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Preestablished harmony
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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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Preestablished harmony

philosophy
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β€’History

Preestablished harmony, in the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), a postulate to explain the apparent relations of causality among monads (infinitesimal psychophysical entities), where no true causality exists. When a change occurs within a single monad, every other monad in the universe spontaneously reflects this change inasmuch as God, in a single creative act at the beginning of time, synchronized the universe by establishing once and for all a harmony between all monads. The doctrine implies that there are no genuine causal interactions between mind and body.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.