Vision, Enlightenment, Grasp, Empowerment

His words "mirror" and "point of view", and the etymology of his "perspective", are all indications that Leibniz' model of human experience privileges Vision.  So, because of the systematic relation between Vision and Light, that privileging locates the model in the tradition in which Enlightenment is the experiential ideal.  Now, 'concept' and 'comprehension' are etymologically rooted in 'grasp', but, insofar as, as is traditionally the case, they refer to incorporeal operations, their genealogy is ungrounded.  Even Whitehead's 'prehension', which he equates with mere 'feeling', falls short of a distinctive alternative to the traditional model.  In contrast, in Marxism, with its recognition of tool-wielding as the distinguishing characteristic of the human species, and in Darwinism, according to which the human hand is a decisive factor in its evolutionary ascendancy, there are the rudiments of a more radical alternative.  In that model, Grasp supplants Vision as the privileged experience, and, as the image 'the reins of power' suggests, Empowerment supplants Enlightenment as the goal.