Essays
A syncretism of Leibniz’s monadology and agent-causal free will
Or, “An adaptation of monadology to include free will”
Leibniz’s theory of monadology has a number of interesting properties. It is an elegant conception of a universe constructed out of unchanging and indivisible structures called “monads”. However, its deterministic nature, while allowing for Leibniz’s compatibilist conception of free will, is contradictory to a libertarian conception of human free will as independent and unpredictable.
In this essay, I will attempt to resolve these contradictions and adapt monadology to include libertarian free will, by positing the unpredictability of free will as the influence of an unknown ‘black box’ inside the monad.
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