In relation to Leibniz’s principle of ground/reason, Heidegger clarifies this issue in his 1957 book The Principle of Reason, “in Leibniz’s sense, a ratio sufficiens, a sufficient reason, isn’t at all a ground capable of supporting a being so that it doesn’t straightaway fall into nothing. A sufficient reason is one that reaches and offers to beings that which puts them in the position of fulfilling their fill essence, that is, perfectio. ” (PR, 71).  An important aspect here is the idea that something truly is what it is when fully conceptualized.  For example, a right triangle isn’t what it truly is to the young child learning her shapes, but infinitely more so to the geometry professor. In contrast to this principle of reason and concepts/conceptualizing, we have the negative theology (God is not this, not that – the apophatic way of the negative or via negative) of mystic poet Angelus Silesius and what Leibniz called his difficult metaphors.  Recall Nietzsche’s idea that our concepts are inherently metaphorical and never fully present because there is always the infinite regress of having to explain using further metaphors.  And so as we showed “concept” depends on a hand and grabbing metaphor for its sense, while even “metaphor” gains its sense from a transporting metaphor. 

The famous epigram “The rose is without why” by Angelus Silesius (pseudonym of Johannes Scheffler, 1624–1677), a German mystic poet, comes from his collection Der Cherubinische Wandersmann (The Cherubinic Wanderer), specifically Book I.

Original German (in modernized spelling):

Die Rose ist ohne Warum;
sie blühet, weil sie blühet,
sie achtet nicht ihrer selbst,
fragt nicht, ob man sie siehet.

In the original 17th-century orthography (as it appears in early editions):

Die Ros’ ist ohn warumb;
sie blühet weil sie blühet,
Sie achtt nicht jhrer selbst,
fragt nicht ob man sie sihet.

A standard English translation (one of the most commonly cited versions):

The rose is without why;
it blooms because it blooms,
it pays no attention to itself,
asks not whether it is seen.

Alternative translations (for nuance):

• “The rose is without a why. It blooms because it blooms. It pays no heed to itself, asks not if it is seen.”
• “The rose has no why; it blooms because it blooms. It pays no attention to itself and doesn’t ask if anyone sees it.”

The epigram is a mystical reflection on pure being without purpose or self-regard, often linked to themes in Heidegger’s philosophy and Christian mysticism. It’s typically presented as a single quatrain (or two rhyming couplets in alexandrine meter). The shorter phrase “Die Rose ist ohne warum; sie blühet weil sie blühet” is frequently excerpted, but the full text includes the lines about the rose’s indifference to conceptual observation.

The rose was (and remains) a deeply rooted symbolic theme and metaphor in Christian literature and mysticism, and Angelus Silesius is almost certainly alluding to this tradition in his epigram “Die Rose ist ohne Warum.”In Christian symbolism, the rose carries multiple layers of meaning (polysemy), often tied to purity, divine beauty, love, and spiritual unfolding:

• Rosa Mystica (Mystical Rose): This is one of the traditional invocations of the Virgin Mary in the Litany of Loreto (formalized in the 16th century but drawing on much older Marian devotion). The title evokes Mary as a perfect, thornless rose—beautiful, pure, and blooming through divine grace without earthly “why” or self-regard.

The rose appears in the Song of Songs (2:1: “I am the rose of Sharon”), symbolizing beauty, love, and the beloved (interpreted allegorically as Christ and the soul, or Christ and the Church). Medieval Christian writers, mystics, and poets frequently used the rose to represent the Virgin Mary, divine love, the soul’s union with God, or the flowering of grace.

Silesius, a Catholic mystic deeply influenced by Meister Eckhart and Jakob Böhme, employs the rose in his Cherubinischer Wandersmann as a powerful image of the soul in contemplative union with God. Scholars and interpreters note that he takes the rose “for an image of the soul,” portraying it as blooming effortlessly and without self-consciousness—mirroring the mystical ideal of pure being, divine presence, and detachment from rational purpose or external validation.

Some interpretations explicitly connect it to Christ (as the source imprinting the soul) or broader Marian resonances, such as the rose’s association with virginity and fruitful humility (e.g., “When God lay hidden in a young virgin’s womb…”).

The epigram’s core idea—”blooming because it blooms,” indifferent to self or observers—aligns with Eckhart’s teaching that God (and the soul united to God) exists “without why” (sunder warumbe). The choice of the rose is not arbitrary; it draws on centuries of Christian symbolic tradition to convey the soul’s (or creation’s) effortless, purposeless perfection in divine love. This makes the poem a quintessential expression of Christian mystical quietism: the soul, like the mystical rose, simply is in God, beyond utility and conceptual cleverness or self-interest.

In short, while the epigram has been read philosophically (e.g., by Heidegger) or cross-culturally (e.g., parallels to Zen), its roots are firmly in Christian mystical symbolism of the rose—likely including Rosa Mystica and the soul’s divine blooming.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) did reference Silesius (whose real name was Johann Scheffler) in his writings, praising him as the author of “quite pleasing little devotional verses in German, in the form of epigrams.” Leibniz mentioned Silesius in his Theodicy (1710) and in letters, such as one to Paccius in 1695, where he discussed mysticism and noted that “with every mystic there [is] something good and something bad.”

However, Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason—”nothing is without reason” or “nothing takes place without a sufficient reason”—stands in direct philosophical opposition to the quote’s assertion that the rose is “without a why.”  This principle holds that every fact, event, or entity must have an explanation/conceptualization which later thinkers like Heidegger used to contrast with Silesius’ mystical denial of such a “why.”

Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) extensively discussed Silesius’ quote in his 1955–56 lecture series The Principle of Reason (Der Satz vom Grund), using it to explore the distinction between “why” (as a demand for rendered reasons) and “ground” (as the basis of being).  He presented the quote—”The rose is without why: it blooms because it blooms, It pays no attention to itself, asks not whether it is seen”—as a mystical counterpoint to Leibniz’s principle that “nothing is without a why,” noting that Silesius’ verses appear in The Cherubic Wanderer (1657) under the heading “Without Why.”

Heidegger argued that the rose is indeed “without why” in the sense that its blooming is a “simple arising-on-its-own” without the human-like demand for explanation or causation; the “because” in the quote is not a causal ground but a tautological affirmation of being itself.  Specifically the doubling of blooms in “blooms because it blooms” points to the metaphorical foundation of our metaphors and concepts where meaning is indefinitely deferred because there is no rest and foundation of a concept, rather explanatory metaphors always point beyond themselves to further metaphors. Humans, in their authentic being, might aspire to exist “like the rose—without why,” transcending the constant quest for reasons.

Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) engaged with Silesius’ quote in his 1993 work Aporias (Apories) that I blogged about previously, invoking it to illustrate themes of groundless being, aporia (insoluble impasse), and the limits of rational explanation, often in dialogue with Heidegger. He connected the rose’s blooming “without a why” to Heidegger’s interpretation of Heraclitus’ Fragment 52, where Being is described as a “child playing draughts”—playful, without purpose or secondary ground, simply because it is.  I have addressed this passage from Heraclitus in numerous post and there are indeed many layers to it.  For Derrida, this evokes khōra (from Plato’s Timaeus), a pre-ontological “space” or matrix that enables emergence without teleology or reason, serving as an indeterminate foundation that “grounds all things without being a ground.”The quote underscores the aporetic nature of existence, death, and time: like the rose, being defies a rational “why,” revealing an abyss where ontology fails and questions remain unresolved.  Derrida’s use highlights deconstruction’s emphasis on undecidability, contrasting Leibniz’s relational principle (“To Be is… standing in relation to a ground”) and aligning with mystical traditions where blooming is self-sufficient, without need for justification.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz did discuss the difficult metaphors in Angelus Silesius’ work. In a letter to Paccius dated January 28, 1695, Leibniz commented on mystics in general and specifically applied his critique to Silesius (whose real name was Johann Scheffler), stating: “With every mystic there are a few places that are extraordinarily clever, full of difficult metaphors and virtually inclining to Godlessness, just as I have sometimes seen in the German—otherwise beautiful—poems of a certain man who is called Johannes Angelus Silesius.” He viewed these metaphors as challenging and potentially irreligious since God is supposed to be the source of all truth (e.g., it is pious because God loves it), though he acknowledged the overall beauty of the poems. This remark aligns with Leibniz’s broader engagement with mysticism, where he found value but also pitfalls in such writings.