Clock simile

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The parable of clocks made famous by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) and his monadology published in 1714 is, according to today's view, symbolic of the teaching of psychophysical parallelism , i.e. H. for a certain kind of interaction between body and soul ( body-soul problem ). Leibniz called this pre-established harmony .

Symbol

Two clocks that go exactly the same are compared to illustrate the physical and mental processes. The exact correspondence of the sequence of both clockworks is intended to distinguish the two terms (body and soul) from one another, but also to make them comparable. Body as spatial structure ( res extensa ) and soul as above all spiritual life principle ( res cogitans ) had already been philosophically distinguished by Descartes (1596–1650). The parable of a clock illustrates the connection between body and soul in a mechanical metaphor. Descartes is therefore not yet a fully developed machine paradigm , but only an initial approach.

First describer

The parable was drawn up by Arnold Geulincx (1624–1699). This also established a new philosophical doctrine, Occasionalism . "On occasion" (French: occasion ) of the mental process occurs the corresponding bodily event and, conversely, in the case of bodily processes, the mental one. In order for this to be guaranteed in the mechanical metaphor , the intervention of God ( concursus dei ) was required . This necessary intervention of God because of the embarrassment of the clock constructors or the authors of the parable is also named after the name from the ancient tragedy deus ex machina .

Reception of the clock simile

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) took up and dealt with the parable of clocks . With this, Jung points to the synchronicity . Jung explains that Leibniz uses this parable to express the acausal relationship between the monads or entelechies.

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) regards the clock simile as an evident paradigm for a mechanistic worldview . The Cartesian juxtaposition of res cogitans and res extensa and the subject-object divide it expresses is bridged at least for a time by the vitalism of the 19th century.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter R. Hofstätter (Ed.): Psychology. The Fischer Lexicon . Fischer-Taschenbuch, Frankfurt a. M. 1972, ISBN 3-436-01159-2 , p. 207
  2. ↑ Carl Gustav Jung : The dynamics of the unconscious . Synchronicity as a principle of acausal relationships. Collected Works. Paperback, special edition, volume 8. Walter-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, ISBN 3-530-40083-1 , pp. 532 ff., § 927-931
  3. ↑ Mechanistic worldview . In: Hannah Arendt : Vita activa or from active life . 3. Edition. R. Piper, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-492-00517-9 , pp. 290 f., 305, 120