Warning: this film features rapidly flashing images that can be distressing to photosensitive viewers.
The German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) believed that the Universe fundamentally consists of radically simple mind-like building blocks – separate, indivisible, indestructible – from which emerges the unified world of matter and substance. Borrowing a term from ancient Greek philosophy, he called these entities ‘monads’, and attributed their existence to a ‘God, who perceives all monads with utter clarity’. He laid out this theory of metaphysics in his seminal work, the Monadology (1714). This short video essay for Epoché Magazine pairs excerpts from the notoriously dense text with enigmatic archival imagery and original music, making for a whirlwind introduction to Leibniz’s celebrated and controversial conception of the Universe.
Video by Epoché Magazine
Editor and composer: John C Brady
videoMathematics
After centuries of trying, we’ve yet to arrive at a perfect way to map colour
20 minutes
videoThinkers and theories
The prison abolitionist who dares to envision a world without ‘unfreedoms’
16 minutes
videoMusic
A riveting audiovisual dive into what makes sounds harmonious, or not
28 minutes
videoHistory of science
How we came to know the size of the Universe – and what mysteries remain
26 minutes
videoKnowledge
Why David Deutsch believes good explanations are the antidote to bad philosophy
10 minutes
videoEconomics
A tour of New York’s gaudiest neighbourhood with the Marxist geographer David Harvey
13 minutes
videoPhilosophy of mind
‘Am I not at least something?’ A surreal dive into Descartes’s Meditations
3 minutes
videoOceans and water
A stunning visualisation explores the intricate circulatory system of our oceans
5 minutes
videoHistory of science
Ideas ‘of pure genius’ – how astronomers have measured the Universe across history
29 minutes