A paper bringing into light Leibniz’s general ideas concerning aesthetics, and then, due to the epistemological-psychological significance of sense perception in Leibniz’s philosophy, inquiring into it in detail and attempting to clarify the place of sense knowledge in human knowledge according to Leibniz. A paper venturing to divide Leibniz’s approach to sense qualities into objective and subjective aspects and investigating each separately. (1)
Perception. A very important problem indeed.
Hidden in the foundations of philosophy.
How does our perception differ from others?
How much “correct” our perception actually is?
How does our perception connect to reality?
A lot of people have argued and analyzed what Leibniz said and what he did not say regarding perception. (see for example Zhaolu Lu, “Leibniz’ theory of perception reconsidered” or Stephen Montague Puryear, PhD, “Perception and representation in Leibniz”, University of Pittsburgh, 2006) All these attempts to clarify the mystery of perception through the eyes of the great philosopher are common in making the same one important mistake: that we do not share the same eyes with Leibniz.
One could agree that…
“perception that is, the representation of the composite, or what is external, in the simple” (Ariew & Garber 1989: 207)
Or that…
“perception, which is the internal state of the monad representing external things” (Ariew & Garber 1989: 208).
The world is a magic place. Seeing it makes one believe we are into that world, wandering around like rats is an elaborate maze.
What if perception for you is not something simple? What if your own way of thinking is complex? Would that make your own perception of things not… true? What if we are all parts of the same“Monad” but have different ways of perceiving the ‘external’ things? What if there are no external things at all? What if everything is a representation of our perception? What if we create the things we believe we perceive?
And yet, one does not need to be in a maze to get confused.
Sitting in a chair in the safety of your living room. Being confused and mesmerized by things you think of. Getting confused. Analyzing the problems of your perception when there is no problem at all except one fundamental one: That you can perceive even without perceiving anything. With closed eyes. With no ears. With no sense of smell or taste.Without touching anything.
The greatest mystery is not how you perceive.
But the fact that you can perceive at all…
A shadow floating into existence.
Inside a dark void universe.
Experiencing Dasein. Dying.
Past the vast openness of nothing.
Beyond the realms of dreams.
Perceiving everything.
Only because there is nothing to perceive…
