Sunday, April 3, 2016

Pre-Established Harmony and Division of Labor

In his denial of the existence of Innate Ideas, Locke bypasses another disputable ascription to an a prior condition by Leibniz.  For, the implicit premise of his Political Philosophy--that the organization that he advocates is beneficial to human society--rejects the thesis of a Pre-established Harmony.  Likewise, Voltaire misses part of the mark in Candide.  For, Leibniz' thesis that this is the "best of all possible worlds" presupposes that it is fundamentally harmonious, another condition to which the Lisbon earthquake can be cited as a counter-example.  But, a perhaps more focused rejoinder to Leibniz is implicit in the benefits of a Division of Labor, the devising of which would not be necessary if Leibniz were correct.  While such organization might not disprove the existence of a pre-established harmony, any need for it demonstrates the limited scope of that a priori condition, i. e. it does not extend to the human-made world.

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