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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
In raising the question of what is a monad I am continuing along the line of two previous discussions. Those dwelt with the questions of what is an atom and what is a gene. Each contained proposals to sharpen meanings of old terms rather than to resort to new ones. The old term “monad” will also be subject to such a proposal. It will not mean merely any one of a dozen things it has meant to different users, but will serve as a more or less well fitting name for the third member of the sequence: atom-gene-x.
1 Philosophy of Science, Vol. 6, pp. 261-5 (1939).
2 Philosophy of Science, Vol. 6, pp. 385-9 (1939).
3 True primary qualities are not qualities at all. The things called “secondary” qualities are the qualities. The things called “tertiary” qualities are higher complexes present in social behavior. Insofar as the individual participates in the social I would somewhat grudgingly admit them as qualities, as in the phrase “the quality of mercy.“
4 Compare the confusion of other philosophers of the “vital” who are constantly confusing ordinary energy with something which is not energy (since it has none of its characteristics, such as additivity and obedience to the laws of thermodynamics, etc.).
5 Bacteria could not be discovered without a microscope. Empirical redundancy, as I call it, may be due to the lack of means of making a discovery as well as to lack of talent. But, what means of discovering the monad can we possibly conceive? Again the atmosphere changes.