Deleuze, Leibniz, The Best

While Leibniz' thesis 'This is the best of all possible worlds' is most frequently associated with either Modal Logic or Voltaire's ridicule, Deleuze notes its significant departure from Platonism. Instead of the absolute Good-Evil dualism of the latter, 'the Best' entails comparative evaluative degrees. Deleuze further considers Leibniz' application of this Axiology to personal conduct, which can, accordingly, be judged in terms of its degree of perfection, rather than of 'Good' vs. 'Evil'. On the other hand, in some passages, what Leibniz promotes is not perfection in conduct, but progress with no definite upper limit, which Deleuze presents without either noticing the discrepancy, or questioning the implications of the possibility of unlimited progress to a closed entity such as a Monad. So, as he characterizes Leibniz as promoting both the perfection as well as an "augmentation" of a Monad's personal traits, he glosses over a possible basis for the distinction that he attempts to draw between Monad and Nomad.