Monadology
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The Monadology (La Monadologie, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz’s best known works representing his later philosophy. It is a short text which sketches in some 90 paragraphs a metaphysics of simple substances, or monads.
Philosophical conclusions
This theory leads to:
1. Idealism, since it denies things in themselves (besides monads) and multiplies them in different points of view. Monads are “perpetual living mirrors of the universe.”
2. Metaphysical optimism, through the principle of sufficient reason, developed as follows:
a) Everything exists according to a reason (by the axiom "Nothing arises from nothing");
b) Everything which exists has a sufficient reason to exist;
c) Everything which exists is better than anything non-existent (by the first point: since it is more rational, it also has more reality), and, consequently, it is the best possible being in the best of all possible worlds (by the axiom: "That which contains more reality is better than that which contains less reality").