November 25, 2023:
Leibniz sped up in his last decade. He felt the sands running out. So many massive, ambitious projects.
My friend the Spinozist says, "I thought Leibniz was the enemy?" Misapplication of Althusser's "dividing lines". Lines are properly drawn between Problematics, within ouvres and inside individual works, teasing out the conflicts and unresolved contradictions. Meaningful lines cannot be drawn between named individuals: it's entirely the wrong level of abstraction. Lines between named individuals are a muscle memory of academe: the habit of institutional rivalry. It's too broad to be meaningful.
Leibniz explored the logic which Althusser later labeled "structure in dominance", in which human beings are an assemblage of monads under the direction or jurisdiction of one in particular. He defined conatus as the dynamical seed of motion or change, which appears to be the sense in which Althusser uses it and which is essentially the opposite of Spinoza's striving for self-preservation.
I need to speed up, if I'm to correct any of these mistakes.