THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

POWER AND GOODNESS:

LEIBNIZ, LOCKE AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY

VOLUME ONE

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO

THE FACULTY OF THE DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

JOHN U. NEF COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL THOUGHT

BY

MENG LI

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

DECEMBER 2008

UMI Number: 3338493

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iii

Acknowledgements )

My first debt of gratitude is to Nathan Tarcov. Without his support and

encouragement I could never have finished my study in Chicago. His careful reading

and insightful comments led to significant improvements in this dissertation. His

scholarship, kindness, and dedication to students continue to be models for me.

To Robert Pippin and Yitzhak Melamed I am very grateful for their generous

participation in my committee. Besides their courses, their suggestions and remarks

on the draft made this dissertation better.

It is a great privilege to spend more than seven years in the University of

Chicago, and especially in the Committee on Social Thought. I am grateful to many

teachers: Mark Lilla, Ralph Lerner, Jean-Luc Marion, Jonathan Beere, Helma Dik,

Glenn Most among others. This dissertation shows what I learnt from their

teachings.

Thanks are also due to the several institutions that supported my graduate

study in Chicago: The University of Chicago, The Bradley Foundation, The Earhart

Foundation, The John M. Olin Center.

Many friends help me in these years. To Steve, Joel, Nathan, Theo, Jingjiang,

Guohua, Linhu, Liping and Tiangeng, Sida, Guangxin and Guohui, Shiu, Kehua,

thanks for the enjoyable moments we shared. My special gratitude goes to Wanqing

and Shaochun, without whose help the life in Chicago would be much more difficult

and boring.

IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOLUME ONE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES v

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 1 .Power and Goodness in Ancient Philosophy 2 2.The Hegemony of Absolute Power 33 3.Leibniz and Modern Philosophy: Against Absolute Power 67

CHAPTER TWO: INNATE IDEAS 91 1 .The Old and the New Way of Ideas 95 2 .Leibniz's Diagnosis of Locke 114 3.Leibniz's Remedy 147

VOLUME TWO

CHAPTER THREE: LIBERTY AND POWER 190 1 .Locke's "Uneasiness" and Freedom 190 2.Freedom and Inclinations 218 3.From Power to Goodness 239

CHAPTER FOUR: NATURAL LAW 274 1 .Ethics and Metaphysics 274 2.The Crisis of Modern Natural Law 280 3.Locke 307 4.Leibniz 342

CONCLUSION 380

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 386

V

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Leibniz's scheme offerees 267

1

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

The notion of power and its relationship to goodness is a question as old as the

tradition of philosophy. Among ancient philosophers, Plato and Aristotle offer the

classical treatment of this theme. Their examination of power in its political,

psychological, physical, and even metaphysical aspects shows its indispensable role

in both our contemplation of the nature of things and our practice of leading a good

life. The concept of power (dynamis) is increasingly associated with nature and

contrasted with conventional morality since the Sophistic movement. Plato attempts

to answer this challenge by establishing the fundamental dependence of power on

goodness. This becomes the dominant principle for understanding the relation

between power and goodness in ancient philosophy. Aristotle develops Plato's

fundamental principle into a metaphysics in which power, though playing a central

role in explaining natural changes and human activities, remains dependent on being

as actuality.

This conception of power and its relation to goodness that we find in Plato's

dialogues and Aristotle's metaphysics contrasts remarkably with the modern

mainstream understanding of power which is more or less shaped by the biblical

tradition and the Christian philosophy. The Scholastics formulate a new

understanding of power by combining the biblical concept of divine omnipotence

with the Pagan philosophy. In this synthesis, the notorious distinction between

2

potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata in defining divine power decisively changes

the relative priority of power and goodness. The doctrine of absolute power is

dominant in early modern political thought and metaphysics.

In this concept of power free from the dependence on goodness Leibniz

detects the fundamental weakness of modern philosophy. He attempts to reform

defective modern philosophy with a new doctrine of power, especially a new

understanding of the relation between power and goodness. Leibniz's criticism of

Locke in the New Essays makes up a central part of this project. A careful

examination of Leibniz's "dialogue" with Locke concerning power and goodness

will prove to be helpful in bringing to light the dynamic mechanism of modernity.

1. Power and Goodness in Ancient Philosophy

In the Pre-Socratic writings, especially in the literary works, the meaning of dynamis

and its derivatives ranges from physical or material forces to political power and

superiority.2 The most widespread and significant use of the term dynamis before

Plato, however, can be found in the Greek medical writings which are usually called

the Hippocratic corpus. In these scientific treatises, dynamis is almost the equivalent

of physis.3 This usage shows the profound influence of the first natural

1 My discussion of pre-Socratic and Plato's usages of dynamis is greatly benefited by Joseph

Souilhe's classic study, Etude sur le terme DYNAMIS dans les Dialogues de Platon (Paris, 1919; New York: Garland Reprint, 1987). 2 Ibid, ch.l.

3 Similar usages can be found in Plato's work, Charmides. 156b, cf. Philebus.29b. Timaeus. 32e.

60a-b, 65e, 82e, 85d among others.

3

philosophers.4 Sophists like Gorgias, a disciple of the natural philosopher

Empedocles, adopt this usage in their challenge to the conventional morality.5

Power, in their writings, refers to the physical force which is independent of or

indifferent to moral goodness.

This physical understanding of dynamis, once introduced into philosophy,

brings about two related consequences which Plato has to confront in his dialogues.

With the concept of dynamis the natural philosophers can establish a connection

between the sensible qualities and the internal nature of things. Thus the reference of

the term dynamis shifts from external and material property to internal force. But at

the same time this physical understanding of dynamis also strengthens its dangerous

non-moral, if not immoral, significance which is already implicit in its usages in

poetry. Power is a kind of neutral efficacy, without which you cannot defend what is

right in morality.6 In the brutal reality of politics, it is argued, this power might or

even should be executed without scruple. This position is explicitly expressed by the

4 "In the treatises of the Hippocratic corpus, especially in those which the influence of the

cosmological idea of the first natural philosophers is particularly manifest, the term dynamis designates the characteristic property of bodies, their external and sensible side, that which allows us to determine and specify them. Thanks to the dynamis the mysterious physis, the substantial eidos, or primordial element, makes itself known, and makes itself known by its action. This explains why it is possible from this point, especially at a later date, to pass from the known to the unknown, from the appearance to the reality, and how easy it was to establish a perfect equation between physis and dynamis." Ibid, 55-6. It is noteworthy, in the medical treatises, the equation between physis and dynamis is employed to oppose the "hypothetical" method of natural philosopher or sophists. This opposition between the "historical" approach and "philosophical" approach in Greek medicine anticipates the dialogue between Locke and Leibniz almost two thousand years later. Cf. Harold W. Miller, "Dynamis and Physis in On Ancient Medicine," Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 83 (1952), 184-197. 5 Souilhe, op. cit. 57.

6 The best example of this might be the line of Odyssey X, when Odysseus answered to the question

why he came back, "My wretched companions brought me to ruin, helped by the pitiless sleep. Then make it right, dear friends; for you have the power" (69, cf.III.205). This "force" or "strength" is natural to the human beings and does not depend on his virtues or morality (cf Iliad, VIII.295, XIII.786). Physical strength or material force is the paradigm of this kind of dynamis.

4

Athenians in the notorious Melian dialogue of Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War.

When you speak of the favor of the gods, we may as fairly hope for that as yourself; neither in our claim nor our conduct being in any way contrary to what men think about the gods and what they wishes for themselves. Of the gods we believe, and of men we know, that by a necessity of nature (physis anankaid) they will rule wherever they are strong for it (krate). And it is not as if we were the first to make this law, or to act upon it when made: we found it existing before us, and shall leave it to exist forever after us; all we do is to make use of it, knowing that you and everybody else, having the same power as we have, would do the same as we do (V. 105.1-2, emphasis added).

The natural necessity of power in virtue of which the weak should be subject to the

more powerful (dynatotepos) is claimed by the Athenians elsewhere as the law well

established (1.76.2). This notion of the non-moral power is central to the opposition

between nature (physis) and convention (nomos) which becomes increasingly sharp

with the rise of the sophists. It is against this background Plato undertake his inquiry

about power.

1.1 Plato

One of most important contributions Plato makes to the Begriffsgeschichte of

dynamis is his profound and subtle grasp of the centrality of power in the classic

opposition of nature and convention. His formulation of the theme of power

determines decisively its later development. One of the distinctive features of Plato's

treatment of this theme is its consistent focus on the relation between politics and

philosophy involved in this theme, which, later, is often lost in the complicated

metaphysical disputations.

5

(1) Gorgias: Power in the Opposition between Nature and Convention

Plato's examination of power is, for the most part, an answer to the sophistic attempt

to contradict convention with nature,7 as we clearly see in the Gorgias. In this

dialogue entitled with the name of one of most famous rhetoric teachers in his time,

the power (dynamis) of Gorgias' art, rhetoric, becomes the focus of Socrates'

cross-examination from the very beginning (447c). In defending the art of Gorgias,

Polus rises up to praise orators for their ability: with their power to persuade, orators

can "put to death anyone they wish, like the tyrants, and deprive people of property

and expel them from their cities as they may think fit" (466c). Polus believes,

orators can do whatever they think to be best with this tyrant-like ability, and this is

the great power {to mega dunasthai). B Polus disagrees with Socrates on whether

orators have great power or least power {dunasthai smikrotaton, 466d-e), he admits

to the latter that this great power is not good. Socrates takes advantage of this split

between power and goodness in Polus' position to refute him. The upshot of

Socrates' refutation is his insistence on the dependence of power on goodness: "we

do not wish to slaughter people or expel them from our cities or deprive them of

their property as an act in itself; we do them if they are beneficial or good. Thus we

have to know whether what seems best to us is really best (468c).

When Polus is forced to admit that it is good for those who do injustice to

suffer the penalty rather than to escape it, Callicles becomes angry. He accuses

7 Cf. the classic study of Felix Heinimann, Nomos undPhysis (Basel, 1945), 1 luff.

6

Socrates of "turning things upside down" by intentionally confusing convention

(nomos) and nature (physis). Convention, Callicles claims, is laid down by the

weaker to frighten those stronger who are able to get more from doing so. But by

nature, Callicles insists, it is just for "the better" (ton ameino) to have advantage

over the worse, the more powerful (ton dynatoteron) over the weaker (tou

adynatorou). We can find numberless examples in animals, individual human beings,

or cities and races in which justice is the rule and advantage of the stronger over the

weaker by following nature, or the law of nature (kata nomon...ton tes physeos).

This is, Callicles reminds Socrates, the truth which will guide people to greater

things, while Socrates, with his philosophy, a sort of childish trick, is even "unable"

(mete dynamenon) to save himself nor deliver himself from the greatest dangers

(482c-486d). Thus in his shameless speech, Callicles, in the name of the law of

nature, frees power from the restrains of conventional morality, and considers this

immoral power as the truth of nature. It is in examining this "tyrant-like" power and

its philosophical foundation that Plato develops his account of power and its relation

to goodness. Callicles' challenge, as a touchstone of the human soul, forces Socrates

to clarify the nature of goodness and the strength of the superior, which anticipates

the discussions in the Republic. In this respect, the Gorgias is nothing but a rehearsal

of the grand opposition between power and goodness in the Republic, in which,

Callicles' challenge is reclaimed by Thrasymachus in an even more violent way.

7

(2) Republic I: Power and Goodness in Justice

The theme of power and its relation to goodness is intimately interwoven with

Socrates' refutation of Thrasymachus' definition of justice as the advantage of the

stronger in Republic I. Since "stronger" (kretton) can mean either more powerful (as

the comparative of kratus) or better (as the comparative of agathos), the tension

between power and goodness is already hidden in Thrasymachus' definition of

justice (338c). Socrates' examination of Thrasymachus' definition, taking advantage

of this tension, exposes its mixture of apparently unconventional or even blatant

defense of injustice and deeply conventional commitment to human law.

When Socrates requires Thrasymachus to clarify what he means by "the

stronger," Thrasymachus insists uncompromisingly that the stronger are truly strong,

that is, they never make any mistake, whereas anyone who makes a mistake fails in

knowledge and "is in that respect no craftsman" (340d-341a). Against Socrates'

suggestion that good rulers should, just as good craftsmen, take care of the

advantage of those whom they rule rather than their own advantage, Thrasymachus

turns to an even more shameless position: the life of the unjust man is stronger than

that of the just (347e), since those truly stronger are able to (dynamenon) to get more

(344a). Thrasymachus is not really concerned with justice or injustice, but with the o

power or ability which serves the advantage of the stronger (his own goodness).

8 According to Thrasymachus, the just is someone else's good and the advantage of the stronger

while the unjust is one's own advantage and profitable, but disadvantageous to the weaker (343c, cf. Adeimantus' recapitulation in 367c). Thus, even understood as advantage, goodness is dependent on the power of injustice in Thrasymachus' unjust unity of power and advantage.

8 But Thrasymachus' unjust unity of power and advantage soon collapses on

Socrates' further examination. Socrates' first important move is to clarify the relation

between power and art in Thrasymachus' definition of "the stronger." He forces

Thrasymachus to admit that each art is different on the basis of its specific dynamis

(capacity or function). This dynamis of each art, rather than the power or ability to

get more (346a-b), should be the peculiar benefit of each art. Compared with this

dynamis of art, Thrasymachus proves to be more concerned with another power, the

ability "to subjugate cities and tribes of men to themselves" (348d). The strength of

the stronger, Thrasymachus believes, is based on this political power, which makes

the unjust more powerful, but the just powerless (349b). It is on account of this

power that Thrasymachus maintains injustice is noble and strong (348e), and the

unjust man prudent and good (349d). Thrasymachus thus unites power and goodness

(understood as advantage) in injustice. The strength and goodness of injustice is

centered around the power to subjugate others to themselves. Though quite reluctant,

Thrasymachus has to sacrifice the specific power of each art by which we

accomplish things for the sake of his "general" political power by which we can get

more. Socrates proceeds to demonstrate this "general" power of the stronger at the

core of Thrasymachus' arguments is illusory. Injustice is neither good nor powerful.

Thrasymachus' dissociation of power and art is the key to Socrates' refutation.

Socrates firstly shows that only the ignorant man wants to get the better of both the 9 This anticipates the fundamental principle of the Republic: it is impossible (actynatori) for one man

to do a fine job in many arts (374a). Compare with the discussion in the Gorgias at the opening (447c, cf.452e, 455d, 460a).

9

man who knows and the man who does not, while the man who is both good and

wise will not want it. The unjust man is thus more like the bad and unlearned

(349c-350d). When injustice comes into being, Socrates further points out, "be it in

a city, a clan, an army, or whatever else, it first of all makes the thing unable

(adynatori) to accomplish anything together with itself due to faction and different,

and then it makes that thing an enemy both to itself and to everything opposite and

to the just" (351e-352a). The power of injustice turns out to be powerlessness.

Against Thrasymachus' previous claim that the most perfect injustice (like tyranny)

would be most powerful and thus most happy (344a), the perfectly unjust, according

to Socrates, are completely unable to do anything (352d). The power we customarily

grant to the unjust man in fact results from the half justice he still has. By contrast,

the just man is wiser, better, and has more power to accomplish things (352b).

Justice proves to be both good and powerful. In his refutation, Socrates implicitly

resorts to a fundamental principle that any power, even the political power to get

more, has to rely on some power to accomplish things. Without the latter the former

would be impossible. The fundamental tension between these two kinds of powers

implicit in Socrates' refutation of Thrasymachus is an important thread that runs

through the discussion of the Republic.

(3) Republic II-VI: Socrates' Philosophical Grounding of Power

Socrates' refutation of Thrasymachus does not convince his audience. One reason

10 might be that the implicit relation between the two kinds of powers has not been

fully explored. In Glaucon's and Adeimantus' reformulations of the issue, Socrates is

required to demonstrate the goodness and power of justice without resorting to the

conventional praise of justice. According to Glaucon, this inquiry into the nature

rather than convention of justice is confronted with the challenge that injustice is

naturally good, while justice is nothing but a compact among the powerless, who are

simply unable to escape suffering injustice and to choose doing injustice

(358e-359a). In other words, if the goodness and power of justice depend on its

conventional association with various advantages it is not good and powerful on its

own, but proves to be a delusional image of some truer power. Adeimantus

formulates this point even more clearly: "if we possess it [i.e. the greatest injustice],

with a counterfeited seemly exterior, we'll fare as we are minded with gods and

human beings both while we are living and when we are dead...,"he asks Socrates,

"will a man who has some power - of soul, money, body, or family - be made

willing to honor justice and not laugh when he hears it praised" (366c)? It seems that

besides those men with weakness, no one else is willingly just, "men blame injustice

because they are unable to do it" (366d). This dissociation of justice with its own

power from the conventional power which is usually associated with the reputation

of justice draws out attention to the psychic conditions of the respective powers of

justice and injustice (366e). To prove the goodness of justice, Socrates is asked not

to "only show by the argument that justice is stronger than injustice, but show what

11

each in itself does to the man who has it that makes the one bad and the other good"

(367b, 367e). This goodness itself of justice should be justified solely on the basis of

"what justice itself does with its own power when it is in the soul of a man." The

psychology of power will determine the fate of the politics of justice.

It takes Plato the remaining nine books of his Republic to show how Socrates

answers the challenges of Glaucon and Adeimantus. The theme of power, we will

see, always appears at the most crucial moments of Socrates' answer. In Socrates'

answer, the distinction of the two powers which is implied in his examination of

Thrasymachus becomes explicit. The notion of power on the basis of which

Thrasymachus attempts to overturn the conventional morality of justice, though

apparently radical, turns out to be a more conventional understanding,10 according

to which, power, not unlike money and other resources (423a), is a kind of force

which can be used by anyone for his advantage. This bare power is neutral or

indifferent to its end. But there is another kind of power, the power of virtue, the

power of knowledge, and finally the power of philosophy, at which Socrates has

already hinted in his discussion of the specific dynamis of each art. This power is

always oriented to an end. The tension and possible ally between these two powers

determines both the virtues of individuals and the fate of cities.

Socrates' gradual clarification of the second power accompanies his attempt to

define justice as a virtue. Virtues are consistently defined as powers (for courage, 10

Adeimantus aptly remarks, "Thrasymachu and possibly someone else say about justice and injustice, vulgarly turning their powers upside down" (367a, emphasis added).

12

429b, 430b). The power of justice as a virtue consists in each man's minding his

own business and not being a busybody (433d, 443b). The power of justice causes

other virtues into being, and once they came into being, preserves their presence in

the city (433b). Socrates' search for virtues further requires an adequate account of

their psychological conditions, and especially with reference to the relation between

power and dispositions. To demonstrate the goodness of justice we have to move

from the politics of virtues in which power is still in service of opinions and habits

to the psychology of citizens which leads to the truth of goodness. This transition

from city to man brings us to a more profound understanding of power.

In Socrates' bold articulation, the ideal city has to be founded on the alliance

or "coincidence" between political power and philosophy in the same place (473d).

But this alliance is rather improbable precisely because philosophy is a power rather

different from political power. The difference between the power of philosophy and

political power is at bottom the difference between the power of knowledge and that

of opinion (477d, 477e, 478a). Knowledge and opinion have different foundations:

"opinion is dependent on one thing and knowledge on another, each according to its

own power" (477b). This difference leads Socrates to give an explicit account of

power for the first time in the Republic: "We will assert that powers are a certain

class of beings by means of which we are capable of what we are capable, and also

everything else is capable of whatever it is capable" (477c). Sight and hearing are

mentioned as two examples of powers. This apparently commonplace definition

13

implies an ambiguity of great significance to our inquiry: as "a certain class of

beings" power is defined as ability or capacity which makes us able to accomplish

something (dynamis from dynaton). But it remains unclear whether this ability is an

indifferent or neutral means to whatever end or it is oriented to a specific end or

even depends on the end it serves. To clarify this ambiguity, Socrates adds,

With a power I look only to this - on what it depends and what it accomplishes; and it is on this basis that I come to call each of the powers a power; and that which depends on the same thing and accomplishes the same thing, I call the same power, and that which depends on something else and accomplishes something else, I call a different power (477d).

Power is power not merely on the account of its efficacy, but more importantly, on

the account of its foundation ("what it depends") and its efficacy to its end ("what it

accomplishes"). On the basis of these factors we are able to distinguish different

powers. Thus to distinguish the power of knowledge and that of opinion we should

consider them not merely as the same bare power with different degrees of efficacies,

but as different powers on different foundations. With this move, Socrates has

already overturned a fundamental principle of Thrasymachus' shameless but vulgar

advocacy of the power of injustice. Behind the bare power with which

Thrasymachus is concerned lies a more fundamental form of power, the power with

its own foundation and end.

On Socrates' newly formulated principle, knowledge, since it is dependent on

being {to on, 478a), turns out to be the most vigorous of all powers (477d). But it is

quite difficult to determine the nature of opinion. Neither knowledge nor ignorance,

opinion is the "wanderer between, seized by the power between"(479d). It depends

14

on the mixture of being and non-being, light and darkness. It becomes clear that,

what various virtues establish, promote and preserve in the city are mainly this kind

of power, which is seized "by the power between." The composite nature of this

power is the source of the sophistic zeal for the bare power.

But it remains to explain the relation between being and power in the case of

knowledge. In his attempt to distinguish knowledge and opinion, Socrates has

already hinted at the point. Those who have knowledge are able to see and delight in

the nature of beauty itself (476b) while those who have nothing more than opinions

live in a dream (479e). The power of knowledge is directly related to its power to

"see" beauty itself or justice itself, while opinion lacks such power. Socrates'

account of the power of knowledge leads naturally to his famous teaching about

ideas.

Socrates' discussion of ideas is the culmination of his account of power in the

Republic. In the previous contest with Thrasymachus about whether justice or

injustice is good, Socrates does not question explicitly Thrasymachus' identification

of goodness and advantage. But Glaucon and Adeimantus' request for Socrates to

show the respective effects of justice and injustice on the human soul in order to

determine whether justice or injustice on its own is good brings to light their

dissatisfaction with the conventional understanding of goodness (506b). This

dissatisfaction is a prerequisite of the true knowledge of justice since before

knowing what the good is and thus whether justice is good the guardians cannot

15 claim to have the knowledge of justice (506a).

To clarify the nature of goodness, Socrates suggests that we refer to goodness

itself as an idea, and address it as "that which is" (ho estin, 507c). Among ideas the

idea of goodness is sovereign: "the idea of the good ... provides the truth to the

things known and gives the power to the one who knows" (508e). The power of

knowledge and the power of being knowable (the power of truth, 507e, 509b) have

the same root, that is, the idea of goodness. It is easy for us to be convinced of the

first half of this bold claim since we have well known that knowledge depends on

being and thus derives its power from an idea, which is addressed as "that which is."

But the second half of Socrates' thesis is, though difficult to understand, even

philosophically more significant. Indeed this claim, according to Socrates, is merely

a part of the sovereign dignity and power of goodness: "not only being known is

present in the things known as a consequence of the good, but also existence (to

einai) and being (ousia) are in them besides as a result of it, although the good isn't

being but is till beyond being, exceeding it in dignity and power" (509b). Goodness

beyond being is the source or foundation of power.

Socrates' "demonic excess" in praising the sovereignty of goodness

consummates his struggle with the theme of power. The power of art in Republic I

and the power of knowledge in Republic V finally find their philosophical

foundation in the idea of goodness. Grounded on the idea of goodness, this power of

knowledge makes up the basis of virtues, by means of which the city is preserved.

16

Thrasymachus' vulgar attempt to base the advantage of the stronger on their

infallible power is answered by a most vigorous power of knowledge in perfect

sense. And the close relation between this power and goodness also makes it

unnecessary to meet the request of Glaucon and Adeimantus in Republic II.

However, the power of philosophy is still not political power. Its efficacy in a

city, as we have seen in Socrates' discussion of virtues, needs the cooperation of the

power of opinions, since virtues are the power to establish and preserve in the city

the opinions, most of which "are later produced by habits and exercises" (518d-e).

Thus, Socrates does not claim that the best regime they found in speech requires the

derivation of political power from the power of philosophy and finally the power of

goodness, but at most he merely hopes for the coincidence of these two kinds of

power. Though political power cannot accomplish anything without the help of the

power of knowledge, or even though it cannot come into being without the power of

goodness, it cannot be completely thrown away as Glaucon and Adeimantus require.

While philosophy or dialectic has the power "to release and leads what is best in the

soul up to the contemplation of what is best in the things that are" (532c, cf.537d,

533a), it has to rely on the ally of political power to preserve a city, even if it is best

when it is founded.

But the possibility of this cooperation and its true philosophical

presupposition requires a more careful examination of the relation between power

and being which is more or less taken for granted in the Republic. Plato's attempt to

17

confront these issues in his dialogue Sophist profoundly influences all later similar

attempts to understand the relation between power and being.

(4) Sophist (246a-249c): the Battle between Giants and Gods

The subject of the Sophist is to search for a satisfactory definition of the slippery

figure, sophist, and distinguish him from the philosopher and the politician. This

search depends on the possibility of speaking about non-being, which, in its turn,

involves an understanding of being and its image. In the middle of the struggle with

being and non-being, the Stranger from Elea gives what we may call the first

historical account of philosophy: the battle of Giants and Gods over being (ousia).

The Giants, according to the description of the Eleatic Stranger, drag

everything down to earth out of the heaven of the invisible, grasping rocks and trees

with their hands, and when they take hold of all these things, they insist that only

that which resists and is sensible to touch is. In a word, they define being as body.

In contrast to these "terrible guys," their opponents, the Gods, defend their

position cautiously from somewhere high above. They contend that "the true being"

is some incorporeal form which can be thought about. They address the bodies of the

Giants as "becoming" (genesis) rather than being.

But each position has its own difficulty. Power comes to the rescue in their

respective attempts to overcome these difficulties on their own principles. The

radical position of the Giants has difficulty in explaining the nature of soul and its

18

virtues, which are neither visible nor touchable. The Eleatic Stranger suggests a

moderate position to avoid this difficulty:

... a thing really is if it has any power at all, either by nature to do something to something else or to have even the smallest thing done to it by even the most trivial thing, even if it only happens once. I'll take it as a definition that 'those which are' (to onto) are nothing other than power (247d-e).

In this moderate position, the Giants can explain away non-corporeal things with the

help of the concept of (active and passive) power. Without sacrificing their emphasis

on corporeality they now define everything in terms of its power. But their

opponents, the so-called "friends of the ideas"(toM5 ton eidon philous), refused to

accept this definition of being, since they hold that the powers of doing something

(poiein) and having something done (paschein) belong to becoming, not to being.

But "the friends of the ideas" have their own trouble. Though they are not

willing to accept the being of changeable things, they have to admit that the process

of knowing involves change, that is, action (poiema) and experience (pathos), or

active power and passive power as the moderate position of the Giants understand.

Thus, if they want to retain knowledge, life, soul and intelligence, they have to admit

"change" (kinesis) into being. "The friends of the ideas" need to find a way to

combine or mix being and idea on the one hand, power and change on the other.

We cannot enter into a careful examination of the further attempts of the

Eleatic Stranger and his interlocutors to confront this difficulty. But a brief sketch of

the battle between the Giants and Gods suffices for our aim. Plato, with his

characteristic profundity and subtlety, here puts forward the most pressing

19

philosophical challenge to the power of philosophy he establishes in the central

books of the Republic (V-VI). The modest position of the Giants, while proposing

power as the principle of being, endangers the dependence of power on the idea of

goodness, which Socrates claims as the source of being. If "the friends of the ideas"

cannot deny change which comprises both corporeal motion and various

psychological activities, they have to figure out the complicated relation between

power and eidos.

The battle of the Giants and the Gods concerning the nature of being, as the

Eleatic Stranger has warned us, "always" goes on (246c). The dialogue between

Leibniz and Locke, as we will see, repeats this never-ending philosophical battle in

some important aspects.

1.2 Aristotle: Power in Nature and the Metaphysics of Actuality

As the best student of Plato, Aristotle is quite clear about the philosophical

implications of his mentor's examination of power. The conception of dynamis plays

a central role in Aristotle's metaphysics. Dynamis is an indispensable way to speak

of being {to on. Meta. 1045b32-5b). Aristotle starts with the dynamis in the narrow

sense, that is, the power in motion; then he turns to the dynamis in the general sense.

By integrating dynamis into his metaphysics of substance, Aristotle grants an

unprecedented importance to power by re-interpreting it according to the

fundamental principle of his philosophy, and thus sets the tone for all later

metaphysical thinking concerning power.

20

(1) Dynamis in Motion

As we have seen in Plato's Sophist, a significant difficulty for "the friends of the

ideas" is how to explain change without sacrificing their philosophical principle.

Aristotle's examination of the so-called dynamis kata kinesin ("the power with

regard to motion") might be the most important attempt in this respect.

Dynamis, according to Aristotle's "philosophical lexicon" (Metaph.A.\2), can

be used in many different ways (1019al5-20a6). But since its use in connection with

motion is the dynamis in the strict sense, Aristotle takes this usage as the starting

point of his philosophical examination.

Aristotle's examination of dynamis kata kinesin is central to his inquiry

concerning nature. On Aristotle's principle, "all things existing by nature have in

themselves a principle of motion and of standing still" (Phys. 192b 13-4). According

to this understanding of nature, "things which have such a principle are said to have

a nature" (192b32-3). Thus, as the source or principle of motion or change (Metaph.

1046al0-l 1), dynamis is indispensable to any inquiry about nature.

The centrality of dynamis in Aristotle's doctrine of nature comes to

foreground with his famous definition of motion. Before defining motion, Aristotle

first points out, "some things are in actuality (entelecheia) only, others in potentiality

(dynamis) and in actuality" (Phys.200b26-7). Motion is the actuality of what is

21

potential as such (201al0-ll). To explain this mysterious definition, Aristotle gives

an example:

That this is what motion is, is clear from what follows: when what is buildable, in so far as we call it such, is in actuality, it is being built, and that is building. (201al5-17).

Thus, the house is building only when what is potential is in actuality, "neither

before nor after": before what is potential is at work (en-ergein), bricks are still the

matter of the house, while after what is potential has become the actual - the house

exists and it is no longer buildable (201b5-15). Motion can be placed without

qualification neither under the potentiality nor the actuality of things (201b29-30).

Thus it is difficult to grasp what motion is. The core of Aristotle's solution to this

paradox is the actuality of the dynamis, as Aristotle puts it, "it is the buildable that is

being built" (201b5-15). It is precisely in the process of motion that the potentiality

of bricks is fully manifested.11

But the potentiality that becomes actual in the process of motion is not a

neutral or indifferent potentiality. The phrase "as such" in Aristotle's definition of

motion attempts to draw out attention to this point:

By 'as (such)' I mean the following. Bronze is potentially a statue, yet it is not as bronze that the actuality of bronze is a motion; for to be bronze and to be movable by something are not the same, since if they were the same without qualification or according to formula (logos), the actuality of bronze as bronze would be a motion. So they are not the same... Since, then, to be bronze and to be potentially something else are not the same, just as to be a color and to be visible are not same, clearly it is the actuality of what is potential as potential that is motion (201a29-34).

The potentiality as the source of change is not the power which is employed by the

11 L. A. Kosman, "Aristotle's definition of motion," Phronesis 14 (1969), 50, 54.

22

Giants as the mark of the reality of "matter." Dynamis in Aristotle's philosophy is

always the potentiality of something as its actuality, which is the goal or end of the

motion. What is actualized in motion is not matter per se (bronze as bronze, or

bricks as bricks), but the potentiality of being the actual (bronze as the potentiality

of statue, or bricks as the potentiality of house), which is the form of what is finally

actualized.12 Motion is not the free play of a power without end, but "the actuality

of what is potential as potential." Aristotle's definition of motion brings dynamis

from the side of the enemies of eidos to the side of its friends.

With his definition of motion, Aristotle believes, he has overcome the

difficulty of being and non-being which haunts Plato's Sophist (201b20-l). And

more relevant to our concern, Aristotle's definition of motion, by relating closely the

potentiality and the actuality of things, manages to incorporate the concept of

dynamis into his metaphysics of substance and eidos.

(2) Motion and Activity

But as the Eleatic Stranger in the Sophist points out, the most serious difficulty that

confronts "the friends of ideas" is not locomotion, but changes involved in knowing

{Soph. 248e). Several important aspects of this issue are explored by Plato in the

Theaetetus. In this dialogue concerning the nature of knowledge, Socrates mentions

a popular way of speaking about knowing: knowing is often understood as "the

12 About the respective roles of form and matter (subject) in change, Phys. 1.7; about form as the

actuality, Metaph. 1038b6.

23 having (hexis) of knowledge" or "the possession (ktesis) of knowledge." But there is

a subtle difference between "having" and "possessing." Just like a man who makes

an aviary to hunt birds at his house, he "possesses" them in the sense he has

acquired a certain power to hunt for any one he likes at any time, but in another

sense, he "has" none of them (197b-d). Then Socrates suggests a theory of

knowledge similar to Locke's:

Then we must say that when we are children this receptacle is empty, and by the birds we must understand piece of knowledge. When anyone takes possession of a piece of knowledge and shuts it up in the pen, we should say that he has learned or has found out the thing of which this is the knowledge; and knowing, we should say, is this (197e).

When one possesses these pieces of knowledge in the "aviary" of his mind, he can

choose among them, and "takes it and 'has' it, then lets it go again" (198a).

Knowing, in this aviary model, denotes two different states: one is possessing the

power without using it (the piece of knowledge in the aviary), another is using or

"having" (the piece of knowledge at hand). This theory is certainly not Plato's final

word concerning knowledge. But it draws our attention to the two different

processes involved in knowing: one is "learning", or the acquisition of the power of

knowing; another is "using" this power. To answer the challenge of the Giants, "the

friends of ideas" have to explain these two processes and the powers involved.

By extending "the power with regard to motion" to the power in the general

sense, Aristotle supplies a systematic account of these two processes on the basis of

his conception of potentiality and actuality. There are three senses in which someone

is called a knower, according to Aristotle: (1) he can be a knower and can have

24

knowledge (e.g. he is able to learn English); (2) or he already has knowledge (e.g. he

knows English); (3) or he is actually exercising his knowledge (e.g, he is speaking

English). These three cases make up the three stages of knowing. At the first stage,

the man has the power or potentiality of knowing simply because "his kind and his

matter are of a certain sort." At the third and final stage, the man is actually knowing,

that is, he is exercising his power of knowing. The second stage is most complicated.

At this stage, on one hand, the man has learnt knowledge and acquired the power to

exercise his knowledge, but on the other hand, he is not actually using his power. He

has both potentiality and actuality at the same time. Thus we can find the two kinds

of potentialities (1/2) and two kinds of actualities (2/3) in Aristotle's scheme (De

Anima. 417a21-b2).

On the basis of this complicated scheme of potentiality and actuality, Aristotle

distinguishes activity from motion or change. The process from the first potentiality

to the second (and the first actuality) is change or becoming, but the event from (2)

to (3) Aristotle is reluctant to call motion or alteration (417b8-16), but prefers the

term activity (energeia). Thus learning is change or motion whereas contemplation

is not change, but activity (417b2-16). The distinctive feature of motion, according

to Aristotle, is that, motion as actuality is incomplete (ateles), because its

corresponding potentiality is incomplete (Phys. 201b32-3). By contrast, activity or

action (praxis) is complete or perfect actuality. Aristotle explains the distinction

explicitly as follows:

25 Since of the actions which have a limit, none is an end, but all are relative to the end, e.g. the process of making thin is of this sort... But that in which the end is present is an action. E.g. at the same time we are seeing and have seen, are understanding and have understood, are thinking and have thought: but it is not true that at the same time we are learning and have learnt, or are being cured and have been cured. At the same time we are living well and have lived well, and are happy and have been happy. .. .Of these processes, then, we must call the one set motions, and the other activities. For every motion is incomplete... (Metaph. 1048b 18-29)

Thus, the crucial feature which distinguishes activity or action from motion is its

"completeness."13 Though both activity and motion are end-oriented, the end of

motion is outside it, or more precisely, the ending point of motion, while the end of

activity is nothing but activity itself. Activity is complete (teleia) exactly because its

end is present in itself. Motion achieves its end only when terminating itself while

activity does so by maintaining itself.14

Aristotle gives a more detailed analysis of this point in his discussion of

pleasure in the Nicomachean Ethics X. In order to clarify the nature of pleasure,

Aristotle suggests we examine the difference between motion and activity "from the

beginning" (1174a 14). "Every motion," Aristotle points out, "relates to an end...and

it is complete when it finally does what it aims at." But if you divide the whole time

of motion into temporal parts, each part of motion will be incomplete, and distinct in

form both from the whole and from each other: "It is not possible in any part of the

whole time to find a motion complete in terms of its form" (1174a20-30). But

activity is different: "seeing seems to be complete over any given part of time: it is

13 ".. .motion is the actuality of that which is incomplete, but activity in unqualified sense is distinct

since it is the actuality of what is complete," (De Anima, 431a6-7). 14

About the self-terminating of motion, cf. Sarah Broadie, Nature, change, and agency in Aristotle's Physics: a philosophical study (Oxford, 1982), ch.3.

26 not lacking in anything which by becoming at a later time will complete its form;

and pleasure too seems to be like this. For it is a kind of whole (holon), and at no

time can one find a pleasure whose form will be completed if the pleasure lasts

longer" (1174al 4-19).

This immediately reminds us of Aristotle's famous definition of happiness:

happiness is something complete and self-sufficient, being the end at which all

actions aim {Eth.Nic. 1097b20-l, cf.l097a31-b5). The self-sufficiency and

completeness of happiness are not two independent criteria. Something is

"self-sufficient," according to Aristotle, when it by itself makes one's life worthy of

choice and lacks in nothing (1097bl6-7). This conception of "self-sufficiency,"

especially its emphasis on "lacking nothing," corresponds to Aristotle's notion of

completeness. Thus, the self-sufficiency of happiness is just one aspect of its

completeness. Self-sufficiency and completeness establish happiness as the final end

of human actions. Thus the completeness which distinguishes activity from motion

provides the metaphysical ground for the fundamental principle of Aristotle's

practical philosophy.

Aristotle's distinction between motion and activity secures "the friends of

ideas" from the attack of the Giants, since the model of change the Giants rely on

cannot be employed to explain the dominant sense of knowing (De Anima, 417a29),

that is, contemplation, though it is involved in the process of learning.

27

(3) The Metaphysical Priority of Actuality

The completeness of activity helps explicate the nature of actuality (Metaph. 6).

Aristotle asserts, motion as actuality is incomplete, because its corresponding

potentiality is incomplete {Phys. 201b32-3).15 Aristotle gives a perfect example to

illustrate this point: "teachers think that they have achieved their end when they have

exhibited their pupils at work" {Metaph. 1050al7-8, cf. Phys. 255a32-b6). When

dynamis is complete, change has achieved its end and is capable of activity.

Aristotle's immediate addition to his example, "it is likewise with nature," brings to

light that the distinction between change or motion and activity implies a hierarchy

which is crucial to Aristotle's metaphysical founding of nature: the priority of

actuality to potentiality.

The metaphysical priority of actuality is the fundamental principle on which

the Aristotelian natural order depends (Metaph.\072b\4). It is the key to understand

the relation between the metaphysical principle of actuality and the physical world

of power (dynamis) in Aristotle's philosophy. As we have seen, Aristotle defines

nature as "a principle and a cause of being moved or of being at rest in the thing to

which it belongs primarily and in virtue of that thing, but not accidentally." In other

words, nature is the principle of motion or rest in the thing itself qua itself

(Phys. 192b 13-5, 21-3). This official definition of nature distinguishes nature from

the dynamis in its primary sense, which is defined as "a principle of change in

15 cf. J. L. Ackrill, "Aristotle's Distinction between Energeia and Kinesis," in his Essays on Plato

and Aristotle, (Oxford, 1997), 159-60.

28

another thing or in the thing itself qua other" (Metaph. 1046al0-ll). But at last

Aristotle claims both can be regarded as dynamis: "1 mean by dynamis not only that

define kind which is said to be a principle of change in another thing or in the thing

itself qua other, but in general every principle of motion or of rest" (1049b5-7). With

this move of Aristotle, power accomplishes a complete domination of the realm of

nature. But this complete domination of power in nature proves to be an illusion: "to

all such dynamis... actuality is prior both in logos and in substance" (1049bl0-ll).

The domination of power in nature is dependent on the metaphysical principle of

actuality, which is the metaphysical foundation of nature as a whole.

Actuality is prior to potentiality, according to Aristotle, "both in logos and in

substance". The priority of actuality in logos is quite obvious. As we have mentioned,

"that which is in the primary sense potential is potential because it is possible for it

to become actual." Bricks have the potentiality of being a house in the sense that

they are capable of becoming a house through building. Aristotle draws the

conclusion that the logos and the knowledge of the actual must precede the

knowledge of the potential (1049bl2-17).

But more importantly, actuality is prior to potentiality in substance. Here

Aristotle divides his examination into two parts, the first about change, the second

about activity. In the case of change, Aristotle gives three reasons for the priority of

actuality. His first reason is based on the principle that "the things that are posterior

in becoming are prior in form and in substance" (1050a4-5). The metaphysical order

29

of being is exactly the opposite of the temporal or physical order of becoming, and

as in the order of knowledge, is superior to the latter (1018b30-l). Aristotle's second

reason clearly reveals his metaphysical principle in explaining change: "everything

that comes to be moved towards a principle, i.e., an end. For that for the sake of

which a thing is, is its principle, and the becoming is for the sake of the end; and the

actuality is the end, and it is for the sake of this, that the potentiality is acquired"

(1050a7-10). This identification of the end and the principle in the case of "coming

into being" (to gignomenon) is just the extension of his analysis of the

self-terminating nature of motion. In both cases, potentiality completes itself by

being actualized, which is the end of the process. The way of the Giants is finally

oriented to the realm of the Gods. Power is not self-sufficient, as the Giants claim,

but dependent on something beyond as its principle. This point is especially clear

with Aristotle's third reason: "matter exists potentially in view of the fact that it

might come into a form, and when it exists actually, then it exists in a form"

(1050a 15-6). While bringing the eidos of the Gods down to earth in his analysis of

sensible substances, Aristotle does not surrender himself to the position of the Giants.

Just the contrary is the case. Form is the end or actuality of matter as potentiality. In

the battle of the Giants and the Gods, Aristotle finally takes the side of his mentor:

the power of the Giants will be "complete" or "perfected" when it turns into "form."

If actuality is prior to potentiality in the case of change whose actuality is

incomplete, it is even more so in the case of activity whose actuality is complete.

30

The achievement of change/motion/making is its product, but there is not a product

other than the actuality itself in activity. In the latter case, it is obvious that the

substance or form is actuality and it is prior to potentiality. But Aristotle adds a not

so obvious claim immediately: "and as we have said, one actuality always precedes

another in time right back to the actuality of the eternal prime mover" (1050b4-6).

Nowhere in Metaph.0 can we find Aristotle's discussion of this claim. Indeed not

until the so-called "theological" treatise of the Metaph., the Book A, has Aristotle

given a fuller explanation of this claim. Aristotle has already pointed out in Phys. Q,

the continuous motion presupposes a motionless mover; and since it is the movable

which is moved, the primary motionless mover cannot have any potentiality, but

must be eternal actuality (P/2>w.257a33-260bl9). This prime mover, according to

Aristotle's formulation in Metaph. A, "moves without being moved, being eternal,

substance, and actuality" (1072a25-6).

On the basis of his notion of "eternal actuality," Aristotle gives the final, and

also the most fundamental reason for the priority of actuality: "for eternal things are

prior in substance to perishable things, and no eternal thing exists potentially"

(1050b6-8). The metaphysical priority of actuality is directly related to the absolute

necessity of eternal actuality (1072M3-4).

The absolute priority of eternal actuality has several related aspects, which

makes even clearer its role as the fundamental principle of Aristotle's philosophy as

a whole. According to Aristotle, eternal actuality is at the same time the object of

31

desire and thought (1072a25-30). In the case of thinking (nous), thought is moved

by its object. Among the objects of thought, substance is the first of the list, and

among substances, that which is simple and exists actually (1072a30-32). Thus,

thought in the perfect sense must be the thought of eternal actuality: "thought in

itself deals with that which is best in itself, and that which is thought in the fullest

sense with that which is best in the fullest sense" (1072M8-20). Indeed, this kind of

thought, according to the most controversial chapter of Aristotle's De Anima (III.5),

must be the self-thinking of active intellect. And active intellect "is not at one time

thinking and at another not thinking" (430a21-2), but always thinking, and thus

immortal and eternal (430a23).

Since desire is consequent on thought, it is not difficult for Aristotle to

demonstrate that eternal actuality is also the prime object of desire. Eternal actuality

is thus the source of the good and the noble, and in this sense, the best.16 As we

have seen in Aristotle's distinction between motion and activity, eternal actuality is

also pleasure (Metaph 1072b 16). According to his definition of happiness as activity

in accordance with virtue, eternal actuality, as "activity in accordance with the

highest kind," must be indispensable to happiness (Eth. Nic. 1177al2-14). But when

we translate this metaphysical principle into an ethical principle, we have a difficulty.

If "the activity in accordance with the highest kind" is complete ("since nothing

16 "...the noble and that which is in itself desirable are on this same side of the list; and the first in

any class ins always best, or analogous to the best" (Metaph. 1071a35-6); "The prime mover, then, of necessity exists; and in so far as it is necessary, nobly, and in this sense a first principle" (1072bl0-ll);"...without which the good is impossible..."(1072bl4).

32

about happiness is incomplete"), it should be given a complete length of life. It must

be eternal. This is certainly beyond the reach of human beings. But happiness even

for a human being, Aristotle insists, is to lead such a life, that is, to live like a god:

But such a life will be higher than the human level: for it is not in so far as he is human that he will live like this, but in so far as there is something divine in him, and to the degree that this is superior to his composite nature, to that degree will its activity too be superior to that in accordance with the rest of virtue. If, then, the intellect is something divine as compared to a human being, so too a life lived in accordance with this will be divine as compared to a human life. One should not follow the advice of those who say 'Human you are, think human thoughts', and 'Mortals you are, think mortal', but instead, so far as is possible, make oneself immortal and do everything with the aim of living in accordance with what is highest thing in us; for even if it is small in bulk, it surpasses everything much more in power and dignity (1177b26-78a2)

Aristotle finally arrives at the realm of the Gods, but in his own way. Now we can

see how Aristotle, with his metaphysics of actuality, overcomes the difficulty which

confronts "the friends of the ideas." Aristotle admits, as the Eleatic Stranger points

out, change is involved in knowledge, life, soul and intelligence, but he contends

that all these culminate, in the hierarchy of beings, in the same highest form, eternal

actuality, which involves no power. No one better understand Plato's gigantomachia

than his best student, Aristotle (cf. 1072b22-31).

It is often believed that Aristotle's sober style of philosophizing lacks the

charm of enthusiasm we can find in the corpus of Plato. Compared to Socrates'

praise of the idea of Goodness, however, Aristotle's metaphysics of actuality without

potentiality is no less a "demonic excess." Aristotle advances even further than

Socrates in his struggle with power. Seeming to remind us of both his agreement and

disagreement with the friends of the ideas, Aristotle points out, "If, the, there are

33

such natures or beings (ousiai) as in various speeches are called "ideas," there must

be something much more scientific than Science Itself and something more in

motion than Motion Itself; for the former will be more of the nature of actualities,

while the latter are potentialities for these" (1050b34-51a2). Aristotle finds a realm

even beyond the realm of the Gods, since ideas of the latter are still potentiality for

his pure actuality. Here we can also detect the crucial difference between Aristotle's

metaphysics of actuality and Socrates' praise of goodness: while Socrates is

ambiguous whether goodness beyond being involves power, Aristotle is quite

explicit that God, the highest being, is without dynamis. It will surprise Aristotle that

absolute power will become the most important attribute of God in early modern

philosophy.

2. The Hegemony of Absolute Power

The concept of power in modern philosophy is profoundly shaped by the doctrine of

absolute power. It is this conception of power which, as we will see, becomes the

main target in Leibniz's criticism of modern philosophy. The doctrine of absolute

power, in particular the distinction between potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata,

is of great philosophical significance from the high Middle Ages to early modernity:

"[fjrom the temporal perspective of the twelfth to seventeenth centuries, the model

of potentia absoluta/ordinata was one of, perhaps the, major competitor to the

Platonic 'Great Chain of Being' model for understanding creation and the universe,

34 with all the implications that holds for our reading of Western thought."17 This

"competition" between "the model of potentia absoluta/ordinata" and "the Platonic

'Great Chain of Being' model" famously narrated by Lovejoy18 is the central theme

of the Middle Ages and even early modernity.19 This "competition" should not be

understood as the contrast between order and arbitrariness, but rather represents the

fundamental conflict between two different understandings of the basis of natural

order: the principle of absolute power vs. the principle of sufficient reason. It

involves the relation between goodness and power with regard to an omnipotent God.

It is not coincidental that these two models converge on the focus of our

examination: Leibniz. But before we turn to examine Leibniz's struggle with this

"competition" in the next section, we have to sketch the development of the model

of potentia absoluta/ordinata.

This influential doctrine of absolute power is for the most part the result of the

tension between the biblical concept of omnipotence and the Greek philosophical

tradition. As we have seen, Aristotle's God is an unmovable prime mover which is

pure actuality. In contrast, the biblical concept emphasizes a personal God who is

17 William Courtenay, Capacity and Volition: a History of the Distinction of Absolute and Ordained

Power (Bergamo, 1990), 192. Our account of the doctrine of absolute power in this section is greatly benefited by the study of William Courtenay. 18

Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Harvard, 1964). ch.3. is especially relevant to the theme of this section. 19

Francis Oakley, "Lovejoy's Unexplored Option," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 48, no. 2 (1987), 231-245; Amos Funkenstein holds a different opinion, Theology and Scientific Imagination (Princeton, 1986), 123.n.22. 20

The title of Oakley's intellectual history of "absolute power," as well as Lovejoy's narrative of the 'Great Chain of Being', respectively demonstrate the significant role of Leibniz in both models: Francis Oakley, Omnipotence, Covenant & Order: an Excursion in the History of Ideas from Abelard to Leibniz (Cornell University Press, 1984), esp.89-92; Lovejoy, op. cit. passim, esp. 144-82.

35

omnipotent. This difference is aptly captured by the modern theologian Karl Barth:

But this attribute [i.e. omnipotence] describes very especially the positive character of the divine freedom, that which distinguishes it from the freedom that might be ascribed to a being unmoved and immovable in itself. An 'immutable' being of this kind could only be conceived of as powerless. God, on the other hand, is not powerless but powerful, indeed all-powerful, with power over everything that He actually wills or could will. God is able, able to do everything; everything, that is, which as His possibility is real possibility. God has possibilities - all the possibilities which, as the confirmation and manifestation of His being, are true possibilities... As this omnipotent God, He is also distinct from the unchangeable, whose unchangeableness inevitably means utter powerlessness, complete incapacity, a lack of every possibility, and therefore death.21

Behind this difference lies a more fundamental difference concerning whether God

or nature is the fundamental principle of the world.22

2.1 Divine Omnipotence

(1) The Biblical Concept of God's Power

Power is the essential attribute of gods in Indo-European thought.23 In this respect

the Judaic concept of God in the Hebrew Bible (hereafter TNK) is not different from

the Greek concept of gods in Homer and other poets. But the significance of power

21 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (T.&T. Clark, 1957), II/l, 522-3.

22 We might have a better idea of this contrast when we turn to the Greek side: "this is the point at

which my teaching and that of Plato and the other Greeks who have treated correctly of natural principles differs from that of Moses. For him it suffices for God to have willed material to be arranged and straightway it was arranged, because Moses believed everything to be possible to God, even if he should wish to make a horse or beef out of ashes. We, however, do not feel this to be true, saying rather that some things are naturally impossible and that God does not attempt them at all, but chooses from among the possible what is best to be done". Galen, On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968), XI.14, 533, cf.III.10, 189; R. Walzer, Galen on Jews and Christians (Oxford, 1949), 18-37. 23

"Although certain individual deities are charged with the supervision of justice, contracts, and so on, in general the Indo-European gods do not have an ethical character. The essential thing about them is their power, which they can exercise at their pleasure"; or, "The virtues for which the deity is praised are of course very varied. But it is a fundamental property of gods that they have power, and it is a recurrent theme in hymns to the highest gods that their power is the greatest." M. L. West, Indo-European Poetry and Myth (Oxford, 2007), 130, 309.

36 in Hebraic thinking is different from that in Greek Thinking. Greek gods are still

subject to the necessity of fate or nature,24 and thus their powers are by no means

unlimited.25 But "the God of the Bible is the God of power" The fate or nature of

human beings is determined by the biblical God with his sovereign power. Divine

names in Hebrew are usually connected with His power.26 The impressive speech

that God addresses to the innocent suffering Job focuses exclusively on His

incomparable power.27 The source of this difference is the personhood of the TNK

God. In contrast with the Greek gods in the world dominated by cosmic forces,

the OT God has a personal relationship to the destiny of the Israelite nation, which is

determined by the event of the Exodus. The power of God shows itself exactly at

this decisive moment. The destiny of the nation is shaped by God's power according

The best example of this point might be the famous passage of the Iliad in which Zeus mourns at the destined loss of his beloved son Sarpedon at the hand of Patroklos (16:431-461). The verse of Simonides quoted in Plato's Protagoras (345d, cf. Laws 741a) captures this point tersely: "even the gods do not fight against necessity." Comp. Descartes' letter to Mersenne, 15 Apr. 1630 (AT 1.145, CSMK III.23): "to say that these truths are independent of God is to talk of him as if he were Jupiter or Saturn and to subject him to the Styx and the Fates." 25

Walter F. Otto takes this tendency to understand gods in terms of nature as characterizes the Greek conception of Gods: "The natural can therefore of itself stand in the glory of the sublime and divine. To be sure, upon the intervention of Greek gods also, extraordinary and thrilling events took place. This does not, however, mean the appearance of a force with limitless power; it does mean that being manifests itself in infinitely various living expressions as the essence of our world. First and highest is not the power that acts, but the being that is manifested in the form of the act. And the holiest feelings of awe comes not from the tremendous and infinitely powerful, but rather from the depths of natural experience." The Homeric Gods: the Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion (Thames and Hudson, 1955), 9. 26

Cyril H. Powell, The Biblical Concept of Power (London: The Epworth Press, 1963), 5, 41. 27

Job 38-41. Job comes to realize the infinite superiority of God's power to human morality in 27.2-3, comp. his previous attempt to link God's power with other attributes, like wisdom and justice in 12.13, or others' similar attempts esp. Eli'hu's 36.5, 37.23. 28

"When we turn from the Greek and Hellenistic world to that of the OT [that is. TNK], we enter a different atmosphere. In place of a neutral idea of God, we have the personal God. In place of the neutral forces of nature we have the power and might of the personal God, which do not operate in terms of immanent law but which rather carry out the will of God according to His direction". Walter Grundmann, "Dynamoi/dynamis", in The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. by Gerhard Kittel, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1964), 11.290; Powell, The Biblical Concept of Power, 1. The following discussion mainly follows Grundmann's article.

37

to His own will and purpose. Politics is central to the Hebrew understanding of

power just as nature is central to the Greek understanding.29

The Hebrew terms in TNK (YHWH, 'Adonay, Shadday, Tseba'oth etc.) are

translated in the Septuagint (hereafter LXX) with the Greek philosophical terms like

dynamis, ischus, eksousia or kratos30 This brings the Hebrew thinking of power

directly into contact with the Greek philosophical tradition. The distinctive feature

of the TNK God on the basis of his personhood is often rendered in LXX as kurios

ton dynameon, or kurios pantokrator31 Pantokrator or pantokraton denotes one

God ruling and controlling all other cosmic powers.32 Thus, this term is employed

to express God's overcoming of nature: YHWH is represented as a sovereign lord

with supreme authority.33 The political significance of the Hebrew concept of divine

omnipotence is expressed in the Greek philosophical terms.

The New Testament (hereafter NT) shares many basic theses of God's power

with the LXX.34 The divine name, kurios ox pantokrator is repeated (Rev 1:8, 4:8.

11:17). And the great power of God is, now, granted to Jesus. In fact, Jesus is even

identified as the power of God.35 He is also called kurios (Mt 5:33, Mk 5:19, Lk 1:6,

"Our review of the concept of power within the totality of the OT view of God leads us to a unique conclusion. The natural basis is completely overcome." Grundmann, "Dynamail dynamis," 293. 30

Powell, The Biblical Concept of Power, 41-3; Walter Grundmann, "ischus," The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 111.397-402; Werner Foerster, "eksousia, " The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, II.564-5; Wilhelm Michaclis, "kratos, " The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, III.906. 31

God is called theospases dunameos kai kratous (Jdt.9:14). Michaelis, "pantokrator, " The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, III.914; Grundmann, "Dynamah'dynamis;" 292. 32

C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964), 19. 33

Cf. Grundmann, "Dynamail dynamis" 292; Powell, The Biblical Concept of Power, 42. 34

Powell, The Biblical Concept of Power, 71ff; Grundmann, "Dynamail dynamis," 306. 35

"This man is that power {dynamis) of God which is called great" (Acts. 8:10). Cf. the infancy scene in Lk 1:35, and esp. Lk 22:69, and Mt 26:64. This dimension of power in the Jesus narrative is

38

Acts 7:33). The general Synoptic usage describes the miracles of Jesus as

dynameis, the acts of power (Mt ll:20ff, Mk 6:2,5; Lk 19:37).37 It also becomes an

important theological concept in the Pauline letters.38

But a new conception of power emerges in the NT with the criticism of the

Jewish traditional worship of God.39 The power of God through Christ Jesus is

contrasted with the powerlessness of the Jewish law (adynaton tou nomou).40 This

contrast is echoed by a very interesting passage in Mt (19:26), in which Jesus said to

his disciples concerning salvation, "with men this is impossible, but with God all

things are possible" (para anthropois touto adynaton estin, para de theoi panta

dynatd). God's omnipotence, as in sharp contrast with the powerlessness of human

beings, is taken literally: "all things are possible with God." The power (dynamis) of

God is beyond any limitation. This claim can be found also in other Synoptic

Gospels.41 From this derives a similar claim that "all things are possible to him who

believes" (Mk 9:23). It is this understanding of God's omnipotence which becomes

the starting point of the doctrine of absolute power.

often interpreted in terms of the Holy Spirit, cf. Petrus J. Grabe, The Power of God in Paul's Letters (J.C.B. Mohr, 2000), 223-7, 245ff. 36

Powell, The Biblical Concept of Power, 72. 37

Grundmann, "Dynamaildynamis," 301. Grabe, The Power of God in Paul's Letters, passim.

39 Grundmann, "Dynamaildynamis" 302-3.

40 "...nomos throughout these verse means the Torah, since the nomos here is unquestionably the

(Jewish) law," James Dunn, Romans 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary Series (38A), (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 419. Paradoxically, Paul does admit that law of this kind is still power, though the power of sin ("the power of sin is the law," 1 Cor. 15.56. According to Grabe, this is the only case in the main Pauline letters in which dynamis is not directly related to God. Op.cit.83). But according to Paul's "dialectics of power and weakness," this power of the law is exactly its weakness. 41

"With men it is impossible, but not with God; For all things are possible with God (panta gar dynatapara toi theoi) " (Mk 10:27); "What is impossible with men is possible with God" (Lk 18:27).

39

(2) Divine Omnipotence and Natural Order: Augustine, Peter Damian and Thomas

The concept of divine omnipotence which signifies God's comprehensive control

over the world is widely accepted by the Early Christian Church.42 The first article

of the Old Roman Creed reads, "I believe in God the Father Almighty."43 It is

almost universally agreed among the Church Fathers that God's power is unlimited.

They usually connect this concept with the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, and distance

themselves from the Pagan philosophical principle that ex nihilo nihil fit.,44 But

when the Greek influence is discernible, the absolutely unlimited nature of God's

power is placed in doubt.

Various ways to admit the biblical concept of divine omnipotence, especially

in the case of miracles, without contradicting the Greek concept of natural order are

attempted by the Fathers. In answering the challenge of Faustus, a Manichaean, on

the conflict between the Christian narrative of Jesus and the natural order, Augustine

concedes that many deeds of Jesus are contrary to nature according to human

42 J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 83.

43 The Latin text (Rufinus): Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem; the Greek text (Marchellus):

Pisteuo eis 0EON (TJATEPA) pantokratora (cf. Denzinger 1, 2, 6, 9, and 54 for the Nicene Creed). 44

Augustine, De sympolo 2.3. quoted in Irven Michael Resnick, Divine Power and Possibility in St. Peter Damian s DE DIVINA OMNIPOTENTIA (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 25-31. 45

The best example might be Origen. He contends in his De principiis (Il.ix.l), "we must maintain that even the power of God is finite, and we must not, under pretext of praising him, lose sight of his limitations. For if the divine power were infinite, of necessity it could not even understand itself, since the infinite is by its nature incomprehensible." Origen, On First Principles, by G. W. Buttterworth (Gloucester, 1973), 129. The Greek philosophical principle Origen resorts to can be found in Aristotle's discussion of apeiron in Phys. r. 5-10 and Metaph. K 10, in which he points out, infinite is not one nature, and cannot exist in actuality. Since Aristotle's god is pure actuality, it cannot be infinite. It is noteworthy that not all Greek Fathers agrees on Origen's notion. Under the influence of Neoplatonism, they believe God as infinite in the sense that He is all-powerful. Cf. Leo Sweeney's important study, Divine Infinity in Greek and Medieval Thought (New York: Peter Lang, 1992).

40

custom,46 but he insists, "we Christians commonly believe that he did all these

things, not because of our consideration of nature, but only because of our

consideration of the power and might of God" (non consideratione jam naturae, sed

potestatis tantum et virtutis Dei). The relation between God's power and the order of

nature (ordo naturae), Augustine points out, has two aspects. On the one hand, God

does nothing contrary to nature, since He is the source of the order of nature, that is,

"what He does will be natural to each thing." On the other hand, it is not wrong for

us to say, Augustine grants, what God does is contrary to what we know of nature.

This "nature" is merely "the usual course of nature known to us." God's actions

contrary to this nature are called marvelous and miraculous. But, though miracles

are contrary to "the usual course of nature known to us", they are not contrary to

"that supreme law of nature" (summam naturae legem), which is remote from the

knowledge of those who are wicked and still weak (c. Faust. 26.2-3). According to

this solution, the Greek understanding of natural order, though still retained, is

degraded to the level of "human custom," while "the supreme law of nature" is

nothing but God himself, or His power.

Augustine's distinction between the order of nature and "that supreme law of

nature" can be also explained more explicitly in terms of powers:

The whole course of nature that we are so familiar with has certain natural laws of its own, according to which both the spirit of life which is a creature has drives and urges that are somehow predetermined and which even a bad will

46 "Nor do we deny that human custom calls that contrary to nature nature which mortals know is

contrary to their experience of nature" (humano more contra naturam esse, quod est contra naturae usum mortalibus notum, nee nos negamus).

41 cannot by pass, and also the elements of this corporeal world have their distinct force and qualities, which determine what each is or is not capable of, what can or cannot be made from which.... But over and above this natural course and operation of things, the power (potestas) of the creator has in itself the capacity to make from all these things something other than what their seminal formulae, so to say, prescribe - not however anything with which he did not so program them that it could be made from them at least by him (Gn. Litt. IX. 17.32).

God's omnipotence, in this natural/supernatural scheme, transcends the natural

powers, be they drives and urges of spiritual creatures or the force in the corporeal

world, which are, as "seminal formulae," programmed in the nature of things by

God at creation. But Augustine's miraculous power over "the natural course and

operation of things" is still not what will later be called absolute power. The two

powers we find in the work of Augustine are more like the opposition between

ordinary power and extraordinary power {potentia ordinaria/extraordinar id) in the

late Scholasticism, especially among nominalists. When Faustus contends, "if God is

omnipotent, let him bring it about that what has happened has not happened,"

Augustine denies such possibility since "God is not contrary to the truth" (c. Faust.

26.5). It is exactly at this point, Peter Damian deviates from the Augustinian

tradition and proposes a more radical understanding of divine omnipotence.

What initiates Peter Damian's treatise on divine omnipotence47 is St.

Jerome's assertion that "although God can do all things, he cannot raise up a virgin

after her fall." Damian believes, it is "too much a dishonor" to attribute such an

inability (inpossibilitas) to He who can do all things (//// qui omnia potest). Those 47

About the background of this brief but very important treatise, cf. Andre Cantin's long introduction to his edition of Damian's text in Pierre Damien: Lettre sur la toute-puissance divine (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1972); Resnick, Divine Power and Possibility in St. Peter Damian's DE DIVINA OMNIPOTENTIA.

42

who defend St. Jerome's assertion indeed hold a position which amounts to claiming,

according to Damian, God is unable to do what he does not will. Damian regards

this as absurd and ridiculous since even with human beings there are many things

they do not do but are still able to do (De div. omnip. II).48

More importantly, against the argument that it is impossible for God to

unmake what has been made (VI), Damian points out, for the God of the eternal now,

the temporal dimension is irrelevant (XVII). What happens in the present or in the

future can be said to have no less necessity than the past events (VII). God's power

is rather "always an unmoved, fixed and invariable being able" (immobile simper et

perpetuum posse. XVII). God's omnipotence thus remains constant after his creatio

ex nihil (XVII). As for whether it is impossible for God to unmake the past, Damian

is well aware of its "natural impossibility,"49 but he points out:

For nature, certainly, it is true that this preposition holds: one cannot find the same thing that has been and has not been at the same time. These are in effect contradictory to one another, in such way that if one is, the other cannot be.... But let us go further: one can rightly claim this impossibility if he attributes it to the weakness of nature (naturae... inopiam); but it is not suitable to apply it to the divine majesty. He who has given birth to nature removes easily, if He wishes, the necessity of nature. That which commands creatures is in fact subject to the laws of the Creator; and He who creates nature, overturns the natural order at the declaration of His own will; He who has established all creatures under the domination of nature, reserves to His sovereign power (imperio) the docile observation of nature" (XIII).

This passage clearly reveals the uniqueness of Peter Damian's position. Damian's

Courtenay, Capacity and Volition, 25-6. 49

".. .for no one deliberates about the past, either, but rather about what is come, and what is possible, whereas it is not possible for what has happened not to have happened - so Agathon was right, 'for