and do colors pose a problem for the argument? Can the argument be parodied? And
what about the gap between consistency and metaphysical possibility?
Simple, Positive Properties
Leibniz wanted this to come out a proof that God possibly exists, and so presumably took
perfections to include such properties as omnipotence, omniscience, and perfect
benevolence. These involve no limits of quantity or degree. Presumably they need not be
instanced by an imperfect subject—they are compatible with “infinity” and “perfection.”
So their natures involve no limitations in that respect. It is a limitation to be something
with knowledge and will only if there is something better to be, and this is not at all clear.
But these are not obviously unanalyzable; plausible accounts of each abound. Leibniz's
likely reply would be to say that perfect power, knowledge, and goodness are primitive
properties—that although we offer accounts of them in terms of (say) generic power,
knowledge, and goodness, in metaphysical fact power (for instance) in general consists in
a likeness to the perfect exemplar of power, which thus figures as a primitive constituent
in the general, shareable attribute of power. This amounts to applying a resemblance-
nominalist account of attributes to the divine case, letting God serve as the paradigm
instance: and Leibniz was indeed a nominalist, and speaks of created attributes as
imperfect imitations of divine attributes in his Monadology (#48). If the standard divine
attributes come out primitive, then they are also positive, and we've already seen that
they're “absolute.” Perhaps Leibniz can claim that necessary existence is the paradigm of
which nonnecessary existence is an imperfect imitation. This claim is at least standard in
theological tradition; one finds it, for example, in Anselm.
Colors
Colors are a problem for Leibniz. Phenomenal redness and greenness seem unanalyzable.
They are also positive qualities of experience. They also seem absolute. For what limits
are involved in seeming red? Not materiality: a discarnate soul could hallucinate in color,
and plausibly in a hallucination something appears red. But no spot in any visual field can
have both properties: they are incompatible. Now here Leibniz could perhaps reply that
just for this reason, colors are not positive in his sense. Each is, after all, a determinate of
a determinable, phenomenal color. And the nature of determinables may come to
Leibniz's aid. For a plausible view of determinables would see them as simply
disjunctions of their determinates, such that each n-tuple of the properties of which a
determinable consists is internally inconsistent—in which case, each determinate implies
the negation of each other determinate. If this is correct, the phenomenal colors are not
Leibniz-positive. Each's nature in some manner contains the negation of the rest:
certainly it entails these. So perhaps Leibniz's cause is not utterly hopeless here.