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| leibniz new essays: Leibniz: New Essays on Human Understanding Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, 1996-11-07 In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition (published in 1962), first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding John Dewey, 1888 New Essays on Human Understanding is a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal by Gottfried Leibniz of John Locke's major work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It was finished in 1704 but Locke's death was the cause alleged by Leibniz to withhold its publication. The book appeared some sixty years later. Like many philosophical works of the time, it is written in dialogue form. The two speakers in the book are Theophilus, who represents the views of Leibniz, and Philalethes, who represents those of Locke. The famous rebuttal to the empiricist thesis about the provenance of ideas appears at the beginning of Book II: Nothing is in the mind without being first in the senses, except for the mind itself. All of Locke's major arguments against innate ideas are criticized at length by Leibniz, who defends an extreme view of innate cognition, according to which all thoughts and actions of the soul are innate. In addition to his discussion of innate ideas, Leibniz offers penetrating critiques of Locke's views on personal identity, free will, mind-body dualism, language, necessary truth, and Locke's attempted proof of the existence of God. |
| leibniz new essays: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ; [with] A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh ; [and] An Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature David Hume, Eric Steinberg, 1993-01-01 A landmark of enlightenment though, HUme's An Enquiry Concerning Human understanding is accompanied here by two shorter works that shed light on it: A Letter from a Gentlemen to His Friend in Edinburgh, hume's response to those accusing him of atheism, of advocating extreme scepticism, and of undermining the foundations of morality; and his Abstract of A Treatise of HUman Nature, which anticipates discussions developed in the Enquiry. In his concise Introduction, Eric Steinberg explores the conditions that led to write the Enquiry and the work's important relationship to Book 1 of Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature. |
| leibniz new essays: Philosophical Texts Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, 1998 The Oxford Philosophical Texts series consists of authoritative teaching editions of canonical texts in the History of Philosophy from the ancient world down to modern times. Each volume, issued in a uniform and affordable paperback format, provides a clear, well laid out text together with acomprehensive introduction by a leading specialist, giving the student detailed critical guidance on the intellectual context of the work and the structure and philosophical importance of the main arguments. Endnotes are supplied to expand further on the arguments and explain unfamiliar referencesand terminology, and a full bibliography and index are also included. The series aims to build up a definitive corpus of key texts in the Western philosophical tradition, which will form a reliable and enduring resource for students and teachers alike. This volume contains Leibniz's most important texts, starting with the Discourse on Metaphysics (1686), which marks the beginning of maturity in Leibniz's ideas, and ending with the Monadology (1714), written in response to requests for a systematic, organized account of his overall philosophy. Inbetween fall other key works including the New System of Nature (1695), the Specimen of Dynamics (1695), Nature Itself (1698), and the Principles of Nature and Grace (1714). Also included in the volume are critical reactions to the Discourse and the New System by Leibniz's contemporaries, AntoineArnauld, Pierre Bayle, and Simon Foucher, together with Leibniz's responses. All the texts are newly translated into English for this edition, and each is preceded by a summary explaining its background, structure, and content. Also containing a substantial introduction, notes, and bibliography, the volume offers a comprehensive introduction to Leibniz's philosophy. |
| leibniz new essays: New Essays on Human Understanding Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, Peter Remnant, Jonathan Francis Bennett, 1981 An extremely suitable focus for the study of Leibniz's thought and of the traditions of rationalism and empiricism in relation to one another. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz Donald Rutherford, J. A. Cover, 2005-03-17 The revival of Leibniz studies in the past twenty-five years has cast important new light on both the context and content of Leibniz's philosophical thought. Where earlier English-language scholarship understood Leibniz's philosophy as issuing from his preoccupations with logic and language, recent work has recommended an account on which theological, ethical, and metaphysical themes figure centrally in Leibniz's thought throughout his career. The significance of these themes to the development of Leibniz's philosophy is the subject of increasing attention by philosophers and historians. This collection of new essays by a distinguished group of scholars offers an up-to-date overview of the current state of Leibniz research. In focusing on nature and freedom, the volume revisits two key topics in Leibniz's thought, on which he engaged both contemporary and historical arguments. Important contributions to Leibniz scholarship in their own right, these articles collectively provide readers a framework in which to better situate Leibniz's distinctive philosophy of nature and the congenial home for a morally significant freedom that he took it to provide. |
| leibniz new essays: Philosophical Essays , 1780 |
| leibniz new essays: Theodicy Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 2020-05-15 Theodicy is a book of philosophy by the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz published in 1710, whose optimistic approach to the problem of evil is thought to have inspired Voltaire's Candide. Much of the work consists of a response to the ideas of the French philosopher Pierre Bayle, with whom Leibniz carried on a debate for many years. The Theodicy tries to justify the apparent imperfections of the world by claiming that it is optimal among all possible worlds. It must be the best possible and most balanced world, because it was created by an all powerful and all knowing God, who would not choose to create an imperfect world if a better world could be known to him or possible to exist. In effect, apparent flaws that can be identified in this world must exist in every possible world, because otherwise God would have chosen to create the world that excluded those flaws. Leibniz distinguishes three forms of evil: moral, physical, and metaphysical. Moral evil is sin, physical evil is pain, and metaphysical evil is limitation. God permits moral and physical evil for the sake of greater goods, and metaphysical evil is unavoidable since any created universe must necessarily fall short of God's absolute perfection. |
| leibniz new essays: Philosophical Papers and Letters G.W. Leibniz, 2012-12-06 The selections contained in these volumes from the papers and letters of Leibniz are intended to serve the student in two ways: first, by providing a more adequate and balanced conception of the full range and penetration of Leibniz's creative intellectual powers; second, by inviting a fresher approach to his intellectual growth and a clearer perception of the internal strains in his thinking, through a chronological arrangement. Much confusion has arisen in the past through a neglect of the develop ment of Leibniz's ideas, and Couturat's impressive plea, in his edition of the Opuscu/es et fragments (p. xii), for such an arrangement is valid even for incomplete editions. The beginning student will do well, however, to read the maturer writings of Parts II, III, and IV first, leaving Part I, from a period too largely neglected by Leibniz criticism, for a later study of the still obscure sources and motives of his thought. The Introduction aims primarily to provide cultural orientation and an exposition of the structure and the underlying assumptions of the philosophical system rather than a critical evaluation. I hope that together with the notes and the Index, it will provide those aids to the understanding which the originality of Leibniz's scientific, ethical, and metaphysical efforts deserve. |
| leibniz new essays: The Shorter Leibniz Texts Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, 2006-12-15 This anthology of new Leibniz translations brings many Leibniz texts into the English-speaking academic domain for the first time, and provides new, concise texts that are fully representative of Leibniz's thought |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz , 1972 |
| leibniz new essays: Discourse on Metaphysics , 2021-09-09 |
| leibniz new essays: Correspondence Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, Samuel Clarke, 2000-01-01 For this new edition, Roger Ariew has adapted Samuel Clarke's edition of 1717, modernizing it to reflect contemporary English usage. Ariew's introduction places the correspondence in historical context and discusses the vibrant philosophical climate of the times. Appendices provide those selections from the works of Newton that Clarke frequently refers to in the correspondence. A bibliography is also included. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz and the Structure of Sciences Vincenzo De Risi, 2020-01-01 The book offers a collection of essays on various aspects of Leibniz’s scientific thought, written by historians of science and world-leading experts on Leibniz. The essays deal with a vast array of topics on the exact sciences: Leibniz’s logic, mereology, the notion of infinity and cardinality, the foundations of geometry, the theory of curves and differential geometry, and finally dynamics and general epistemology. Several chapters attempt a reading of Leibniz’s scientific works through modern mathematical tools, and compare Leibniz’s results in these fields with 19th- and 20th-Century conceptions of them. All of them have special care in framing Leibniz’s work in historical context, and sometimes offer wider historical perspectives that go much beyond Leibniz’s researches. A special emphasis is given to effective mathematical practice rather than purely epistemological thought. The book is addressed to all scholars of the exact sciences who have an interest in historical research and Leibniz in particular, and may be useful to historians of mathematics, physics, and epistemology, mathematicians with historical interests, and philosophers of science at large. |
| leibniz new essays: Discourse on Metaphysics and the Monadology Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 2008-12-01 The impact of the work of German mathematician GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ (1646-1716) on modern science and technology is all but incalculable. His notation for infinitesimal calculus-which he developed independently of Newton-remains in use today, and his invention of binary counting is the basis for modern computing. He was a powerfully influential philosopher as well, and is still considered, alongside Descartes and Spinoza, one of the great 17th-century rationalists. Because much of Leibniz's thinking in the realm of the sciences flowed from his philosophy, understanding how he approached the natural world and humanity's place in it is vital to understanding his contributions to modern science. This edition collects two of Leibniz's foundational works, Discourse on Metaphysics and The Monadology, which expound on concepts of philosophical optimism-that we live in the best of all possible worlds-and consequently features Leibniz's thoughts on the nature of physical matter. This classic work will intrigue all students of science and philosophy. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz: Body, Substance, Monad Daniel Garber, 2009-07-09 Daniel Garber presents a study of Leibniz's conception of the physical world, elucidating his puzzling metaphysics of monads, mind-like simple substances. Tracing the development of Leibniz's thought, Garber shows how dealing with problems about the physical world led him to a world of animate creatures, and finally to a world of monads. |
| leibniz new essays: Human Understanding Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz, 2023-07-18 Human Understanding is a philosophical treatise by Leibniz that explores the nature of knowledge and the mind. Leibniz argues that all knowledge is innate, and that the mind is capable of understanding even the most complex ideas through a process of deductive reasoning. This work is a landmark in the history of philosophy and essential for anyone interested in epistemology or the nature of the human mind. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz's Moral Philosophy John Hostler, 1975 In philosophy, Leibniz is mostly noted for his optimism, e.g., his conclusion that our Universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one that God could have created. Leibniz, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, was one of the three great 17th century advocates of rationalism. |
| leibniz new essays: New Essays on the Rationalists Rocco J. Gennaro, Charles Huenemann, 1999 This collection presents some of the most vital and original recent writings on Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, the three greatest rationalists of the early modern period. Their work offered brilliant and distinct integrations of science, morals, metaphysics, and religion, which today remain at the center of philosophical discussion. The essays written especially for this volume explore how these three philosophical systems treated matter, substance, human freedom, natural necessity, knowledge, mind, and consciousness. The contributors include some of the most prominent writers in the field, including Jonathan Bennett, Michael Della Rocca, Jan A. Cover, Catherine Wilson, Stephen Voss, Edwin Curley, Don Garrett, and Margaret D. Wilson. |
| leibniz new essays: New Essays on the A Priori Paul Boghossian, Christopher Peacocke, 2000-10-26 The topics of a priori knowledge and a priori justification have long played a prominent part in epistemology and the theory of meaning. Recently there has been a surge of interest in the proper explication of these notions. These newly commissioned essays, by a distinguished, international group of philosophers, will have a substantial influence on later work in this area. They discuss the relations of the a priori to meaning, justification, definition and ontology; they consider the role of the notion in Leibniz, Kant, Frege and Wittgenstein; and they address its role in recent discussions in the philosophy of mind. Particular attention is also paid to the a priori in logic, science and mathematics. The authors exhibit a wide variety of approaches, some remaining sceptical of the notion itself, some proposing that it receive a non-factualist treatment, and others proposing novel ways of explicating and defending it. The editors' Introduction provides a helpful route into the issues. |
| leibniz new essays: The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought Mark Goldie, Robert Wokler, 2006-08-31 Publisher description |
| leibniz new essays: Not Saved Peter Sloterdijk, 2017-05-23 One can rightly say of Peter Sloterdijk that each of his essays and lectures is also an unwritten book. That is why the texts presented here, which sketch a philosophical physiognomy of Martin Heidegger, should also be characterized as a collected renunciation of exhaustiveness. In order to situate Heidegger's thought in the history of ideas and problems, Peter Sloterdijk approaches Heidegger's work with questions such as: If Western philosophy emerged from the spirit of the polis, what are we to make of the philosophical suitability of a man who never made a secret of his stubborn attachment to rural life? Is there a provincial truth of which the cosmopolitan city knows nothing? Is there a truth in country roads and cabins that would be able to undermine the universities with their standardized languages and globally influential discourses? From where does this odd professor speak, when from his professorial chair in Freiburg he claims to inquire into what lies beyond the history of Western metaphysics? Sloterdijk also considers several other crucial twentieth-century thinkers who provide some needed contrast for the philosophical physiognomy of Martin Heidegger. A consideration of Niklas Luhmann as a kind of contemporary version of the Devil's Advocate, a provocative critical interpretation of Theodor Adorno's philosophy that focuses on its theological underpinnings and which also includes reflections on the philosophical significance of hyperbole, and a short sketch of the pessimistic thought of Emil Cioran all round out and deepen Sloterdijk's attempts to think with, against, and beyond Heidegger. Finally, in essays such as Domestication of Being and the Rules for the Human Park, which incited an international controversy around the time of its publication and has been translated afresh for this volume, Sloterdijk develops some of his most intriguing and important ideas on anthropogenesis, humanism, technology, and genetic engineering. |
| leibniz new essays: Kant on Representation and Objectivity A. B. Dickerson, 2003-11-06 This book is a study of the second-edition version of the 'Transcendental Deduction' (the so-called 'B-Deduction'), which is one of the most important and obscure sections of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By way of a close analysis of the B-Deduction, Adam Dickerson makes the distinctive claim that the Deduction is crucially concerned with the problem of making intelligible the unity possessed by complex representations - a problem that is the representationalist parallel of the semantic problem of the unity of the proposition. Along the way he discusses most of the key themes in Kant's theory of knowledge, including the nature of thought and representation, the notion of objectivity, and the way in which the mind structures our experience of the world. |
| leibniz new essays: Essays on Gödel’s Reception of Leibniz, Husserl, and Brouwer Mark van Atten, 2016-09-22 This volume tackles Gödel's two-stage project of first using Husserl's transcendental phenomenology to reconstruct and develop Leibniz' monadology, and then founding classical mathematics on the metaphysics thus obtained. The author analyses the historical and systematic aspects of that project, and then evaluates it, with an emphasis on the second stage. The book is organised around Gödel's use of Leibniz, Husserl and Brouwer. Far from considering past philosophers irrelevant to actual systematic concerns, Gödel embraced the use of historical authors to frame his own philosophical perspective. The philosophies of Leibniz and Husserl define his project, while Brouwer's intuitionism is its principal foil: the close affinities between phenomenology and intuitionism set the bar for Gödel's attempt to go far beyond intuitionism. The four central essays are `Monads and sets', `On the philosophical development of Kurt Gödel', `Gödel and intuitionism', and `Construction and constitution in mathematics'. The first analyses and criticises Gödel's attempt to justify, by an argument from analogy with the monadology, the reflection principle in set theory. It also provides further support for Gödel's idea that the monadology needs to be reconstructed phenomenologically, by showing that the unsupplemented monadology is not able to found mathematics directly. The second studies Gödel's reading of Husserl, its relation to Leibniz' monadology, and its influence on his publishe d writings. The third discusses how on various occasions Brouwer's intuitionism actually inspired Gödel's work, in particular the Dialectica Interpretation. The fourth addresses the question whether classical mathematics admits of the phenomenological foundation that Gödel envisaged, and concludes that it does not. The remaining essays provide further context. The essays collected here were written and published over the last decade. Notes have been added to record further thoughts, changes of mind, connections between the essays, and updates of references. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding John Dewey, 1888 New Essays on Human Understanding is a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal by Gottfried Leibniz of John Locke's major work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It was finished in 1704 but Locke's death was the cause alleged by Leibniz to withhold its publication. The book appeared some sixty years later. Like many philosophical works of the time, it is written in dialogue form. The two speakers in the book are Theophilus, who represents the views of Leibniz, and Philalethes, who represents those of Locke. The famous rebuttal to the empiricist thesis about the provenance of ideas appears at the beginning of Book II: Nothing is in the mind without being first in the senses, except for the mind itself. All of Locke's major arguments against innate ideas are criticized at length by Leibniz, who defends an extreme view of innate cognition, according to which all thoughts and actions of the soul are innate. In addition to his discussion of innate ideas, Leibniz offers penetrating critiques of Locke's views on personal identity, free will, mind-body dualism, language, necessary truth, and Locke's attempted proof of the existence of God. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz on Compossibility and Possible Worlds Gregory Brown, Yual Chiek, 2016-12-27 This volume brings together a number of original articles by leading Leibniz scholars to address the meaning and significance of Leibniz’s notions of compossibility and possible worlds. In order to avoid the conclusion that everything that exists is necessary, or that all possibles are actual, as Spinoza held, Leibniz argued that not all possible substances are compossible, that is, capable of coexisting. In Leibniz’s view, the compossibility relation divides all possible substances into disjoint sets, each of which constitutes a possible world, or a way that God might have created things. For Leibniz, then, it is the compossibility relation that individuates possible worlds; and possible worlds form the objects of God’s choice, from among which he chooses the best for creation. Thus the notions of compossibility and possible worlds are of major significance for Leibniz’s metaphysics, his theodicy, and, ultimately, for his ethics. Given the fact, however, that none of the approaches to understanding Leibniz’s notions of compossibility and possible words suggested to date have gained universal acceptance, the goal of this book is to gather a body of new papers that explore ways of either refining previous interpretations in light of the objections that have been raised against them, or ways of framing new interpretations that will contribute to a fresh understanding of these key notions in Leibniz’s thought. |
| leibniz new essays: The Ontology of the Accident Catherine Malabou, 2012-07-16 In the usual order of things, lives run their course and eventually one becomes who one is. Bodily and psychic transformations do nothing but reinforce the permanence of identity. But as a result of serious trauma, or sometimes for no reason at all, a subject’s history splits and a new, unprecedented persona comes to live with the former person - an unrecognizable persona whose present comes from no past and whose future harbors nothing to come; an existential improvisation, a form born of the accident and by accident. Out of a deep cut opened in a biography, a new being comes into the world for a second time. What is this form? A face? A psychological profile? What ontology can it account for, if ontology has always been attached to the essential, forever blind to the aléa of transformations? What history of being can the plastic power of destruction explain? What can it tell us about the explosive tendency of existence that secretly threatens each one of us? Continuing her reflections on destructive plasticity, split identities and the psychic consequences experienced by those who have suffered brain injury or have been traumatized by war and other catastrophes, Catherine Malabou invites us to join her in a philosophic and literary adventure in which Spinoza, Deleuze and Freud cross paths with Proust and Duras. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz's Key Philosophical Writings Paul Lodge, Lloyd Strickland, 2020-10-15 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) is one of the most important and influential philosophers of the modern period. He offered a wealth of original ideas in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophical theology, among them his signature doctrines on substance and monads, pre-established harmony, and optimism. This volume contains introductory chapters on eleven of Leibniz's key philosophical writings, from youthful works (Confessio philosophi, De summa rerum), seminal middle-period writings (Discourse on Metaphysics, New System), to masterpieces of his maturity (Monadology, Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese). It also covers his two main philosophical books (New Essays on Human Understanding and Theodicy), and three of his most important philosophical correspondences with Antoine Arnauld, Burcher De Volder, and Samuel Clarke. Written by internationally-renowned experts on Leibniz, the chapters offer clear, accessible accounts of the ideas and arguments of these key writings, along with valuable information about their composition and context. By focusing on the primary texts, they enable readers to attain a solid understanding of what each text says and why, and give them the confidence to read the texts themselves. Offering a detailed and chronological view of Leibniz's philosophy and its development through some of his most important writings, this volume is an invaluable guide for those encountering Leibniz for the first time. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz’s Legacy and Impact Julia Weckend, Lloyd Strickland, 2019-08-19 This volume tells the story of the legacy and impact of the great German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz made significant contributions to many areas, including philosophy, mathematics, political and social theory, theology, and various sciences. The essays in this volume explores the effects of Leibniz’s profound insights on subsequent generations of thinkers by tracing the ways in which his ideas have been defended and developed in the three centuries since his death. Each of the 11 essays is concerned with Leibniz’s legacy and impact in a particular area, and between them they show not just the depth of Leibniz’s talents but also the extent to which he shaped the various domains to which he contributed, and in some cases continues to shape them today. With essays written by experts such as Nicholas Jolley, Pauline Phemister, and Philip Beeley, this volume is essential reading not just for students of Leibniz but also for those who wish to understand the game-changing impact made by one of history’s true universal geniuses. |
| leibniz new essays: Discourse on Metaphysics Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibniz, 1902 I flatter myself that I have learned something by following in the tracks of Plato and others, and have reached, in one way at least, the serene temples erected by the teachings of the wise. These temples are built on a foundation of general truths which do not depend on facts and yet, as I see it, form the key to the knowledge which passes judgment on facts...I have always striven to uncover the truth that lies buried under and dispersed among the various philosophical schools, and to bring it into harmony with itself. |
| leibniz new essays: The Old New Logic David S. Oderberg, 2005 A diverse group of contributors reflect on the philosophical legacy of Fred Sommers and his efforts to revive and refashion traditional Aristotelian logic for a post-Fregean world. |
| leibniz new essays: The New French Philosophy Ian James, 2012-05-14 This book gives a critical assessment of key developments in contemporary French philosophy, highlighting the diverse ways in which recent French thought has moved beyond the philosophical positions and arguments which have been widely associated with the terms 'post-structuralism' and 'postmodernism'. These developments are assessed through a close comparative reading of the work of seven contemporary thinkers: Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Luc Nancy, Bernard Stiegler, Catherine Malabou, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou and François Laruelle. The book situates the writing of each philosopher in relation to earlier traditions of French thought. In differing ways, these philosophers decisively distance themselves from the linguistic paradigm which dominated so much twentieth-century thought in order to rethink philosophical conceptions of materiality, worldliness, shared embodied existence and human agency or subjectivity. They thereby open the way for a radical renewal of the claims, possibilities and transformative power of philosophical thinking itself. This book will be an indispensable text for students of philosophy and for anyone interested in current developments in philosophy and social thought. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz's New Essays John Dewey, 2015-11-26 “He who knows me only by my writings does not know me,” said Leibniz. These words—true, indeed, of every writer, but true of Leibniz in a way which gives a peculiar interest and charm to his life—must be our excuse for prefacing what is to be said of his “New Essays concerning the Human Understanding” with a brief biographical sketch. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig June 21, 1646. His father, who died when Leibniz was only six years old, was a professor in the university and a notary of considerable practice. From him the future philosopher seems to have derived his extraordinary industry and love of detail. Such accounts as we have of him show no traces of the wonderful intellectual genius of his son, but only a diligent, plodding, faithful, and religious man, a thoroughly conscientious husband, jurist, and professor. Nor in the lines of physical heredity can we account for the unique career of Leibniz by his mother’s endowments. The fact, however, that she was patient in all trial, living in peace with her neighbors, anxious for unity and concord with all people, even with those not well disposed to her, throws great light upon the fundamental trait of Leibniz’s ethical nature. As in so many cases, it is the inherited moral characteristics which form the basis of the intellectual nature. The love of unity which was a moral trait in Leibniz’s mother became in him the hunger for a harmonious and unified mental world; the father’s devotion to detail showed itself as the desire for knowledge as minute and comprehensive as it was inter-related. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz's Monadology Lloyd Strickland, 2014-09-10 Lloyd Strickland presents a new translation of the 'Monadology', alongside key parts of the 'Theodicy', and an in-depth, section-by-section commentary that explains in detail not just what Leibniz is saying in the text but also why he says it. |
| leibniz new essays: Leibniz and Locke. A Study of the "New Essays on Human Understanding". Nicholas Jolley, 1984 |
| leibniz new essays: Between Naturalism and Religion Jürgen Habermas, 2008-06-03 In this book, Habermas examines the tension between the spread of naturalistic, scientific views on the one hand, and the rise of religious orthodoxies and revitalization of religious traditions, on the other. |
| leibniz new essays: The Science of Right in Leibniz's Moral and Political Philosophy Christopher Johns, 2013-10-10 A new understanding of the foundations of Gottfried Leibniz's moral and political philosophy based on formal deontic principles rather than consequentialism. |
| leibniz new essays: Essays on Deleuze Daniel Warren Smith, 2012 Brings together 18 key essays, plus two completely new essays, by one of the world's leading commentators on the work of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. |
| leibniz new essays: Philosophical Writings Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, C. R. Morris, 1956 |
| leibniz new essays: Knowledge and Indifference in English Romantic Prose Tim Milnes, 2003-02-27 This 2003 study sheds light on the way in which the English Romantics dealt with the basic problems of knowledge, particularly as they inherited them from the philosopher David Hume. Kant complained that the failure of philosophy in the eighteenth century to answer empirical scepticism had produced a culture of 'indifferentism'. Tim Milnes explores the way in which Romantic writers extended this epistemic indifference through their resistance to argumentation, and finds that it exists in a perpetual state of tension with a compulsion to know. This tension is most clearly evident in the prose writing of the period, in works such as Wordsworth's Preface to Lyrical Ballads, Hazlitt's Essay on the Principles of Human Action and Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. Milnes argues that it is in their oscillation between knowledge and indifference that the Romantics prefigure the ambivalent negotiations of modern post-analytic philosophy. |
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Wikipedia
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; [a] 1 July 1646 [O.S. 21 June] – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dec 22, 2007 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was one of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as the last “universal genius”. He made …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | Biography & Facts | Britannica
May 17, 2025 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his …
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A polymath and one of the founders of calculus, Leibniz is best known philosophically for his metaphysical idealism; his theory that reality is composed of spiritual, non-interacting …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - World History Encyclopedia
Jan 26, 2024 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German polymath who became well-known across Europe for his work, particularly in the fields of science, mathematics, and …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - The True Father of Calculus? - The …
The German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz occupies a grand place in the history of philosophy. He was, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, one of the three great …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) - Philosophy A Level
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig in 1646. A precocious child, he began reading Latin by age seven and quickly taught himself Greek. By 15, he was studying philosophy and law at …
G. W. Leibniz
A website dedicated to the life and works of the German philosopher and mathematician, G. W. Leibniz
Biography of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosopher and …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a prominent German philosopher and mathematician. Though Leibniz was a polymath who contributed many works to many different fields, he is best known …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Stanford University
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (b. 1646, d. 1716) was a German philosopher, mathematician, and logician who is probably most well known for having invented the differential and integral …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Wikipedia
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; [a] 1 July 1646 [O.S. 21 June] – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Dec 22, 2007 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was one of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as the last “universal genius”. He made …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | Biography & Facts | Britannica
May 17, 2025 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his …
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A polymath and one of the founders of calculus, Leibniz is best known philosophically for his metaphysical idealism; his theory that reality is composed of spiritual, non-interacting …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - World History Encyclopedia
Jan 26, 2024 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German polymath who became well-known across Europe for his work, particularly in the fields of science, mathematics, and …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - The True Father of Calculus? - The …
The German polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz occupies a grand place in the history of philosophy. He was, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, one of the three great …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) - Philosophy A Level
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig in 1646. A precocious child, he began reading Latin by age seven and quickly taught himself Greek. By 15, he was studying philosophy and law at …
G. W. Leibniz
A website dedicated to the life and works of the German philosopher and mathematician, G. W. Leibniz
Biography of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosopher and …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a prominent German philosopher and mathematician. Though Leibniz was a polymath who contributed many works to many different fields, he is best known …
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - Stanford University
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (b. 1646, d. 1716) was a German philosopher, mathematician, and logician who is probably most well known for having invented the differential and integral …
