to live more; it is the nature of intelligence to enlarge itself, and of consciousness to seek to extend its boundaries and find fuller expression. The universe of forms has been made by Formless Living Substance, throwing itself into form in order to express itself more fully.

Does this sound like the expanding universe? At least this is thought without an independent thinker, unless one considers the entire universe as the Original Thinker.

As an Objectivist, I found the following quote especially charming in a get rich work. What a time to be alive, right before WWI!

Chapter 10: Further Use of the Will

Another thing. We assert that this book gives in detail the principles of the science of getting rich; and if that is true, you do not need to read any other book upon the subject. This may sound narrow and egotistical, but consider: there is no more scientific method of computation in mathematics than by addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division; no other method is possible. There can be but one shortest distance between two points. There is only one way to think scientifically, and that is to think in the way that leads by the most direct and simple route to the goal. No man has yet formulated a briefer or less complex "system" than the one set forth herein; it has been stripped of all non-essentials. When you commence on this, lay all others aside; put them out of your mind altogether.

Read this book every day; keep it with you; commit it to memory, and do not think about other "systems" and theories. If you do, you will begin to have doubts, and to be uncertain and wavering in your thought; and then you will begin to make failures.

After you have made good and become rich, you may study other systems as much as you please; but until you are quite sure that you have gained what you want, do not read anything on this line but this book, unless it be the authors mentioned in the Preface.

Here are the authors it is OK to read in order to become rich.

Preface

The monistic theory of the universe the theory that One is All, and that All is One; That one Substance manifests itself as the seeming many elements of the material world -is of Hindu origin, and has been gradually winning its way into the thought of the western world for two hundred years. It is the foundation of all the Oriental philosophies, and of those of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Emerson.

The reader who would dig to the philosophical foundations of this is advised to read Hegel and Emerson for himself.

According to Objectivism, these dudes (except Spinoza) are some of the blackest villains of philosophy and the reason the world is descending into hell. Wattles literally finds material wealth in them.

For the sake of being more complete, here is how Wattles proposes one thinker to impress his thinking on thinking that has no thinker so as to become a cause for the creation of things (like wealth):

Chapter 17: Summary of the Science of Getting Rich

THERE is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit.

What I find charming about this is that Objectivists call this kind of thinking intrinsicism or subjectivism (the two main forms of rejecting reality), depending on which aspect is under focus. Yet the ontology is the same, but using different words:

From Objectivism:The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff:

(p. 16)

The law of causality does not state that every entity has a cause. Some of the things commonly referred to as "entities" do not come into being or pass away, but are eternal—e.g., the universe as a whole. The concept of "cause" is inapplicable to the universe; by definition, there is nothing outside the totality to act as a cause. The universe simply is; it is an irreducible primary.

(p. 122)

Metaphysically, there is only one universe. This means that everything in reality is interconnected.(13) Every entity is related in some way to the others; each somehow affects and is affected by the others. Nothing is a completely isolated fact, without causes or effects; no aspect of the total can exist ultimately apart from the total. Knowledge, therefore, which seeks to grasp reality, must also be a total; its elements must be interconnected to form a unified whole reflecting the whole which is the universe.

Taken literally, this means that my thoughts affect and are affected by distant stars, although I doubt Peikoff had this in mind when he wrote that. But using Peikoff's ontology as a premise, I can easily see an Objectivist version of the law of attraction being derived from it. It would differ in degree but not kind from the one proposed by mystics.

btw - I am not proposing this. I am merely in "look and see" mode right now. Wattles seems to be proposing that the universe is made out of one substance that has two characteristics: (1) a physical nature and (2) a will, so to speak, although on a subparticle level, "will" is probably too human-specific a word to convey the idea correctly. "Nonphysical drive to cause physical forms" or something like that would probably be more accurate.

Such a drive is a form of thought without the thinker. Somehow, I don't think this is what you mean by knowledge without a knowing agent.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

It belatedly occurred to me that some folks here might not be familiar with Aquinas's angels.

Supposedly (this is second-hand, because I haven't studied his philosophy) Thomas Aquinas wanted to explain how angels have greater cognitive powers than mortal human beings, but lesser cognitive powers than God.

So he proposed that angels did need to learn, sort of. Learning for them consisted of getting acquainted with particular ideas in God's mind. But angels could instantly apprehend all of the implications of each idea they encountered.

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Ellen,

Popper's volume on Objective Knowledge is well worth reading.

And the issue that Baal and Dragonfly were disputing is fundamental.

It's interesting seeing how Rand struggled with the question whether knowing involves encoding. She did this in a long entry from 1976 now included in Ayn Rand Answers (pp. 156-158).

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen,

Popper's volume on Objective Knowledge is well worth reading.

Given the nexus of questions which most of all exercise my thoughts, I think I'll read Objective Knowledge before The Open Society and Its Enemies, though I much want to read the latter also.

And the issue that Baal and Dragonfly were disputing is fundamental.

Sure seems to me it is, with all kinds of ramifications which I feel that I only glimmer.

It's interesting seeing how Rand struggled with the question whether knowing involves encoding. She did this in a long entry from 1976 now included in Ayn Rand Answers (pp. 156-158).

News to me that she talked about that. I don't have Ayn Rand Answers.

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

Preface

The monistic theory of the universe the theory that One is All, and that All is One; That one Substance manifests itself as the seeming many elements of the material world -is of Hindu origin, and has been gradually winning its way into the thought of the western world for two hundred years. It is the foundation of all the Oriental philosophies, and of those of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Emerson.

I don't get why he'd include Descartes and Leibnitz, unless all he's thinking of in Leibnitz's theories is the idea of pre-established harmony. Descartes was a substance dualist. And Leibnitz thought the world was made of monads, each different from every other, though acting in pre-established harmony.

Ellen

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