Leibniz’s Metaphysics of Monads on the Cinema Screen: “Awakenings”
Abstract
In his article Paź examines the movie Awakenings (dir. Penny Marshall, 1990) for the presence of G. W. Leibniz’s metaphysics of monads. It turns out that the author of the book on which the screenplay is based, Oliver Sacks, a British neurologist and psychiatrist, was himself directly inspired by the categories of the German philosopher, in his description of the patients he examined and treated. Among Leibniz’s concepts taken up by Sacks are: monad, reflection, possible world etc. The film proclaims Leibniz’s laws of consciousness, such as the principle of continuity from the least clear perceptions (lethargy, sleep) to the most clear ones and conscious, and the concept of the real identity of the subject. In particular Leibniz’s thesis on isolation (“monads are windowless”) found itself into the description of the main protagonists of the Awakenings. The value of this film lies in that it is the first and successful attempt at showing the very abstract thesis of the metaphysics of the modern rationalist.
Keywords:
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, monadology, Penny Marshall, consciousnessReferences
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Authors
Bogusław Paźkwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of Wrocław Poland
Profesor Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego (Instytut Filozofii). Autor kilkudziesięciu publikacjach naukowych. Obszarami jego zainteresowania są głównie: historia filozofii nowożytnej, filozofia historii, ontologia, metafizyka, filozofia refleksji oraz filozofia kłamstwa. Opublikował m.in. monografie: Epistemologiczne założenia ontologii Christiana Wolffa (2002), Naczelna zasada racjonalizmu. Od Kartezjusza do wczesnego Kanta (2007).
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Copyright (c) 2016 Bogusław Paź
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