ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the implications of monad concept for a new understanding of the idea of 'law of nature', a new understanding that allowed Leibniz to overcome the Cartesian dualism of matter and spirit. And allowed for the development of conceptions of substantial and personal identity, a mechanistic view of nature could not envision. Until the end of his pre-critical period, Kant endeavours to provide a rational explanation for physical phenomena, a project which is continued in creationist thinking. In the seventeenth century, Leibniz defined the principles of independence and autonomy that would come to characterize modern European thought. For Leibniz, the autonomy of this principle makes free action possible: The autonomy of the monad, free from all external influence, makes spontaneity possible. This period of modernity provides with an idea of nature defined in terms of rationality. However, different perspectives on the definition of the substantial form, as principle of unity, permanence and identity for produce the natural law.
