Animate and Inanimate Things, Natural and Artificial Machines

Abstract

According to Leibniz, the nested structure ad infinitum is the main intrinsic difference between a natural machine, which is God’s creation, and an artificial machine, which is a work of human art. The distinction turns on this: unlike an artificial machine, a natural machine remains a machine in the least of its parts. The author argues that Leibniz’s view of living beings turns on his peculiar usage of infinity in this context. He presents Leibniz’s response to Descartes’s attempt to use the distinction between artificial and natural machines in his reductive program and then develops both a structural and a functional reading of Leibniz’s notion of a natural machine. The author suggests that both readings (structural and functional) are not only compatible but also complementary, such that both illuminate Leibniz’s definition of a natural machine as a machine remaining a machine in the least of its parts.