ABSTRACT
The doctrine of animals (also called ‘‘corporeal substances’’ or ‘‘composite substances’’) in Leibniz has not attracted as much scholarly attention as that of aggregates. Commentators have tended to be dismissive of animals for various reasons.1 But a main reason for their unpopularity is that they would compete with monads for the premier privilege of being substances. From the beginning to the end of Leibniz’s mature period, substancehood is supposed to be reserved for indivisible things, and it seems the only such things, in a post-Cartesian universe, are purely spiritual.2 Thus, even when Leibniz was operating without monads explicitly in mind, there is an attempt on the part of some commentators to see the monads in embryo form all the way back in the early DM and LA. Thus, R. C. Sleigh, Jr. suggests that the ‘‘theory at which Leibniz ulti-
mately arrived’’ is ‘‘the monadological theory.’’ Here ‘‘the only substances in concreto are soul-like entities – the monads.’’ Moreover, according to Sleigh, in that theory ‘‘corporeal substances are substances by courtesy. In the end, they must yield to phenomenalistic analysis of some sort’’ (1990, 100). He adds, ‘‘[A]ll things considered, the account of extension offered in theDiscourse [DM] and the correspondence [with Arnauld] is closer to the monadological theory than any version of the corporeal substance theory’’ (1990, 101).3
