The account of world
in general and its parts completes the independent part of
Baumgarten's cosmology. There is still one section of cosmology we
haven't dealt with, but it still requires to be fulfilled by an
important proposition, proven only in theology. The section concerns
the perfection of the world and the proposition to be proven states
that the world is perfect, because it is created by God.
We have already seen
that the notion of perfection in Baumgarten is quite aesthetical –
the more things we have following the same laws, the more perfect
world we have. This notion by itself rules out certain worldviews as
being clearly imperfect. We already know that Baumgarten holds materialistic world to be an impossibility. Furthermore, egoistic
world is clearly not perfect, because in such a world exists only one
entity. Similarly, a dualistic world is more perfect than idealistic,
because idealism allows only the existence of spirits, while dualism
accepts also the existence of matter and its simple parts – that
is, if matter and spirits are just something that can exist in the
same world.
One part of the
notion of perfection rules then that there should be as much entities
in the world as possible, while the other part states that these
entities should be governed by same laws. An interesting question is
whether the other part speaks against the possibility of events
happening against natural laws, that is, miracles. One thing is
certain – the inclusion of spirits in Baumgarten's world does not
violate natural laws, but instead just extends the notion of natural
from mere material universe to spiritual entities. Thus, whatever
spirits do, it is not in any way miraculous. Indeed, it is only God
who could act in any way against the laws of nature.
We might think that
as an avid Leibnizian Baumgarten would be quite against the notion of
miracles – in a perfect world God needs not wind the clock from
time to time. Yet, as a Wolffian, Baumgarten is still willing to
leave the possibility of miracles open. Supernatural events might be
possible even in the perfect world, if they just somehow improved the
world. If some perfections could not be achieved through mere natural
means or if they could not be achieved as perfectly, then miracles
might be in order.
Interestingly,
Baumgarten uses the notion of perfect world to decide the topical
question of interaction between substances. If we begin from the
least acceptable alternative, occasionalism would state that no
finite substances would actually act, but everything would be done by
infinite substance or God. This view would contradict a proposition
Baumgarten takes to be self-evident, that is, that when a thing is in
some respect passive toward another thing, it must be in another
respect active. Hence, occasionalism would fall to a contradiction
and would be unacceptable even on that account.
The decision between
causal influx, Leibnizian pre-established harmony and some mixture of
the two is not as simple. Before Baumgarten can decide between these
alternatives, he must obviously explain what they all mean. Causal
influx, Baumgarten says, means that all interactions are real, that
is, when substance A is active in respect to a change in passive
substance B, B is in no respect active in respect to this same
change. Then again, pre-established harmony states that all
interactions are ideal, that is, when substance A is active in
respect to a change in passive substance B, B is also active in
respect to that same change – in other words, it is just a matter
of perspective, whether A has caused something in B or whether B has
caused it in itself. In mixed positions, some interactions are real,
some ideal.
Now, Baumgarten
insists that the system of pre-established harmony does not deny that
causal interactions do occur between different substances – it just
states that at the same time these substances, in a sense, act for
themselves. Similarly, a system of universal causal influx does not
deny that world would contain universal harmony, and indeed, causal
influx would glue all the parts of the world as well together as
pre-established harmony. Then again, causal influx does have its
problems. Particularly, since an activity of a thing must always be
derived from some other substance, eventually no finite substance
would be active in the sense that its activity would be consequence
of its own nature.
But the final proof
Baumgarten accepts is based on the notion perfect world. If the world
would be glued by a universal causal influx, all the reasons for some
event would be external to the things involved in the event. Then
again, in pre-established harmony, all events have two different
types of influence – the events are really caused by the things
themselves and ideally by other things. Because of this
consideration, Baumgarten is willing to accept pre-established
harmony, except in case of God, who obviously is a real cause of the whole world.
So much for
cosmology! Next time I will turn to questions of psychology.
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