Leibniz's Monads and the Two Clock Relation

The Two Clocks Relation is a hypothetical teleological instance used to support theories of quintessential matter and natural harmony in the Universe.

It is most frequently used to explicate Gottfried Leibniz's theory of monadic existence, a pseudo-spiritualistic position that asserts that there is no difference between the intellect and matter, because everything that is perceived by people as matter is in fact consistent of spiritual quanta called "monads" (and, during Leibniz's time, "intellect" was considered by most to be purely spiritual). Monads, Leibniz said, do not have any physical properties, and do not interact with each other dimensionally, and that people perceive material interaction because the monads that they consist of are harmonized with the monads of other materials so as to produce the understanding of interaction. The only way Leibniz could maintain these far-fetched claims was by legitimizing the harmony of the monads that make everything in the Universe up. Nowadays, Leibniz's method of doing so is explicated with the "Two Clocks Relation".

Leibniz's legitimization was very simple: He claimed that because all existents in the Universe were produced immediately by God that they are all essentially identical expressions, and that they therefore all have precisely the same properties. The only differentiation in that which is perceived to be matter is how and when the monads exist in relation to each other, i.e. whether a cluster of monads forms, by coincidence, a person or a stone. Leibniz certified, however, that regardless of what those monads form, they should maintain their individuality forever, such that each monad, regardless of its state or position, should change only in concordance to every other existent monad. This legitimization is characterized as a "Two Clocks Relation" because it is approximately congruous to the observable concordance of two perfect timepieces that are set at the same time; for as long as they remain perfect (as the monads are, as nonreactive products of God), they should forever be in harmony, acting together without aberration.

The only source for this article is Bertrand Russel's "The History of Western Philosophy."

In his letter to Henri Basnage de Beauval, Leibniz uses the analogy of the two clocks to explain three different solutions to the mind-body problem, interactionism, occasionalism, and his own view, pre-established harmony.

Two clocks are in perfect synchrony. One clock represents the mind, the other the body. Leibniz suggests three ways to explain this phenomenon:

• The way of influence, representing interactionism – the mind and the body correspond through their direct effects on eachother:

  “This is the way with which Mr. Huygens experimented, with results that greatly surprised him. He suspended two pendulums from the same piece of wood. The continued strokes of the pendulums transmitted similar vibrations to the particles of wood, but these vibrations could not continue in their own frequency without interfering with each other, at least when the two pendulums did not beat together. The result, by a kind of miracle, was that even when their strokes had been intentionally disturbed, they came to beat together again, somewhat like two strings tuned to each other.”

• The way of assistance, representing occasionalism – the correspondence between the mind and the body is maintained by constant divine intervention:

  “The second way of making two clocks, even poor ones, agree always is to assign a skilled craftsman to them who adjusts them and constantly sets them in agreement.”

• The way of pre-established harmony, representing Leibniz' own view:

  “The third way is to construct these two timepieces at the beginning with such skill and accuracy that one can be assured of their subsequent agreement.”

  “God has made each of the two substances from the beginning in such a way that though each follows only its own laws which it has received with its being, each agrees throughout with the other, entirely as if they were mutually influenced or as if God were always putting forth his hand, beyond his general concurrence”

The analogy most likely originated not from Leibniz himself, but from Simon Foucher's comments on Leibniz' Système nouveau de la nature.