Metaperspectivism of G.W. Leibniz as a synthesis of transgression and transcendence

The main subject of Leibniz's philosophy can be represented in the pantheistic formula "multiplicity in unity" or "unity in multiplicity'', whereas Plato's line in metaphysics suggests a more radical contradistinction between multiplicity and unity through the postulation of a metaphysical theory of two worlds. In this respect, Plato and his followers (the majority of the representatives of the West-European metaphysical tradition) base on transcendence as the main horizon of philosophizing. Leibniz, along with a few other thinkers, breaks this tradition by including the transgression horizon in transcendence. This horizon means multiplicity non-reducible to unity. Multiplicity itself is the centre and the centre is multiplicity. The world, according to Leibniz, is a set of existential-semantic perspectives, different points of view. The question is: how can this infinite number of perspectives constitute one world, one universe? The way proposed by Leibniz is the affirmation of God as the omnipresent metaperspective, covering all private perspectives and thus giving them coherence and unity of the universal harmony. Since God is the supreme intelligence, the infinite number of possible worlds is available to Him, of which He chooses only one best in the end. There are myriad of ways, an infinite number of possible worlds, a large number of possible narratives. Things might have been different than they are. But how can the divine metaperspective integrate all the countless numbers of not the potential, but reality existing various perspectives? Why, despite the selection of the best of all possible worlds, in this world, we still find disorder, struggle, injustice and other imperfections? In other words: how can the unity of multiplicity exist in the order of reality, rather than a potential? The answer proposed by Leibniz can be reduced to the following thesis: the cause of these difficulties is the limits of our being and the lack of clarity in our knowledge. There are many different discourses (the "small worlds"), in varying degrees, giving a distorted picture of the universe and existing on the basis of this distorted perspective. But in the divine metaperspective, all these scattered discourses form one harmonious picture. The difference, therefore, has a perspective character: from the position of the finite creature the world appears in one way, from the perspective of the infinity the same world is presented in a very different way, in a different perspective. There are no two metaphysical worlds, one of which is the absolute, and the other one - an imperfect copy of it. There is only one world, but presented from different perspectives. The world is presented in the philosophical doctrine of Leibniz as the multiplicity in the united and the united in the multiplicity. Thus, there are three main horizons of philosophical inquiry. Transcendence means unity without multiplicity. Multiplicity is presented here as a dream-like illusion (A. Schopenhauer). Transgression means multiplicity without unity. Any unity appears here only as a simulacrum (Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard). And, finally, totality suggests unity in multiplicity - as it was shown in this article on the example of the doctrine of Leibniz.

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