MONAD RIFF
A Fold-Forward, Non-Linear Perplication
into the Linguistics of the Term Monad
“A labyrinth is said, etymologically, to be multiple because it contains many folds. The multiple is not only what has many parts but also what is folded in many ways.” P. 3 Deleuze
Monad
US: /ˈmoʊ.næd/
UK: /ˈmɒ.næd/
Consider the construct monad, a grounding philosophical principle Deleuze uses to expand his theory of the fold.
I’ll approach this through the lens of linguistics. I am not an expert in linguistics, but I use this practice as someone who, like 15-20% of the population, presents with a language learning exceptionality. This serves as a strategy to make words richly meaningful.
Phonology
Phonology is the study of a word’s sounds, or phonemes. In English, the word may be pronounced mOE nad, or mon ad- both are correct. The Cambridge dictionary indicates pronunciation is dependent on geography.
In the United States we say
MOE nad
In in the UK, it is pronounced
Mon ad
Here are the two pronunciations in phonetic symbols:
US: /ˈmoʊ.næd/
UK: /ˈmɒ.næd/
Morphology
Morphology is the study of how words are formed and relate to each other. Monad is derived from the Greek monas, which means unit, or one.
There are three words that use this root: monad, monadology and monadic, but under the larger parent root, mono, meaning one, we have word like monotone, monastery and monocles.
This root joined with the suffix-ad, from the ancient Greek ádos which is a suffix forming feminine nouns, as in myriad and triad.
Etymology
The etymology studies the word’s origins and how it’s changed over history.
Deleuze and Leibniz were not the first to use the term. It arises from a long philosophical conversation.
Pythagoreans believed a monad is the first divine thing that came into being and begat the dyad, which begat numbers, which begat points, which begat lines and finiteness. For Pythagoreans, a monad is a Supreme Being.
Similarly “The Neoplatonist used it to designate a state of One, a unity that envelops a multiplicity, this multiplicity developing the One in the manner of a series.” Deleuz p. 23.
Giordino Bruno, a 16th century Italian metaphysicist also used monad and described it as a substance both material and spiritual in his text De triplici minimo (1591). (deleuze)
Lady Anne Conway uses the expression in her writing, Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1690) which Leibniz credits as being influential to his work.
Lets shift here and fold in
Syntax as it relates to etemology
A monad functions as a noun. Nouns are people, places, things or ideas. It occurs to me as I draft this monad may simultaneously fulfill all 4 qualities
May I riff on this? These ideas are nascent and I present them as such:
Leibnitz describes a monad as “a simple substance that goes to make up composites; by simple, we mean without parts.” (p. 47 Monadology)
For Deleuze “As an individual unit each monad includes the whole series; hence it conveys the entire world, but does not express it without expressing more clearly a small region of the world, a subdivision, a borough of the city, a finite sequence.” P. 25
Is it therefor possible a monad exists as a place? Or an infinite possibility of places?
BUT, says, Dan Smith Deleuze’s translator, Deleuze argues that substance, when you get down to the basic unit of matter – like an atom, is not a substance but an inflection or a fold.
In fact Deleuze’s reading of Leibniz is a post-Kantian take that eliminates the self, the world and God as the triad to support metaphicis-
So, a monad may also be an idea.
The inter-are of philosophy and math that zigzag through the linguistics of the word monad is significant. Math, namely, differential calculus, which Leibniz and/or Newton, founded, is the framework for Leibniz and Deleuz that bridges the mathematical construct of the infinite with a metaphysical counterpart.
Deleuze uses calculus, not logic or static binaries, to construct the idea of a monad as a metaphysics of multiplicity of folds. (D. Smith)
As an inquiry into the word monad suggests, the structure of the word itself behaves as folded and evolving.
Is it possible other nouns simultaneously qualify as a person, place, thing and idea?
Are these categories, perhaps, better understood as folds?
References
Bruno, G. (1591). De triplici minimo et mensura ad trium speculatiuarum scientiarum & multarum actiuarum artium principia, libri V [The threefold minimum and measure]. Johann Wechel & Peter Fischer. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_PVRkCyp8u-AC (Original work published 1591)
Conway, A. (2002). The principles of the most ancient and modern philosophy (Original work published 1692). A Celebration of Women Writers / University of Pennsylvania Digital Library. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/conway/principles/principles.html
Cherry, C., & Adkins, T. (Hosts). (2023, May 14). Daniel W. Smith - Deleuze's The Fold (No. 110) [Audio podcast episode]. In Machinic Unconscious Happy Hour. Spotify. spotify.com
Deleuze, G. (1993). The fold: Leibniz and the baroque (T. Conley, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published 1988).
Leibniz, G. W. (2005). Discourse on metaphysics and the monadology (G. R. Montgomery, Trans.; A. R. Chandler, Rev.). Dover Publications. (Original works written 1686 and 1714)
Monad (philosophy). (2026, May 24). In Wikipedia. wikipedia.org
Monad. (n.d.). In Cambridge advanced learner's dictionary & thesaurus. Cambridge University Press. cambridge.org