Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm (von)[a] Leibniz[b] (1 July

1646 [O.S. 21 June] – 14 November 1716)
was a German polymath active as a
mathematician, philosopher, scientist and
diplomat. Leibniz is also called, "The Last
Universal Genius" due to his knowledge
and skills in different fields and because
such people became less common during
the Industrial Revolution and spread of
specialized labor after his lifetime.[17] He is
a prominent figure in both the history of
philosophy and the history of
mathematics. He wrote works on
philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, law,
history, philology, games, music, and other
studies. Leibniz also made major
contributions to physics and technology,
and anticipated notions that surfaced
much later in probability theory, biology,
medicine, geology, psychology, linguistics
and computer science. In addition, he
contributed to the field of library science
by devising a cataloguing system whilst
working at Wolfenbüttel library in Germany
that would have served as a guide for
many of Europe's largest libraries.[18]
Leibniz's contributions to a wide range of
subjects were scattered in various learned
journals, in tens of thousands of letters
and in unpublished manuscripts. He wrote
in several languages, primarily in Latin,
French and occasionally in German.[19][c]
 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Portrait by Christoph Bernhard Francke, 1695

Born 1 July 1646

Leipzig, Saxony, Holy
Roman Empire

Died 14 November 1716

(aged 70)
Hanover, Hanover,
Holy Roman Empire

Education Alte Nikolaischule

 Leipzig University (BA,
1662; MA, 1664; LLB,
1665; Dr. phil. hab.,
1666)
University of Jena
(1663)[8]
University of Altdorf
(Dr. jur., 1666)

Era 17th-/18th-century
philosophy

Region Western philosophy

School Rationalism
Pluralistic idealism[1]
Foundationalism[2]
Conceptualism[3]
Optimism
 Indirect realism[4]
Correspondence
theory of truth[5]
Relationism

Theses De Arte Combinatoria

(On the Combinatorial
Art) (https://archive.or
g/details/ita-bnc-mag
-00000844-00
1) (March 1666)
Disputatio Inauguralis
de Casibus Perplexis
in Jure (Inaugural
Disputation on
Ambiguous Legal
Cases) (http://digital.s
lub-dresden.de/werka
 nsicht/dlf/60594/
1/) (November 1666)

Doctoral advisor Bartholomäus

Leonhard von
Schwendendörffer
(Dr. jur. thesis
advisor)[6][7]

Other academic Erhard Weigel

advisors (Jena)[8]
Jakob Thomasius
(B.A. advisor)[9]
Christiaan Huygens

Notable students Jacob Bernoulli

(epistolary
correspondent)
Christian Wolff
(epistolary
 correspondent)

Main interests Mathematics, physics,

geology, medicine,
biology, embryology,
epidemiology,
veterinary medicine,
paleontology,
psychology,
engineering,
linguistics, philology,
sociology,
metaphysics, ethics,
economics,
diplomacy, history,
politics, music theory,
poetry, logic, theodicy,
 universal language,
universal science

Notable ideas
Algebraic logic
Binary code
Calculus
Differential
equations
Mathesis
universalis
Monads
Best of all possible
worlds
Pre-established
harmony
Identity of
indiscernibles
Mathematical
matrix
Mathematical
function
Newton–Leibniz
axiom
Leibniz's notation
Leibniz integral rule
Integral symbol
Leibniz harmonic
triangle
Leibniz's test
Leibniz formula for
π
Leibniz formula for
determinants
Fractional
derivative
Chain rule
Quotient rule
Product rule
Leibniz wheel
Leibniz's gap
Algebra of
concepts
Vis viva (principle of
conservation of
energy)
Principle of least
action
Salva veritate
Stepped reckoner
Symbolic
logic/Boolean
algebra
Semiotics
Analysis situs
Principle of
sufficient reason
Law of continuity
Transcendental law
of homogeneity
Ars combinatoria
(alphabet of human
thought)
Characteristica
universalis
Calculus ratiocinator
Compossibility
 Partial fraction
decomposition
Protogaea
Problem of why
there is anything at
all
Pluralistic idealism
Metaphysical
dynamism
Relationism
Apperception
A priori/a posteriori
distinction
Deontic logic
Well-founded
phenomenon

Signature
As a philosopher, he was a leading
representative of 17th-century rationalism
and idealism. As a mathematician, his
major achievement was the development
of the main ideas of differential and
integral calculus, independently of Isaac
Newton's contemporaneous
developments.[21] Mathematicians have
consistently favored Leibniz's notation as
the conventional and more exact
expression of calculus.[22][23][24]

In the 20th century, Leibniz's notions of the

law of continuity and transcendental law
of homogeneity found a consistent
mathematical formulation by means of
non-standard analysis. He was also a
pioneer in the field of mechanical
calculators. While working on adding
automatic multiplication and division to
Pascal's calculator, he was the first to
describe a pinwheel calculator in 1685[25]
and invented the Leibniz wheel, used in the
arithmometer, the first mass-produced
mechanical calculator. He also refined the
binary number system, which is the
foundation of nearly all digital (electronic,
solid-state, discrete logic) computers. This
includes the Von Neumann architecture,
which represents the standard "computer
architecture" through from the second half
of the 20th century to the present. Leibniz
has been called the "founder of computer
science".[26]

In philosophy and theology, Leibniz is most

noted for his optimism, i.e. his conclusion
that our world is, in a qualified sense, the
best possible world that God could have
created, a view sometimes lampooned by
other thinkers, such as Voltaire in his
satirical novella Candide. Leibniz, along
with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza,
was one of the three influential early
modern rationalists. His philosophy also
assimilates elements of the scholastic
tradition, notably the assumption that
some substantive knowledge of reality can
be achieved by reasoning from first
principles or prior definitions. The work of
Leibniz anticipated modern logic and still
influences contemporary analytic
philosophy, such as its adopted use of the
term "possible world" to define modal
notions.

Biography

Early life

Gottfried Leibniz was born on July 1, 1646,

toward the end of the Thirty Years' War, in
Leipzig, Saxony, to Friedrich Leibniz and
Catharina Schmuck.

Friedrich noted in his family journal:

21. Juny am Sontag 1646 Ist

mein Sohn Gottfried Wilhelm,
post sextam vespertinam 1/4 uff
7 uhr abents zur welt gebohren,
im Wassermann.

In English:

On Sunday 21 June [NS: 1 July]

1646, my son Gottfried Wilhelm
was born into the world a
 quarter before seven in the
evening, in Aquarius.[27][28]

Leibniz was baptized on 3 July of that year

at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig; his
godfather was the Lutheran theologian
Martin Geier.[29] His father died when he
was six years old, and from that point on,
Leibniz was raised by his mother.[30]

Leibniz's father had been a Professor of

Moral Philosophy at the University of
Leipzig, and the boy later inherited his
father's personal library. He was given free
access to it from the age of seven. While
Leibniz's schoolwork was largely confined
to the study of a small canon of
authorities, his father's library enabled him
to study a wide variety of advanced
philosophical and theological works—ones
that he would not have otherwise been
able to read until his college years.[31]
Access to his father's library, largely
written in Latin, also led to his proficiency
in the Latin language, which he achieved
by the age of 12. At the age of 13 he
composed 300 hexameters of Latin verse
in a single morning for a special event at
school.[32]

In April 1661 he enrolled in his father's

former university at age 14,[33][8][34] and
completed his bachelor's degree in
Philosophy in December 1662. He
defended his Disputatio Metaphysica de
Principio Individui (Metaphysical
Disputation on the Principle of
Individuation),[35] which addressed the
principle of individuation, on 9 June 1663.
Leibniz earned his master's degree in
Philosophy on 7 February 1664. In
December 1664 he published and
defended a dissertation Specimen
Quaestionum Philosophicarum ex Jure
collectarum (An Essay of Collected
Philosophical Problems of Right),[35]
arguing for both a theoretical and a
pedagogical relationship between
philosophy and law. After one year of legal
studies, he was awarded his bachelor's
degree in Law on 28 September 1665.[36]
His dissertation was titled De
conditionibus (On Conditions).[35]

In early 1666, at age 19, Leibniz wrote his

first book, De Arte Combinatoria (On the
Combinatorial Art), the first part of which
was also his habilitation thesis in
Philosophy, which he defended in March
1666.[35][37] De Arte Combinatoria was
inspired by Ramon Llull's Ars Magna and
contained a proof of the existence of God,
cast in geometrical form, and based on the
argument from motion.
His next goal was to earn his license and
Doctorate in Law, which normally required
three years of study. In 1666, the University
of Leipzig turned down Leibniz's doctoral
application and refused to grant him a
Doctorate in Law, most likely due to his
relative youth.[38][39] Leibniz subsequently
left Leipzig.[40]

Leibniz then enrolled in the University of

Altdorf and quickly submitted a thesis,
which he had probably been working on
earlier in Leipzig.[41] The title of his thesis
was Disputatio Inauguralis de Casibus
Perplexis in Jure (Inaugural Disputation on
Ambiguous Legal Cases).[35] Leibniz
earned his license to practice law and his
Doctorate in Law in November 1666. He
next declined the offer of an academic
appointment at Altdorf, saying that "my
thoughts were turned in an entirely
different direction".[42]

As an adult, Leibniz often introduced

himself as "Gottfried von Leibniz". Many
posthumously published editions of his
writings presented his name on the title
page as "Freiherr G. W. von Leibniz."
However, no document has ever been
found from any contemporary government
that stated his appointment to any form of
nobility.[43]
1666–1676

Engraving of Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz

Leibniz's first position was as a salaried

secretary to an alchemical society in
Nuremberg.[44] He knew fairly little about
the subject at that time but presented
himself as deeply learned. He soon met
Johann Christian von Boyneburg (1622–
1672), the dismissed chief minister of the
Elector of Mainz, Johann Philipp von
Schönborn.[45] Von Boyneburg hired
Leibniz as an assistant, and shortly
thereafter reconciled with the Elector and
introduced Leibniz to him. Leibniz then
dedicated an essay on law to the Elector in
the hope of obtaining employment. The
stratagem worked; the Elector asked
Leibniz to assist with the redrafting of the
legal code for the Electorate.[46] In 1669,
Leibniz was appointed assessor in the
Court of Appeal. Although von Boyneburg
died late in 1672, Leibniz remained under
the employment of his widow until she
dismissed him in 1674.[47]
Von Boyneburg did much to promote
Leibniz's reputation, and the latter's
memoranda and letters began to attract
favorable notice. After Leibniz's service to
the Elector there soon followed a
diplomatic role. He published an essay,
under the pseudonym of a fictitious Polish
nobleman, arguing (unsuccessfully) for the
German candidate for the Polish crown.
The main force in European geopolitics
during Leibniz's adult life was the ambition
of Louis XIV of France, backed by French
military and economic might. Meanwhile,
the Thirty Years' War had left German-
speaking Europe exhausted, fragmented,
and economically backward. Leibniz
proposed to protect German-speaking
Europe by distracting Louis as follows:
France would be invited to take Egypt as a
stepping stone towards an eventual
conquest of the Dutch East Indies. In
return, France would agree to leave
Germany and the Netherlands
undisturbed. This plan obtained the
Elector's cautious support. In 1672, the
French government invited Leibniz to Paris
for discussion,[48] but the plan was soon
overtaken by the outbreak of the Franco-
Dutch War and became irrelevant.
Napoleon's failed invasion of Egypt in 1798
can be seen as an unwitting, late
implementation of Leibniz's plan, after the
Eastern hemisphere colonial supremacy in
Europe had already passed from the Dutch
to the British.

Thus Leibniz went to Paris in 1672. Soon

after arriving, he met Dutch physicist and
mathematician Christiaan Huygens and
realised that his own knowledge of
mathematics and physics was patchy.
With Huygens as his mentor, he began a
program of self-study that soon pushed
him to making major contributions to both
subjects, including discovering his version
of the differential and integral calculus. He
met Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine
Arnauld, the leading French philosophers
of the day, and studied the writings of
Descartes and Pascal, unpublished as well
as published.[49] He befriended a German
mathematician, Ehrenfried Walther von
Tschirnhaus; they corresponded for the
rest of their lives.

Stepped reckoner

When it became clear that France would

not implement its part of Leibniz's
Egyptian plan, the Elector sent his nephew,
escorted by Leibniz, on a related mission
to the English government in London, early
in 1673.[50] There Leibniz came into
acquaintance of Henry Oldenburg and
John Collins. He met with the Royal
Society where he demonstrated a
calculating machine that he had designed
and had been building since 1670. The
machine was able to execute all four basic
operations (adding, subtracting,
multiplying, and dividing), and the society
quickly made him an external member.

The mission ended abruptly when news of

the Elector's death (12 February 1673)
reached them. Leibniz promptly returned
to Paris and not, as had been planned, to
Mainz.[51] The sudden deaths of his two
patrons in the same winter meant that
Leibniz had to find a new basis for his
career.

In this regard, a 1669 invitation from Duke

John Frederick of Brunswick to visit
Hanover proved to have been fateful.
Leibniz had declined the invitation, but had
begun corresponding with the duke in
1671. In 1673, the duke offered Leibniz the
post of counsellor. Leibniz very reluctantly
accepted the position two years later, only
after it became clear that no employment
was forthcoming in Paris, whose
intellectual stimulation he relished, or with
the Habsburg imperial court.[52]
In 1675 he tried to get admitted to the
French Academy of Sciences as a foreign
honorary member, but it was considered
that there were already enough foreigners
there and so no invitation came. He left
Paris in October 1676.

House of Hanover, 1676–1716

Leibniz managed to delay his arrival in

Hanover until the end of 1676 after making
one more short journey to London, where
Newton accused him of having seen his
unpublished work on calculus in
advance.[53] This was alleged to be
evidence supporting the accusation, made
decades later, that he had stolen calculus
from Newton. On the journey from London
to Hanover, Leibniz stopped in The Hague
where he met van Leeuwenhoek, the
discoverer of microorganisms. He also
spent several days in intense discussion
with Spinoza, who had just completed his
masterwork, the Ethics.[54]

In 1677, he was promoted, at his request,

to Privy Counselor of Justice, a post he
held for the rest of his life. Leibniz served
three consecutive rulers of the House of
Brunswick as historian, political adviser,
and most consequentially, as librarian of
the ducal library. He thenceforth employed
his pen on all the various political,
historical, and theological matters
involving the House of Brunswick; the
resulting documents form a valuable part
of the historical record for the period.

Leibniz began promoting a project to use

windmills to improve the mining
operations in the Harz Mountains. This
project did little to improve mining
operations and was shut down by Duke
Ernst August in 1685.[52]

Among the few people in north Germany

to accept Leibniz were the Electress
Sophia of Hanover (1630–1714), her
daughter Sophia Charlotte of Hanover
(1668–1705), the Queen of Prussia and
his avowed disciple, and Caroline of
Ansbach, the consort of her grandson, the
future George II. To each of these women
he was correspondent, adviser, and friend.
In turn, they all approved of Leibniz more
than did their spouses and the future king
George I of Great Britain.[55]

The population of Hanover was only about

10,000, and its provinciality eventually
grated on Leibniz. Nevertheless, to be a
major courtier to the House of Brunswick
was quite an honor, especially in light of
the meteoric rise in the prestige of that
House during Leibniz's association with it.
In 1692, the Duke of Brunswick became a
hereditary Elector of the Holy Roman
Empire. The British Act of Settlement 1701
designated the Electress Sophia and her
descent as the royal family of England,
once both King William III and his sister-in-
law and successor, Queen Anne, were
dead. Leibniz played a role in the initiatives
and negotiations leading up to that Act,
but not always an effective one. For
example, something he published
anonymously in England, thinking to
promote the Brunswick cause, was
formally censured by the British
Parliament.
The Brunswicks tolerated the enormous
effort Leibniz devoted to intellectual
pursuits unrelated to his duties as a
courtier, pursuits such as perfecting
calculus, writing about other mathematics,
logic, physics, and philosophy, and keeping
up a vast correspondence. He began
working on calculus in 1674; the earliest
evidence of its use in his surviving
notebooks is 1675. By 1677 he had a
coherent system in hand, but did not
publish it until 1684. Leibniz's most
important mathematical papers were
published between 1682 and 1692, usually
in a journal which he and Otto Mencke
founded in 1682, the Acta Eruditorum. That
journal played a key role in advancing his
mathematical and scientific reputation,
which in turn enhanced his eminence in
diplomacy, history, theology, and
philosophy.

Leibniz's correspondence, papers and

notes from 1669 to 1704, National Library
of Poland

The Elector Ernest Augustus

commissioned Leibniz to write a history of
the House of Brunswick, going back to the
time of Charlemagne or earlier, hoping that
the resulting book would advance his
dynastic ambitions. From 1687 to 1690,
Leibniz traveled extensively in Germany,
Austria, and Italy, seeking and finding
archival materials bearing on this project.
Decades went by but no history appeared;
the next Elector became quite annoyed at
Leibniz's apparent dilatoriness. Leibniz
never finished the project, in part because
of his huge output on many other fronts,
but also because he insisted on writing a
meticulously researched and erudite book
based on archival sources, when his
patrons would have been quite happy with
a short popular book, one perhaps little
more than a genealogy with commentary,
to be completed in three years or less.
They never knew that he had in fact
carried out a fair part of his assigned task:
when the material Leibniz had written and
collected for his history of the House of
Brunswick was finally published in the
19th century, it filled three volumes.

Leibniz was appointed Librarian of the

Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel,
Lower Saxony, in 1691.

In 1708, John Keill, writing in the journal of

the Royal Society and with Newton's
presumed blessing, accused Leibniz of
having plagiarised Newton's calculus.[56]
Thus began the calculus priority dispute
which darkened the remainder of Leibniz's
life. A formal investigation by the Royal
Society (in which Newton was an
unacknowledged participant), undertaken
in response to Leibniz's demand for a
retraction, upheld Keill's charge. Historians
of mathematics writing since 1900 or so
have tended to acquit Leibniz, pointing to
important differences between Leibniz's
and Newton's versions of calculus.

In 1711, while traveling in northern Europe,

the Russian Tsar Peter the Great stopped
in Hanover and met Leibniz, who then took
some interest in Russian matters for the
rest of his life. In 1712, Leibniz began a
two-year residence in Vienna, where he
was appointed Imperial Court Councillor to
the Habsburgs. On the death of Queen
Anne in 1714, Elector George Louis
became King George I of Great Britain,
under the terms of the 1701 Act of
Settlement. Even though Leibniz had done
much to bring about this happy event, it
was not to be his hour of glory. Despite the
intercession of the Princess of Wales,
Caroline of Ansbach, George I forbade
Leibniz to join him in London until he
completed at least one volume of the
history of the Brunswick family his father
had commissioned nearly 30 years earlier.
Moreover, for George I to include Leibniz in
his London court would have been
deemed insulting to Newton, who was
seen as having won the calculus priority
dispute and whose standing in British
official circles could not have been higher.
Finally, his dear friend and defender, the
Dowager Electress Sophia, died in 1714.

Death

Leibniz died in Hanover in 1716. At the

time, he was so out of favor that neither
George I (who happened to be near
Hanover at that time) nor any fellow
courtier other than his personal secretary
attended the funeral. Even though Leibniz
was a life member of the Royal Society
and the Berlin Academy of Sciences,
neither organization saw fit to honor his
death. His grave went unmarked for more
than 50 years. He was, however, eulogized
by Fontenelle, before the French Academy
of Sciences in Paris, which had admitted
him as a foreign member in 1700. The
eulogy was composed at the behest of the
Duchess of Orleans, a niece of the
Electress Sophia.

Personal life

Leibniz never married. He proposed to an

unknown woman at age 50, but changed
his mind when she took too long to
decide.[57] He complained on occasion
about money, but the fair sum he left to his
sole heir, his sister's stepson, proved that
the Brunswicks had, by and large, paid him
well. In his diplomatic endeavors, he at
times verged on the unscrupulous, as was
all too often the case with professional
diplomats of his day. On several
occasions, Leibniz backdated and altered
personal manuscripts, actions which put
him in a bad light during the calculus
controversy.[58]

He was charming, well-mannered, and not

without humor and imagination.[59] He had
many friends and admirers all over Europe.
He was identified as a Protestant and a
philosophical theist.[60][61][62][63] Leibniz
remained committed to Trinitarian
Christianity throughout his life.[64]

Philosopher
Leibniz's philosophical thinking appears
fragmented, because his philosophical
writings consist mainly of a multitude of
short pieces: journal articles, manuscripts
published long after his death, and many
letters to many correspondents. He wrote
only two book-length philosophical
treatises, of which only the Théodicée of
1710 was published in his lifetime.
Leibniz dated his beginning as a
philosopher to his Discourse on
Metaphysics, which he composed in 1686
as a commentary on a running dispute
between Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine
Arnauld. This led to an extensive and
valuable correspondence with Arnauld;[65]
it and the Discourse were not published
until the 19th century. In 1695, Leibniz
made his public entrée into European
philosophy with a journal article titled
"New System of the Nature and
Communication of Substances".[66]
Between 1695 and 1705, he composed his
New Essays on Human Understanding, a
lengthy commentary on John Locke's
1690 An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, but upon learning of
Locke's 1704 death, lost the desire to
publish it, so that the New Essays were not
published until 1765. The Monadologie,
composed in 1714 and published
posthumously, consists of 90 aphorisms.

Leibniz also wrote a short paper, "Primae

veritates" ("First Truths"), first published by
Louis Couturat in 1903 (pp. 518–523)[67]
summarizing his views on metaphysics.
The paper is undated; that he wrote it
while in Vienna in 1689 was determined
only in 1999, when the ongoing critical
edition finally published Leibniz's
philosophical writings for the period
1677–90.[68] Couturat's reading of this
paper was the launching point for much
20th-century thinking about Leibniz,
especially among analytic philosophers.
But after a meticulous study of all of
Leibniz's philosophical writings up to 1688
—a study the 1999 additions to the critical
edition made possible—Mercer (2001)
begged to differ with Couturat's reading;
the jury is still out.

Leibniz met Spinoza in 1676, read some of

his unpublished writings, and has since
been influenced by some of Spinoza's
ideas. While Leibniz befriended him and
admired Spinoza's powerful intellect, he
was also forthrightly dismayed by
Spinoza's conclusions,[69] especially when
these were inconsistent with Christian
orthodoxy.

Unlike Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz had

a thorough university education in
philosophy. He was influenced by his
Leipzig professor Jakob Thomasius, who
also supervised his BA thesis in
philosophy.[9] Leibniz also eagerly read
Francisco Suárez, a Spanish Jesuit
respected even in Lutheran universities.
Leibniz was deeply interested in the new
methods and conclusions of Descartes,
Huygens, Newton, and Boyle, but viewed
their work through a lens heavily tinted by
scholastic notions. Yet it remains the case
that Leibniz's methods and concerns often
anticipate the logic, and analytic and
linguistic philosophy of the 20th century.

Principles

Leibniz variously invoked one or another of

seven fundamental philosophical
Principles:[70]

Identity/contradiction. If a proposition is
true, then its negation is false and vice
versa.
Identity of indiscernibles. Two distinct
things cannot have all their properties in
common. If every predicate possessed
by x is also possessed by y and vice
versa, then entities x and y are identical;
to suppose two things indiscernible is to
suppose the same thing under two
names. Frequently invoked in modern
logic and philosophy, the "identity of
indiscernibles" is often referred to as
Leibniz's Law. It has attracted the most
controversy and criticism, especially
from corpuscular philosophy and
quantum mechanics.
Sufficient reason. "There must be a
sufficient reason for anything to exist,
for any event to occur, for any truth to
obtain."[71]
Pre-established harmony.[72] "[T]he
appropriate nature of each substance
brings it about that what happens to one
corresponds to what happens to all the
others, without, however, their acting
upon one another directly." (Discourse on
Metaphysics, XIV) A dropped glass
shatters because it "knows" it has hit the
ground, and not because the impact
with the ground "compels" the glass to
split.
 Law of Continuity. Natura non facit
saltus[73] (literally, "Nature does not
make jumps").
Optimism. "God assuredly always
chooses the best."[74]
Plenitude. Leibniz believed that the best
of all possible worlds would actualize
every genuine possibility, and argued in
Théodicée that this best of all possible
worlds will contain all possibilities, with
our finite experience of eternity giving
no reason to dispute nature's
perfection.[75]

Leibniz would on occasion give a rational

defense of a specific principle, but more
often took them for granted.[76]

Monads

A page from Leibniz's manuscript of

the Monadology

Leibniz's best known contribution to

metaphysics is his theory of monads, as
exposited in Monadologie. He proposes his
theory that the universe is made of an
infinite number of simple substances
known as monads.[77] Monads can also be
compared to the corpuscles of the
mechanical philosophy of René Descartes
and others. These simple substances or
monads are the "ultimate units of
existence in nature". Monads have no
parts but still exist by the qualities that
they have. These qualities are
continuously changing over time, and each
monad is unique. They are also not
affected by time and are subject to only
creation and annihilation.[78] Monads are
centers of force; substance is force, while
space, matter, and motion are merely
phenomenal. It is said that he anticipated
Albert Einstein by arguing, against Newton,
that space, time, and motion are
completely relative as he quipped,[79] "As
for my own opinion, I have said more than
once, that I hold space to be something
merely relative, as time is, that I hold it to
be an order of coexistences, as time is an
order of successions."[80] Einstein, who
called himself a "Leibnizian" even wrote in
the introduction to Max Jammer's book
Concepts of Space that Leibnizianism was
superior to Newtonianism, and his ideas
would have dominated over Newton's had
it not been for the poor technological tools
of the time; it has been argued that Leibniz
paved the way for Einstein's theory of
relativity.[81]
Leibniz's proof of God can be summarized
in the Théodicée.[82] Reason is governed by
the principle of contradiction and the
principle of sufficient reason. Using the
principle of reasoning, Leibniz concluded
that the first reason of all things is God.[82]
All that we see and experience is subject
to change, and the fact that this world is
contingent can be explained by the
possibility of the world being arranged
differently in space and time. The
contingent world must have some
necessary reason for its existence. Leibniz
uses a geometry book as an example to
explain his reasoning. If this book was
copied from an infinite chain of copies,
there must be some reason for the content
of the book.[83] Leibniz concluded that
there must be the "monas monadum" or
God.

The ontological essence of a monad is its

irreducible simplicity. Unlike atoms,
monads possess no material or spatial
character. They also differ from atoms by
their complete mutual independence, so
that interactions among monads are only
apparent. Instead, by virtue of the principle
of pre-established harmony, each monad
follows a pre-programmed set of
"instructions" peculiar to itself, so that a
monad "knows" what to do at each
moment. By virtue of these intrinsic
instructions, each monad is like a little
mirror of the universe. Monads need not
be "small"; e.g., each human being
constitutes a monad, in which case free
will is problematic.

Monads are purported to have gotten rid

of the problematic:

interaction between mind and matter

arising in the system of Descartes;
lack of individuation inherent to the
system of Spinoza, which represents
individual creatures as merely
accidental.
Theodicy and optimism

The Theodicy[84] 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.[85]

Leibniz asserted that the truths of

theology (religion) and philosophy cannot
contradict each other, since reason and
faith are both "gifts of God" so that their
conflict would imply God contending
against himself. The Theodicy is Leibniz's
attempt to reconcile his personal
philosophical system with his
interpretation of the tenets of
Christianity.[86] This project was motivated
in part by Leibniz's belief, shared by many
philosophers and theologians during the
Enlightenment, in the rational and
enlightened nature of the Christian
religion. It was also shaped by Leibniz's
belief in the perfectibility of human nature
(if humanity relied on correct philosophy
and religion as a guide), and by his belief
that metaphysical necessity must have a
rational or logical foundation, even if this
metaphysical causality seemed
inexplicable in terms of physical necessity
(the natural laws identified by science).

Because reason and faith must be entirely

reconciled, any tenet of faith which could
not be defended by reason must be
rejected. Leibniz then approached one of
the central criticisms of Christian
theism:[87] if God is all good, all wise, and
all powerful, then how did evil come into
the world? The answer (according to
Leibniz) is that, while God is indeed
unlimited in wisdom and power, his human
creations, as creations, are limited both in
their wisdom and in their will (power to
act). This predisposes humans to false
beliefs, wrong decisions, and ineffective
actions in the exercise of their free will.
God does not arbitrarily inflict pain and
suffering on humans; rather he permits
both moral evil (sin) and physical evil (pain
and suffering) as the necessary
consequences of metaphysical evil
(imperfection), as a means by which
humans can identify and correct their
erroneous decisions, and as a contrast to
true good.[88]

Further, although human actions flow from

prior causes that ultimately arise in God
and therefore are known to God as
metaphysical certainties, an individual's
free will is exercised within natural laws,
where choices are merely contingently
necessary and to be decided in the event
by a "wonderful spontaneity" that provides
individuals with an escape from rigorous
predestination.
Discourse on Metaphysics

For Leibniz, "God is an absolutely perfect

being". He describes this perfection later
in section VI as the simplest form of
something with the most substantial
outcome (VI). Along these lines, he
declares that every type of perfection
"pertains to him (God) in the highest
degree" (I). Even though his types of
perfections are not specifically drawn out,
Leibniz highlights the one thing that, to
him, does certify imperfections and proves
that God is perfect: "that one acts
imperfectly if he acts with less perfection
than he is capable of", and since God is a
perfect being, he cannot act imperfectly
(III). Because God cannot act imperfectly,
the decisions he makes pertaining to the
world must be perfect. Leibniz also
comforts readers, stating that because he
has done everything to the most perfect
degree; those who love him cannot be
injured. However, to love God is a subject
of difficulty as Leibniz believes that we are
"not disposed to wish for that which God
desires" because we have the ability to
alter our disposition (IV). In accordance
with this, many act as rebels, but Leibniz
says that the only way we can truly love
God is by being content "with all that
comes to us according to his will" (IV).
Because God is "an absolutely perfect
being" (I), Leibniz argues that God would
be acting imperfectly if he acted with any
less perfection than what he is able of (III).
His syllogism then ends with the
statement that God has made the world
perfectly in all ways. This also affects how
we should view God and his will. Leibniz
states that, in lieu of God's will, we have to
understand that God "is the best of all
masters" and he will know when his good
succeeds, so we, therefore, must act in
conformity to his good will—or as much of
it as we understand (IV). In our view of
God, Leibniz declares that we cannot
admire the work solely because of the
maker, lest we mar the glory and love God
in doing so. Instead, we must admire the
maker for the work he has done (II).
Effectively, Leibniz states that if we say the
earth is good because of the will of God,
and not good according to some
standards of goodness, then how can we
praise God for what he has done if
contrary actions are also praiseworthy by
this definition (II). Leibniz then asserts that
different principles and geometry cannot
simply be from the will of God, but must
follow from his understanding.[89]
Fundamental question of
metaphysics

Leibniz wrote: "Why is there something

rather than nothing? The sufficient reason
... is found in a substance which ... is a
necessary being bearing the reason for its
existence within itself."[90] Martin
Heidegger called this question "the
fundamental question of
metaphysics".[91][92]
Symbolic thought and rational
resolution of disputes

Leibniz believed that much of human

reasoning could be reduced to
calculations of a sort, and that such
calculations could resolve many
differences of opinion:

The only way to rectify our

reasonings is to make them as
tangible as those of the
Mathematicians, so that we can
find our error at a glance, and
when there are disputes among
persons, we can simply say: Let
 us calculate, without further
ado, to see who is right.[93][94][95]

Leibniz's calculus ratiocinator, which

resembles symbolic logic, can be viewed
as a way of making such calculations
feasible. Leibniz wrote memoranda[96] that
can now be read as groping attempts to
get symbolic logic—and thus his calculus—
off the ground. These writings remained
unpublished until the appearance of a
selection edited by Carl Immanuel
Gerhardt (1859). Louis Couturat published
a selection in 1901; by this time the main
developments of modern logic had been
created by Charles Sanders Peirce and by
Gottlob Frege.

Leibniz thought symbols were important

for human understanding. He attached so
much importance to the development of
good notations that he attributed all his
discoveries in mathematics to this. His
notation for calculus is an example of his
skill in this regard. Leibniz's passion for
symbols and notation, as well as his belief
that these are essential to a well-running
logic and mathematics, made him a
precursor of semiotics.[97]
But Leibniz took his speculations much
further. Defining a character as any written
sign, he then defined a "real" character as
one that represents an idea directly and
not simply as the word embodying the
idea. Some real characters, such as the
notation of logic, serve only to facilitate
reasoning. Many characters well known in
his day, including Egyptian hieroglyphics,
Chinese characters, and the symbols of
astronomy and chemistry, he deemed not
real.[98] Instead, he proposed the creation
of a characteristica universalis or "universal
characteristic", built on an alphabet of
human thought in which each fundamental
concept would be represented by a unique
"real" character:

It is obvious that if we could find

characters or signs suited for
expressing all our thoughts as
clearly and as exactly as
arithmetic expresses numbers
or geometry expresses lines, we
could do in all matters insofar
as they are subject to reasoning
all that we can do in arithmetic
and geometry. For all
investigations which depend on
reasoning would be carried out
 by transposing these characters
and by a species of calculus.[99]

Complex thoughts would be represented

by combining characters for simpler
thoughts. Leibniz saw that the uniqueness
of prime factorization suggests a central
role for prime numbers in the universal
characteristic, a striking anticipation of
Gödel numbering. Granted, there is no
intuitive or mnemonic way to number any
set of elementary concepts using the
prime numbers.

Because Leibniz was a mathematical

novice when he first wrote about the
characteristic, at first he did not conceive it
as an algebra but rather as a universal
language or script. Only in 1676 did he
conceive of a kind of "algebra of thought",
modeled on and including conventional
algebra and its notation. The resulting
characteristic included a logical calculus,
some combinatorics, algebra, his analysis
situs (geometry of situation), a universal
concept language, and more. What Leibniz
actually intended by his characteristica
universalis and calculus ratiocinator, and
the extent to which modern formal logic
does justice to calculus, may never be
established.[100] Leibniz's idea of
reasoning through a universal language of
symbols and calculations remarkably
foreshadows great 20th-century
developments in formal systems, such as
Turing completeness, where computation
was used to define equivalent universal
languages (see Turing degree).

Formal logic

Leibniz has been noted as one of the most

important logicians between the times of
Aristotle and Gottlob Frege.[101] Leibniz
enunciated the principal properties of
what we now call conjunction, disjunction,
negation, identity, set inclusion, and the
empty set. The principles of Leibniz's logic
and, arguably, of his whole philosophy,
reduce to two:

1. All our ideas are compounded from a

very small number of simple ideas,
which form the alphabet of human
thought.
2. Complex ideas proceed from these
simple ideas by a uniform and
symmetrical combination, analogous
to arithmetical multiplication.

The formal logic that emerged early in the

20th century also requires, at minimum,
unary negation and quantified variables
ranging over some universe of discourse.
Leibniz published nothing on formal logic
in his lifetime; most of what he wrote on
the subject consists of working drafts. In
his History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand
Russell went so far as to claim that Leibniz
had developed logic in his unpublished
writings to a level which was reached only
200 years later.

Russell's principal work on Leibniz found

that many of Leibniz's most startling
philosophical ideas and claims (e.g., that
each of the fundamental monads mirrors
the whole universe) follow logically from
Leibniz's conscious choice to reject
relations between things as unreal. He
regarded such relations as (real) qualities
of things (Leibniz admitted unary
predicates only): For him, "Mary is the
mother of John" describes separate
qualities of Mary and of John. This view
contrasts with the relational logic of De
Morgan, Peirce, Schröder and Russell
himself, now standard in predicate logic.
Notably, Leibniz also declared space and
time to be inherently relational.[102]

Leibniz's 1690 discovery of his algebra of

concepts[103][104] (deductively equivalent
to the Boolean algebra)[105] and the
associated metaphysics, are of interest in
present-day computational
metaphysics.[106]

Mathematician
Although the mathematical notion of
function was implicit in trigonometric and
logarithmic tables, which existed in his
day, Leibniz was the first, in 1692 and
1694, to employ it explicitly, to denote any
of several geometric concepts derived
from a curve, such as abscissa, ordinate,
tangent, chord, and the perpendicular (see
History of the function concept).[107] In the
18th century, "function" lost these
geometrical associations. Leibniz also
believed that the sum of an infinite number
of zeros would be equal to one half using
the analogy of the creation of the world
from nothing.[108] Leibniz was also one of
the pioneers in actuarial science,
calculating the purchase price of life
annuities and the liquidation of a state's
debt.[109]

Leibniz's research into formal logic, also

relevant to mathematics, is discussed in
the preceding section. The best overview
of Leibniz's writings on calculus may be
found in Bos (1974).[110]

Leibniz, who invented one of the earliest

mechanical calculators, said of
calculation: "For it is unworthy of excellent
men to lose hours like slaves in the labor
of calculation which could safely be
relegated to anyone else if machines were
used."[111]

Linear systems

Leibniz arranged the coefficients of a

system of linear equations into an array,
now called a matrix, in order to find a
solution to the system if it existed.[112]
This method was later called Gaussian
elimination. Leibniz laid down the
foundations and theory of determinants,
although the Japanese mathematician
Seki Takakazu also discovered
determinants independently of
Leibniz.[113][114] His works show
calculating the determinants using
cofactors.[115] Calculating the determinant
using cofactors is named the Leibniz
formula. Finding the determinant of a
matrix using this method proves
impractical with large n, requiring to
calculate n! products and the number of n-
permutations.[116] He also solved systems
of linear equations using determinants,
which is now called Cramer's rule. This
method for solving systems of linear
equations based on determinants was
found in 1684 by Leibniz (Cramer
published his findings in 1750).[114]
Although Gaussian elimination requires
arithmetic operations, linear
algebra textbooks still teach cofactor
expansion before LU factorization.[117][118]

Geometry

The Leibniz formula for π states that

Leibniz wrote that circles "can most simply

be expressed by this series, that is, the
aggregate of fractions alternately added
and subtracted".[119] However this formula
is only accurate with a large number of
terms, using 10,000,000 terms to obtain
the correct value of π
4 to 8 decimal
places.[120] Leibniz attempted to create a
definition for a straight line while
attempting to prove the parallel
postulate.[121] While most mathematicians
defined a straight line as the shortest line
between two points, Leibniz believed that
this was merely a property of a straight
line rather than the definition.[122]

Calculus

Leibniz is credited, along with Sir Isaac

Newton, with the discovery of calculus
(differential and integral calculus).
According to Leibniz's notebooks, a critical
breakthrough occurred on 11 November
1675, when he employed integral calculus
for the first time to find the area under the
graph of a function y = f(x).[123] He
introduced several notations used to this
day, for instance the integral sign ∫,
representing an elongated S, from the
Latin word summa, and the d used for
differentials, from the Latin word
differentia. Leibniz did not publish anything
about his calculus until 1684.[124] Leibniz
expressed the inverse relation of
integration and differentiation, later called
the fundamental theorem of calculus, by
means of a figure[125] in his 1693 paper
Supplementum geometriae
dimensoriae....[126] However, James
Gregory is credited for the theorem's
discovery in geometric form, Isaac Barrow
proved a more generalized geometric
version, and Newton developed supporting
theory. The concept became more
transparent as developed through Leibniz's
formalism and new notation.[127] The
product rule of differential calculus is still
called "Leibniz's law". In addition, the
theorem that tells how and when to
differentiate under the integral sign is
called the Leibniz integral rule.
Leibniz exploited infinitesimals in
developing calculus, manipulating them in
ways suggesting that they had paradoxical
algebraic properties. George Berkeley, in a
tract called The Analyst and also in De
Motu, criticized these. A recent study
argues that Leibnizian calculus was free of
contradictions, and was better grounded
than Berkeley's empiricist criticisms.[128]

From 1711 until his death, Leibniz was

engaged in a dispute with John Keill,
Newton and others, over whether Leibniz
had invented calculus independently of
Newton.
The use of infinitesimals in mathematics
was frowned upon by followers of Karl
Weierstrass,[129][130] but survived in
science and engineering, and even in
rigorous mathematics, via the
fundamental computational device known
as the differential. Beginning in 1960,
Abraham Robinson worked out a rigorous
foundation for Leibniz's infinitesimals,
using model theory, in the context of a
field of hyperreal numbers. The resulting
non-standard analysis can be seen as a
belated vindication of Leibniz's
mathematical reasoning. Robinson's
transfer principle is a mathematical
implementation of Leibniz's heuristic law
of continuity, while the standard part
function implements the Leibnizian
transcendental law of homogeneity.

Topology

Leibniz was the first to use the term

analysis situs,[131] later used in the 19th
century to refer to what is now known as
topology. There are two takes on this
situation. On the one hand, Mates, citing a
1954 paper in German by Jacob
Freudenthal, argues:

Although for Leibniz the situs of

a sequence of points is
completely determined by the
distance between them and is
altered if those distances are
altered, his admirer Euler, in the
famous 1736 paper solving the
Königsberg Bridge Problem and
its generalizations, used the
term geometria situs in such a
sense that the situs remains
unchanged under topological
deformations. He mistakenly
credits Leibniz with originating
this concept. ... [It] is sometimes
not realized that Leibniz used
 the term in an entirely different
sense and hence can hardly be
considered the founder of that
part of mathematics.[132]

But Hideaki Hirano argues differently,

quoting Mandelbrot:[133]

To sample Leibniz' scientific

works is a sobering experience.
Next to calculus, and to other
thoughts that have been carried
out to completion, the number
and variety of premonitory
thrusts is overwhelming. We
saw examples in "packing", ...
My Leibniz mania is further
reinforced by finding that for
one moment its hero attached
importance to geometric
scaling. In Euclidis Prota ...,
which is an attempt to tighten
Euclid's axioms, he states ...: "I
have diverse definitions for the
straight line. The straight line is
a curve, any part of which is
similar to the whole, and it
alone has this property, not only
among curves but among sets."
 This claim can be proved
today.[134]

Thus the fractal geometry promoted by

Mandelbrot drew on Leibniz's notions of
self-similarity and the principle of
continuity: Natura non facit saltus.[73] We
also see that when Leibniz wrote, in a
metaphysical vein, that "the straight line is
a curve, any part of which is similar to the
whole", he was anticipating topology by
more than two centuries. As for "packing",
Leibniz told his friend and correspondent
Des Bosses to imagine a circle, then to
inscribe within it three congruent circles
with maximum radius; the latter smaller
circles could be filled with three even
smaller circles by the same procedure.
This process can be continued infinitely,
from which arises a good idea of self-
similarity. Leibniz's improvement of
Euclid's axiom contains the same concept.

Scientist and engineer

Leibniz's writings are currently discussed,
not only for their anticipations and
possible discoveries not yet recognized,
but as ways of advancing present
knowledge. Much of his writing on physics
is included in Gerhardt's Mathematical
Writings.
Physics

Leibniz contributed a fair amount to the

statics and dynamics emerging around
him, often disagreeing with Descartes and
Newton. He devised a new theory of
motion (dynamics) based on kinetic
energy and potential energy, which posited
space as relative, whereas Newton was
thoroughly convinced that space was
absolute. An important example of
Leibniz's mature physical thinking is his
Specimen Dynamicum of 1695.[135]

Until the discovery of subatomic particles

and the quantum mechanics governing
them, many of Leibniz's speculative ideas
about aspects of nature not reducible to
statics and dynamics made little sense.
For instance, he anticipated Albert Einstein
by arguing, against Newton, that space,
time and motion are relative, not absolute:
"As for my own opinion, I have said more
than once, that I hold space to be
something merely relative, as time is, that I
hold it to be an order of coexistences, as
time is an order of successions."[80]

Leibniz held a relationist notion of space

and time, against Newton's substantivalist
views.[136][137][138] According to Newton's
substantivalism, space and time are
entities in their own right, existing
independently of things. Leibniz's
relationism, in contrast, describes space
and time as systems of relations that exist
between objects. The rise of general
relativity and subsequent work in the
history of physics has put Leibniz's stance
in a more favorable light.

One of Leibniz's projects was to recast

Newton's theory as a vortex theory.[139]
However, his project went beyond vortex
theory, since at its heart there was an
attempt to explain one of the most difficult
problems in physics, that of the origin of
the cohesion of matter.[139]
The principle of sufficient reason has been
invoked in recent cosmology, and his
identity of indiscernibles in quantum
mechanics, a field some even credit him
with having anticipated in some sense. In
addition to his theories about the nature of
reality, Leibniz's contributions to the
development of calculus have also had a
major impact on physics.

The vis viva

Leibniz's vis viva (Latin for "living force") is

mv2, twice the modern kinetic energy. He
realized that the total energy would be
conserved in certain mechanical systems,
so he considered it an innate motive
characteristic of matter.[140] Here too his
thinking gave rise to another regrettable
nationalistic dispute. His vis viva was seen
as rivaling the conservation of momentum
championed by Newton in England and by
Descartes and Voltaire in France; hence
academics in those countries tended to
neglect Leibniz's idea. Leibniz knew of the
validity of conservation of momentum. In
reality, both energy and momentum are
conserved (in closed systems), so both
approaches are valid.
Other natural science

By proposing that the earth has a molten

core, he anticipated modern geology. In
embryology, he was a preformationist, but
also proposed that organisms are the
outcome of a combination of an infinite
number of possible microstructures and of
their powers. In the life sciences and
paleontology, he revealed an amazing
transformist intuition, fueled by his study
of comparative anatomy and fossils. One
of his principal works on this subject,
Protogaea, unpublished in his lifetime, has
recently been published in English for the
first time. He worked out a primal
organismic theory.[141] In medicine, he
exhorted the physicians of his time—with
some results—to ground their theories in
detailed comparative observations and
verified experiments, and to distinguish
firmly scientific and metaphysical points
of view.

Psychology

Psychology had been a central interest of

Leibniz.[142][143] He appears to be an
"underappreciated pioneer of
psychology"[144] He wrote on topics which
are now regarded as fields of psychology:
attention and consciousness, memory,
learning (association), motivation (the act
of "striving"), emergent individuality, the
general dynamics of development
(evolutionary psychology). His discussions
in the New Essays and Monadology often
rely on everyday observations such as the
behaviour of a dog or the noise of the sea,
and he develops intuitive analogies (the
synchronous running of clocks or the
balance spring of a clock). He also devised
postulates and principles that apply to
psychology: the continuum of the
unnoticed petites perceptions to the
distinct, self-aware apperception, and
psychophysical parallelism from the point
of view of causality and of purpose: "Souls
act according to the laws of final causes,
through aspirations, ends and means.
Bodies act according to the laws of
efficient causes, i.e. the laws of motion.
And these two realms, that of efficient
causes and that of final causes, harmonize
with one another."[145] This idea refers to
the mind-body problem, stating that the
mind and brain do not act upon each other,
but act alongside each other separately
but in harmony.[146] Leibniz, however, did
not use the term psychologia.[147] Leibniz's
epistemological position—against John
Locke and English empiricism
(sensualism)—was made clear: "Nihil est
in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, nisi
intellectu ipse." – "Nothing is in the
intellect that was not first in the senses,
except the intellect itself."[148] Principles
that are not present in sensory
impressions can be recognised in human
perception and consciousness: logical
inferences, categories of thought, the
principle of causality and the principle of
purpose (teleology).

Leibniz found his most important

interpreter in Wilhelm Wundt, founder of
psychology as a discipline. Wundt used
the "… nisi intellectu ipse" quotation 1862
on the title page of his Beiträge zur Theorie
der Sinneswahrnehmung (Contributions on
the Theory of Sensory Perception) and
published a detailed and aspiring
monograph on Leibniz.[149] Wundt shaped
the term apperception, introduced by
Leibniz, into an experimental
psychologically based apperception
psychology that included
neuropsychological modelling – an
excellent example of how a concept
created by a great philosopher could
stimulate a psychological research
program. One principle in the thinking of
Leibniz played a fundamental role: "the
principle of equality of separate but
corresponding viewpoints." Wundt
characterized this style of thought
(perspectivism) in a way that also applied
for him—viewpoints that "supplement one
another, while also being able to appear as
opposites that only resolve themselves
when considered more deeply."[150][151]
Much of Leibniz's work went on to have a
great impact on the field of
psychology.[152] Leibniz thought that there
are many petites perceptions, or small
perceptions of which we perceive but of
which we are unaware. He believed that by
the principle that phenomena found in
nature were continuous by default, it was
likely that the transition between
conscious and unconscious states had
intermediary steps.[153] For this to be true,
there must also be a portion of the mind of
which we are unaware at any given time.
His theory regarding consciousness in
relation to the principle of continuity can
be seen as an early theory regarding the
stages of sleep. In this way, Leibniz's
theory of perception can be viewed as one
of many theories leading up to the idea of
the unconscious. Leibniz was a direct
influence on Ernst Platner, who is credited
with originally coining the term
Unbewußtseyn (unconscious).[154]
Additionally, the idea of subliminal stimuli
can be traced back to his theory of small
perceptions.[155] Leibniz's ideas regarding
music and tonal perception went on to
influence the laboratory studies of Wilhelm
Wundt.[156]

Social science

In public health, he advocated establishing

a medical administrative authority, with
powers over epidemiology and veterinary
medicine. He worked to set up a coherent
medical training program, oriented
towards public health and preventive
measures. In economic policy, he
proposed tax reforms and a national
insurance program, and discussed the
balance of trade. He even proposed
something akin to what much later
emerged as game theory. In sociology he
laid the ground for communication theory.

Technology

In 1906, Garland published a volume of

Leibniz's writings bearing on his many
practical inventions and engineering work.
To date, few of these writings have been
translated into English. Nevertheless, it is
well understood that Leibniz was a serious
inventor, engineer, and applied scientist,
with great respect for practical life.
Following the motto theoria cum praxi, he
urged that theory be combined with
practical application, and thus has been
claimed as the father of applied science.
He designed wind-driven propellers and
water pumps, mining machines to extract
ore, hydraulic presses, lamps, submarines,
clocks, etc. With Denis Papin, he created a
steam engine. He even proposed a
method for desalinating water. From 1680
to 1685, he struggled to overcome the
chronic flooding that afflicted the ducal
silver mines in the Harz Mountains, but did
not succeed.[157]

Computation

Leibniz may have been the first computer

scientist and information theorist.[158]
Early in life, he documented the binary
numeral system (base 2), then revisited
that system throughout his career.[159]
While Leibniz was examining other
cultures to compare his metaphysical
views, he encountered an ancient Chinese
book I Ching. Leibniz interpreted a diagram
which showed yin and yang and
corresponded it to a zero and one.[160]
More information can be found in the
Sinophile section. Leibniz had similarities
with Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz and
Thomas Harriot, who independently
developed the binary system, as he was
familiar with their works on the binary
system.[161] Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz
worked extensively on logarithms
including logarithms with base 2.[162]
Thomas Harriot's manuscripts contained a
table of binary numbers and their notation,
which demonstrated that any number
could be written on a base 2 system.[163]
Regardless, Leibniz simplified the binary
system and articulated logical properties
such as conjunction, disjunction, negation,
identity, inclusion, and the empty set.[164]
He anticipated Lagrangian interpolation
and algorithmic information theory. His
calculus ratiocinator anticipated aspects
of the universal Turing machine. In 1961,
Norbert Wiener suggested that Leibniz
should be considered the patron saint of
cybernetics.[165] Wiener is quoted with
"Indeed, the general idea of a computing
machine is nothing but a mechanization of
Leibniz's Calculus Ratiocinator."[166]

In 1671, Leibniz began to invent a machine

that could execute all four arithmetic
operations, gradually improving it over a
number of years. This "stepped reckoner"
attracted fair attention and was the basis
of his election to the Royal Society in
1673. A number of such machines were
made during his years in Hanover by a
craftsman working under his supervision.
They were not an unambiguous success
because they did not fully mechanize the
carry operation. Couturat reported finding
an unpublished note by Leibniz, dated
1674, describing a machine capable of
performing some algebraic operations.[167]
Leibniz also devised a (now reproduced)
cipher machine, recovered by Nicholas
Rescher in 2010.[168] In 1693, Leibniz
described a design of a machine which
could, in theory, integrate differential
equations, which he called "integraph".[169]

Leibniz was groping towards hardware and

software concepts worked out much later
by Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace. In
1679, while mulling over his binary
arithmetic, Leibniz imagined a machine in
which binary numbers were represented by
marbles, governed by a rudimentary sort
of punched cards.[170][171] Modern
electronic digital computers replace
Leibniz's marbles moving by gravity with
shift registers, voltage gradients, and
pulses of electrons, but otherwise they run
roughly as Leibniz envisioned in 1679.

Librarian

Later in Leibniz's career (after the death of

von Boyneburg), Leibniz moved to Paris
and accepted a position as a librarian in
the Hanoverian court of Johann Friedrich,
Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg.[172] Leibniz's
predecessor, Tobias Fleischer, had already
created a cataloging system for the Duke's
library but it was a clumsy attempt. At this
library, Leibniz focused more on advancing
the library than on the cataloging. For
instance, within a month of taking the new
position, he developed a comprehensive
plan to expand the library. He was one of
the first to consider developing a core
collection for a library and felt "that a
library for display and ostentation is a
luxury and indeed superfluous, but a well-
stocked and organized library is important
and useful for all areas of human endeavor
and is to be regarded on the same level as
schools and churches".[173] Leibniz lacked
the funds to develop the library in this
manner. After working at this library, by the
end of 1690 Leibniz was appointed as
privy-councilor and librarian of the
Bibliotheca Augusta at Wolfenbüttel. It
was an extensive library with at least
25,946 printed volumes.[173] At this library,
Leibniz sought to improve the catalog. He
was not allowed to make complete
changes to the existing closed catalog, but
was allowed to improve upon it so he
started on that task immediately. He
created an alphabetical author catalog and
had also created other cataloging
methods that were not implemented.
While serving as librarian of the ducal
libraries in Hanover and Wolfenbüttel,
Leibniz effectively became one of the
founders of library science. Seemingly,
Leibniz paid a good deal of attention to the
classification of subject matter, favoring a
well-balance library covering a host of
numerous subjects and interests.[174]
Leibniz, for example, proposed the
following classification system in the
Otivm Hanoveranvm Sive Miscellanea
(1737).[174][175]

Leibniz's Idea of Arranging a Narrower

Library

Theology
 Jurisprudence
Medicine
Intellectual Philosophy
Philosophy of the Imagination or
Mathematics
Philosophy of Sensible Things or
Physics
Philology or Language
Civil History
Literary History and Libraries
General and Miscellaneous

He also designed a book indexing system

in ignorance of the only other such system
then extant, that of the Bodleian Library at
Oxford University. He also called on
publishers to distribute abstracts of all
new titles they produced each year, in a
standard form that would facilitate
indexing. He hoped that this abstracting
project would eventually include
everything printed from his day back to
Gutenberg. Neither proposal met with
success at the time, but something like
them became standard practice among
English language publishers during the
20th century, under the aegis of the Library
of Congress and the British Library.

He called for the creation of an empirical

database as a way to further all sciences.
His characteristica universalis, calculus
ratiocinator, and a "community of minds"—
intended, among other things, to bring
political and religious unity to Europe—can
be seen as distant unwitting anticipations
of artificial languages (e.g., Esperanto and
its rivals), symbolic logic, even the World
Wide Web.

Advocate of scientific societies

Leibniz emphasized that research was a

collaborative endeavor. Hence he warmly
advocated the formation of national
scientific societies along the lines of the
British Royal Society and the French
Académie Royale des Sciences. More
specifically, in his correspondence and
travels he urged the creation of such
societies in Dresden, Saint Petersburg,
Vienna, and Berlin. Only one such project
came to fruition; in 1700, the Berlin
Academy of Sciences was created. Leibniz
drew up its first statutes, and served as its
first President for the remainder of his life.
That Academy evolved into the German
Academy of Sciences, the publisher of the
ongoing critical edition of his works.[176]

Lawyer and moralist

Leibniz's writings on law, ethics, and
politics[177] were long overlooked by
English-speaking scholars, but this has
changed of late.[178]

While Leibniz was no apologist for

absolute monarchy like Hobbes, or for
tyranny in any form, neither did he echo
the political and constitutional views of his
contemporary John Locke, views invoked
in support of liberalism, in 18th-century
America and later elsewhere. The
following excerpt from a 1695 letter to
Baron J. C. Boyneburg's son Philipp is very
revealing of Leibniz's political sentiments:

As for ... the great question of

the power of sovereigns and the
obedience their peoples owe
them, I usually say that it would
be good for princes to be
persuaded that their people
have the right to resist them,
and for the people, on the other
hand, to be persuaded to obey
them passively. I am, however,
quite of the opinion of Grotius,
that one ought to obey as a rule,
the evil of revolution being
greater beyond comparison
than the evils causing it. Yet I
recognize that a prince can go
 to such excess, and place the
well-being of the state in such
danger, that the obligation to
endure ceases. This is most rare,
however, and the theologian
who authorizes violence under
this pretext should take care
against excess; excess being
infinitely more dangerous than
deficiency.[179]

In 1677, Leibniz called for a European

confederation, governed by a council or
senate, whose members would represent
entire nations and would be free to vote
their consciences;[180] this is sometimes
considered an anticipation of the
European Union. He believed that Europe
would adopt a uniform religion. He
reiterated these proposals in 1715.

But at the same time, he arrived to

propose an interreligious and multicultural
project to create a universal system of
justice, which required from him a broad
interdisciplinary perspective. In order to
propose it, he combined linguistics
(especially sinology), moral and legal
philosophy, management, economics, and
politics.[181]
Law

Leibniz trained as a legal academic, but

under the tutelage of Cartesian-
sympathiser Erhard Weigel we already see
an attempt to solve legal problems by
rationalist mathematical methods
(Weigel's influence being most explicit in
the Specimen Quaestionum
Philosophicarum ex Jure collectarum (An
Essay of Collected Philosophical Problems
of Right)). For example, the Inaugural
Disputation on Perplexing Cases[182] uses
early combinatorics to solve some legal
disputes, while the 1666 Dissertation on
the Combinatorial Art[183] includes simple
legal problems by way of illustration.

The use of combinatorial methods to solve

legal and moral problems seems, via
Athanasius Kircher and Daniel Schwenter
to be of Llullist inspiration: Ramón Llull
attempted to solve ecumenical disputes
through recourse to a combinatorial mode
of reasoning he regarded as universal (a
mathesis universalis).[184]

In the late 1660s the enlightened Prince-

Bishop of Mainz Johann Philipp von
Schönborn announced a review of the
legal system and made available a
position to support his current law
commissioner. Leibniz left Franconia and
made for Mainz before even winning the
role. On reaching Frankfurt am Main
Leibniz penned The New Method of
Teaching and Learning the Law, by way of
application.[185] The text proposed a
reform of legal education and is
characteristically syncretic, integrating
aspects of Thomism, Hobbesianism,
Cartesianism and traditional
jurisprudence. Leibniz's argument that the
function of legal teaching was not to
impress rules as one might train a dog, but
to aid the student in discovering their own
public reason, evidently impressed von
Schönborn as he secured the job.

Leibniz's next major attempt to find a

universal rational core to law and so found
a legal "science of right",[186] came when
Leibniz worked in Mainz from 1667–72.
Starting initially from Hobbes' mechanistic
doctrine of power, Leibniz reverted to
logico-combinatorial methods in an
attempt to define justice.[187] As Leibniz's
so-called Elementa Juris Naturalis
advanced, he built in modal notions of
right (possibility) and obligation
(necessity) in which we see perhaps the
earliest elaboration of his possible worlds
doctrine within a deontic frame.[188] While
ultimately the Elementa remained
unpublished, Leibniz continued to work on
his drafts and promote their ideas to
correspondents up until his death.

Ecumenism

Leibniz devoted considerable intellectual

and diplomatic effort to what would now
be called an ecumenical endeavor, seeking
to reconcile the Roman Catholic and
Lutheran churches. In this respect, he
followed the example of his early patrons,
Baron von Boyneburg and the Duke John
Frederick—both cradle Lutherans who
converted to Catholicism as adults—who
did what they could to encourage the
reunion of the two faiths, and who warmly
welcomed such endeavors by others. (The
House of Brunswick remained Lutheran,
because the Duke's children did not follow
their father.) These efforts included
corresponding with French bishop
Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, and involved
Leibniz in some theological controversy.
He evidently thought that the
thoroughgoing application of reason
would suffice to heal the breach caused by
the Reformation.
Philologist
Leibniz the philologist was an avid student
of languages, eagerly latching on to any
information about vocabulary and
grammar that came his way. In 1710, he
applied ideas of gradualism and
uniformitarianism to linguistics in a short
essay.[189] He refuted the belief, widely
held by Christian scholars of the time, that
Hebrew was the primeval language of the
human race. At the same time, he rejected
the idea of unrelated language groups and
considered them all to have a common
source.[190] He also refuted the argument,
advanced by Swedish scholars in his day,
that a form of proto-Swedish was the
ancestor of the Germanic languages. He
puzzled over the origins of the Slavic
languages and was fascinated by classical
Chinese. Leibniz was also an expert in the
Sanskrit language.[108]

He published the princeps editio (first

modern edition) of the late medieval
Chronicon Holtzatiae, a Latin chronicle of
the County of Holstein.
Sinophile

A diagram of I Ching hexagrams sent

to Leibniz from Joachim Bouvet. The
Arabic numerals were added by
Leibniz.[191]

Leibniz was perhaps the first major

European intellectual to take a close
interest in Chinese civilization, which he
knew by corresponding with, and reading
other works by, European Christian
missionaries posted in China. He
apparently read Confucius Sinarum
Philosophus in the first year of its
publication.[192] He came to the conclusion
that Europeans could learn much from the
Confucian ethical tradition. He mulled over
the possibility that the Chinese characters
were an unwitting form of his universal
characteristic. He noted how the I Ching
hexagrams correspond to the binary
numbers from 000000 to 111111, and
concluded that this mapping was evidence
of major Chinese accomplishments in the
sort of philosophical mathematics he
admired.[193] Leibniz communicated his
ideas of the binary system representing
Christianity to the Emperor of China,
hoping it would convert him.[108] Leibniz
was one of the western philosophers of
the time who attempted to accommodate
Confucian ideas to prevailing European
beliefs.[194]

Leibniz's attraction to Chinese philosophy

originates from his perception that
Chinese philosophy was similar to his
own.[192] The historian E.R. Hughes
suggests that Leibniz's ideas of "simple
substance" and "pre-established harmony"
were directly influenced by Confucianism,
pointing to the fact that they were
conceived during the period when he was
reading Confucius Sinarum
Philosophus.[192]
Polymath
While making his grand tour of European
archives to research the Brunswick family
history that he never completed, Leibniz
stopped in Vienna between May 1688 and
February 1689, where he did much legal
and diplomatic work for the Brunswicks.
He visited mines, talked with mine
engineers, and tried to negotiate export
contracts for lead from the ducal mines in
the Harz mountains. His proposal that the
streets of Vienna be lit with lamps burning
rapeseed oil was implemented. During a
formal audience with the Austrian Emperor
and in subsequent memoranda, he
advocated reorganizing the Austrian
economy, reforming the coinage of much
of central Europe, negotiating a Concordat
between the Habsburgs and the Vatican,
and creating an imperial research library,
official archive, and public insurance fund.
He wrote and published an important
paper on mechanics.

Posthumous reputation

Leibnizstrasse street sign Berlin

When Leibniz died, his reputation was in

decline. He was remembered for only one
book, the Théodicée,[195] whose supposed
central argument Voltaire lampooned in
his popular book Candide, which
concludes with the character Candide
saying, "Non liquet" (it is not clear), a term
that was applied during the Roman
Republic to a legal verdict of "not proven".
Voltaire's depiction of Leibniz's ideas was
so influential that many believed it to be an
accurate description. Thus Voltaire and his
Candide bear some of the blame for the
lingering failure to appreciate and
understand Leibniz's ideas. Leibniz had an
ardent disciple, Christian Wolff, whose
dogmatic and facile outlook did Leibniz's
reputation much harm. He also influenced
David Hume, who read his Théodicée and
used some of his ideas.[196] In any event,
philosophical fashion was moving away
from the rationalism and system building
of the 17th century, of which Leibniz had
been such an ardent proponent. His work
on law, diplomacy, and history was seen as
of ephemeral interest. The vastness and
richness of his correspondence went
unrecognized.

Much of Europe came to doubt that

Leibniz had discovered calculus
independently of Newton, and hence his
whole work in mathematics and physics
was neglected. Voltaire, an admirer of
Newton, also wrote Candide at least in part
to discredit Leibniz's claim to having
discovered calculus and Leibniz's charge
that Newton's theory of universal
gravitation was incorrect.

Leibniz's long march to his present glory

began with the 1765 publication of the
Nouveaux Essais, which Kant read closely.
In 1768, Louis Dutens edited the first multi-
volume edition of Leibniz's writings,
followed in the 19th century by a number
of editions, including those edited by
Erdmann, Foucher de Careil, Gerhardt,
Gerland, Klopp, and Mollat. Publication of
Leibniz's correspondence with notables
such as Antoine Arnauld, Samuel Clarke,
Sophia of Hanover, and her daughter
Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, began.

In 1900, Bertrand Russell published a

critical study of Leibniz's metaphysics.[197]
Shortly thereafter, Louis Couturat
published an important study of Leibniz,
and edited a volume of Leibniz's
heretofore unpublished writings, mainly on
logic. They made Leibniz somewhat
respectable among 20th-century analytical
and linguistic philosophers in the English-
speaking world (Leibniz had already been
of great influence to many Germans such
as Bernhard Riemann). For example,
Leibniz's phrase salva veritate, meaning
interchangeability without loss of or
compromising the truth, recurs in Willard
Quine's writings. Nevertheless, the
secondary literature on Leibniz did not
really blossom until after World War II. This
is especially true of English speaking
countries; in Gregory Brown's bibliography
fewer than 30 of the English language
entries were published before 1946.
American Leibniz studies owe much to
Leroy Loemker (1904–1985) through his
translations and his interpretive essays in
LeClerc (1973).

Nicholas Jolley has surmised that

Leibniz's reputation as a philosopher is
now perhaps higher than at any time since
he was alive.[198] Analytic and
contemporary philosophy continue to
invoke his notions of identity, individuation,
and possible worlds. Work in the history of
17th- and 18th-century ideas has revealed
more clearly the 17th-century "Intellectual
Revolution" that preceded the better-
known Industrial and commercial
revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

In 1985, the German government created

the Leibniz Prize, offering an annual award
of 1.55 million euros for experimental
results and 770,000 euros for theoretical
ones. It was the world's largest prize for
scientific achievement prior to the
Fundamental Physics Prize.

The collection of manuscript papers of

Leibniz at the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Bibliothek – Niedersächische
Landesbibliothek was inscribed on
UNESCO's Memory of the World Register
in 2007.[199]

Cultural references

Leibniz still receives popular attention. The

Google Doodle for 1 July 2018 celebrated
Leibniz's 372nd birthday.[200][201][202] Using
a quill, his hand is shown writing "Google"
in binary ASCII code.

One of the earliest popular but indirect

expositions of Leibniz was Voltaire's satire
Candide, published in 1759. Leibniz was
lampooned as Professor Pangloss,
described as "the greatest philosopher of
the Holy Roman Empire".

Leibniz also appears as one of the main

historical figures in Neal Stephenson's
series of novels The Baroque Cycle.
Stephenson credits readings and
discussions concerning Leibniz for
inspiring him to write the series.[203]
Leibniz also stars in Adam Ehrlich Sachs's
novel The Organs of Sense.

Writings and publication

Leibniz mainly wrote in three languages:
scholastic Latin, French and German.
During his lifetime, he published many
pamphlets and scholarly articles, but only
two "philosophical" books, the
Combinatorial Art and the Théodicée. (He
published numerous pamphlets, often
anonymous, on behalf of the House of
Brunswick-Lüneburg, most notably the "De
jure suprematum" a major consideration of
the nature of sovereignty.) One substantial
book appeared posthumously, his
Nouveaux essais sur l'entendement humain,
which Leibniz had withheld from
publication after the death of John Locke.
Only in 1895, when Bodemann completed
his catalogue of Leibniz's manuscripts and
correspondence, did the enormous extent
of Leibniz's Nachlass become clear: about
15,000 letters to more than 1000
recipients plus more than 40,000 other
items. Moreover, quite a few of these
letters are of essay length. Much of his
vast correspondence, especially the letters
dated after 1700, remains unpublished,
and much of what is published has
appeared only in recent decades. The
more than 67,000 records of the Leibniz
Edition's Catalogue (https://leibniz-katalog.
bbaw.de/en) cover almost all of his
known writings and the letters from him
and to him. The amount, variety, and
disorder of Leibniz's writings are a
predictable result of a situation he
described in a letter as follows:

I cannot tell you how

extraordinarily distracted and
spread out I am. I am trying to
find various things in the
archives; I look at old papers
and hunt up unpublished
documents. From these I hope to
 shed some light on the history of
the [House of] Brunswick. I
receive and answer a huge
number of letters. At the same
time, I have so many
mathematical results,
philosophical thoughts, and
other literary innovations that
should not be allowed to vanish
that I often do not know where
to begin.[204]

The extant parts of the critical edition[205]

of Leibniz's writings are organized as
follows:
Series 1. Political, Historical, and General
Correspondence. 25 vols., 1666–1706.
Series 2. Philosophical Correspondence.
3 vols., 1663–1700.
Series 3. Mathematical, Scientific, and
Technical Correspondence. 8 vols.,
1672–1698.
Series 4. Political Writings (https://leibniz
-potsdam.bbaw.de/) . 9 vols., 1667–
1702.
Series 5. Historical and Linguistic
Writings (https://leibniz-potsdam.bbaw.d
e/) . In preparation.
Series 6. Philosophical Writings. 7 vols.,
1663–90, and Nouveaux essais sur
 l'entendement humain.
Series 7. Mathematical Writings. 6 vols.,
1672–76.
Series 8. Scientific, Medical, and
Technical Writings. 1 vol., 1668–76.

The systematic cataloguing of all of

Leibniz's Nachlass began in 1901. It was
hampered by two world wars and then by
decades of German division into two
states with the Cold War's "iron curtain" in
between, separating scholars, and also
scattering portions of his literary estates.
The ambitious project has had to deal with
writings in seven languages, contained in
some 200,000 written and printed pages.
In 1985 it was reorganized and included in
a joint program of German federal and
state (Länder) academies. Since then the
branches in Potsdam, Münster, Hanover
and Berlin have jointly published 57
volumes of the critical edition, with an
average of 870 pages, and prepared index
and concordance works.

Selected works

The year given is usually that in which the

work was completed, not of its eventual
publication.
1666 (publ. 1690). De Arte Combinatoria
(On the Art of Combination); partially
translated in Loemker §1 and Parkinson
(1966)
1667. Nova Methodus Discendae
Docendaeque Iurisprudentiae (A New
Method for Learning and Teaching
Jurisprudence)
1667. "Dialogus de connexione inter res
et verba"
1671. Hypothesis Physica Nova (New
Physical Hypothesis); Loemker §8.I
(part)
1673 Confessio philosophi (A
Philosopher's Creed); an English
translation is available online.
Oct. 1684. "Meditationes de cognitione,
veritate et ideis" ("Meditations on
Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas")
Nov. 1684. "Nova methodus pro
maximis et minimis" ("New method for
maximums and minimums"); translated
in Struik, D. J., 1969. A Source Book in
Mathematics, 1200–1800. Harvard
University Press: 271–81.
1686. Discours de métaphysique; Martin
and Brown (1988), Ariew and Garber 35,
Loemker §35, Wiener III.3, Woolhouse
and Francks 1
1686. Generales inquisitiones de analysi
notionum et veritatum (General Inquiries
About the Analysis of Concepts and of
Truths)
1694. "De primae philosophiae
Emendatione, et de Notione
Substantiae" ("On the Correction of First
Philosophy and the Notion of
Substance")
1695. Système nouveau de la nature et
de la communication des substances
(New System of Nature)
1700. Accessiones historicae[206]
1703. "Explication de l'Arithmétique
Binaire" ("Explanation of Binary
Arithmetic"); Carl Immanuel Gerhardt,
Mathematical Writings VII.223. An
English translation by Lloyd Strickland is
available (http://www.leibniz-translation
s.com/binary.htm) online.
1704 (publ. 1765). Nouveaux essais sur
l'entendement humain. Translated in:
Remnant, Peter, and Bennett, Jonathan,
trans., 1996. New Essays on Human
Understanding Langley translation 1896.
Cambridge University Press. Wiener III.6
(part)
1707–1710. Scriptores rerum
Brunsvicensium[206] (3 Vols.)
1710. Théodicée; Farrer, A. M., and
Huggard, E. M., trans., 1985 (1952).
Wiener III.11 (part). An English
translation is available (https://www.gut
enberg.org/files/17147/17147-h/17147-
h.htm) online at Project Gutenberg.
1714. "Principes de la nature et de la
Grâce fondés en raison"
1714. Monadologie; translated by
Nicholas Rescher, 1991. The
Monadology: An Edition for Students.
University of Pittsburgh Press. Ariew
and Garber 213, Loemker §67, Wiener
III.13, Woolhouse and Francks 19. An
English translation by Robert Latta is
 available (https://web.archive.org/web/
20151117200947/http://www.rbjones.c
om/rbjpub/philos/classics/leibniz/mon
ad.htm) online.

Posthumous works

Commercium philosophicum et
mathematicum (1745), a collection of
letters between Leibnitz and Johann
Bernoulli

1717. Collectanea Etymologica, edited by

the secretary of Leibniz Johann Georg
von Eckhart
 1749. Protogaea
1750. Origines Guelficae[206]

Collections

Six important collections of English

translations are Wiener (1951), Parkinson
(1966), Loemker (1969), Ariew and Garber
(1989), Woolhouse and Francks (1998),
and Strickland (2006). The ongoing critical
edition of all of Leibniz's writings is
Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe.[205]

See also
Biography
portal
Mathematics
portal
Philosophy
portal
Science
portal
Art portal
Literature
portal

General Leibniz rule

Leibniz Association
Leibniz operator
List of German inventors and
discoverers
List of pioneers in computer science
List of things named after Gottfried
Leibniz
Mathesis universalis
 Scientific revolution
Leibniz University Hannover
Bartholomew Des Bosses
Joachim Bouvet
Outline of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz bibliography

Notes
a. Leibniz himself never attached von to his
name and was never actually ennobled.
b. Sometimes spelled Leibnitz. Pronunciation:
/ˈlaɪbnɪts/ LYBE-nits,[12] German: [ˈɡɔtfʁiːt
ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈlaɪbnɪts] ⓘ[13][14] or German:
[ˈlaɪpnɪts] ⓘ;[15] French: Godefroi
Guillaume Leibnitz[16] [ɡɔdfʁwa ɡijom
lɛbnits].
 c. There is no complete gathering of the
writings of Leibniz translated into
English.[20]

References

Citations

1. Michael Blamauer (ed.), The Mental as

Fundamental: New Perspectives on
Panpsychism, Walter de Gruyter, 2013, p.
111.
2. Fumerton, Richard (21 February 2000).
"Foundationalist Theories of Epistemic
Justification" (http://plato.stanford.edu/entr
ies/justep-foundational/#4) . Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved
19 August 2018.
3. Stefano Di Bella, Tad M. Schmaltz (eds.),
The Problem of Universals in Early Modern
Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 2017,
p. 207 n. 25: "Leibniz's conceptualism [is
related to] the Ockhamist tradition..."
4. A. B. Dickerson, Kant on Representation
and Objectivity, Cambridge University Press,
2003, p. 85.
5. David, Marian (10 July 2022). Zalta, Edward
N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (https://plato.stanford.edu/arch
ives/sum2022/entriesruth-correspondenc
e/) . Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford
University – via Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
 6. Kurt Huber, Leibniz: Der Philosoph der
universalen Harmonie, Severus Verlag,
2014, p. 29.
7. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (https://mathgen
ealogy.org/id.php?id=60985) at the
Mathematics Genealogy Project
8. Arthur 2014, p. 16.
9. Arthur 2014, p. 13.
10. Knebel, Sven K. (2022). "Pallavicino the
Optimist" (https://brill.com/view/book/978
9004517240/BP000022.xml) . Sforza
Pallavicino: A Jesuit Life in Baroque Rome.
Brill Publishers: 191–224.
doi:10.1163/9789004517240_010 (https://
doi.org/10.1163%2F9789004517240_01
0) . ISBN 978-90-04-51724-0.
11. McNab, John (1972). Towards a Theology
of Social Concern: A Comparative Study of
the Elements for Social Concern in the
Writings of Frederick D. Maurice and Walter
Rauschenbusch (http://digitool.library.mcgil
l.ca:80/R/-?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=
70717&silo_library=GEN01) (PhD thesis).
Montreal: McGill University. p. 201.
Retrieved 6 February 2019.
12. "Leibniz" (https://www.collinsdictionary.co
m/dictionary/english/leibniz) entry in
Collins English Dictionary.
13. Mangold, Max, ed. (2005). Duden-
Aussprachewörterbuch (Duden
Pronunciation Dictionary) (in German)
(7th ed.). Mannheim: Bibliographisches
Institut GmbH. ISBN 978-3-411-04066-7.
14. Wells, John C. (2008), Longman
Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.),
Longman, ISBN 9781405881180
15. Eva-Maria Krech; et al., eds. (2010).
Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch (German
Pronunciation Dictionary) (in German)
(1st ed.). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH &
Co. KG. ISBN 978-3-11-018203-3.
16. See inscription of the engraving depicted in
the "1666–1676" section.
17. "The Universal Genius: Gottfried Leibniz" (ht
tps://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/phil
osopherszone/the-universal-genius---gottfri
ed-leibniz/3036570&ved=2ahUKEwiE__Gpj_
6AAxUTT2wGHRevCSEQFnoECCQQAQ&us
g=AOvVaw0HmOJdnGFXYx7wMawJlJDp) .
Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 23
April 2010.
18. Murray, Stuart A.P. (2009). The library : an
illustrated history (https://archive.org/detail
s/libraryillustrat0000murr) . New York, NY:
Skyhorse Pub. ISBN 978-1-60239-706-4.
19. Roughly 40%, 35% and 25%,
respectively.www.gwlb.de (http://www.gwl
b.de/Leibniz/Leibniz-Nachlass/index.htm)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/201
10707122856/http://www.gwlb.de/Leibniz/
Leibniz-Nachlass/index.htm) 7 July 2011
at the Wayback Machine. Leibniz-Nachlass
(i.e. Legacy of Leibniz), Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz Bibliothek (one of the three Official
Libraries of the German state Lower
Saxony).
20. Baird, Forrest E.; Kaufmann, Walter (2008).
From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River,
New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
ISBN 978-0-13-158591-1.
21. Russell, Bertrand (15 April 2013). History of
Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition (htt
ps://books.google.com/books?id=Gm_cCZ
BiOhQC) (revised ed.). Routledge. p. 469.
ISBN 978-1-135-69284-1. Extract of page
469 (https://books.google.com/books?id=G
m_cCZBiOhQC&pg=PA469) .
22. Handley, Lindsey D.; Foster, Stephen R.
(2020). Don't Teach Coding: Until You Read
This Book (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=l3zWDwAAQBAJ) . John Wiley &
Sons. p. 29. ISBN 9781119602620. Extract
of page 29 (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=l3zWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA29)
23. Apostol, Tom M. (1991). Calculus, Volume 1
(https://books.google.com/books?id=o2D4
DwAAQBAJ) (illustrated ed.). John Wiley &
Sons. p. 172. ISBN 9780471000051. Extract
of page 172 (https://books.google.com/bo
oks?id=o2D4DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA172)
24. Maor, Eli (2003). The Facts on File Calculus
Handbook (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=e1CwvYNfvwgC) . The Facts on File
Calculus Handbook. p. 58.
ISBN 9781438109541. Extract of page 58
(https://books.google.com/books?id=e1Cw
vYNfvwgC&pg=PA58)
25. David Smith, pp. 173–181 (1929)
26. "2021: 375th birthday of Leibniz, father of
computer science" (https://people.idsia.ch/
~juergen/leibniz-father-computer-science-3
75.html) . people.idsia.ch.
27. It is possible that the words "in Aquarius"
refer to the Moon (the Sun in Cancer;
Sagittarius rising (Ascendant)); see Astro-
Databank chart of Gottfried Leibniz (https://
www.astro.com/cgi/chart.cgi?wgid=wgeJx
Fj18LgjAUxT9NUHCV3aGSjT1FCNFTLz1Pt
uZqW6IT0U_fzKiX--f8OPdwR_M0nDLtuEDm
Jb8oU3szQ_UK4d4ZJcEBRSgAiyyW_SHLw
SFVlMBDWCAQDe1sNFSnK6x6jh5LGIDm0
ZhgiYQAYULWXjjFf4c3lHzDFiZFUJxiFM-DV
7EteZ_Npkdh0zhuV2qnP9Wd0umO1WFq4x
MuNFyEkTX9xBNkXc_xVr0BbtpCXA) .
28. The original has "1/4 uff 7 uhr" and there is
good reason to assume that also in the
17th century this meant a quarter to seven,
since the "uff", in its modern form of "auf",
is still, as of 2018 exactly in this vernacular,
in use in several Low German speaking
regions. The quote is given by Hartmut
Hecht in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
(Teubner-Archiv zur Mathematik, Volume 2,
1992), in the first lines of chapter 2, Der
junge Leibniz, p. 15; see H. Hecht, Der junge
Leibniz (https://link.springer.com/chapter/1
0.1007%2F978-3-663-05995-0_2#page-1) ;
see also G. E. Guhrauer, G. W. Frhr. v.
Leibnitz. Vol. 1. Breslau 1846, Anm. p. 4 (htt
ps://play.google.com/books/reader?printse
 c=frontcover&output=reader&id=fHJMAAA
AcAAJ&pg=GBS.RA1-PA3) .
29. Kurt Müller, Gisela Krönert, Leben und Werk
von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Eine Chronik.
Frankfurt a.M., Klostermann 1969, p. 3.
30. Mates, Benson (1989). The Philosophy of
Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=b3M8DwA
AQBAJ&q=Gottfried+Leibniz+father+died+
when+he+was+six+and+a+half+years+old&
pg=PA17) . Oxford University Press.
ISBN 978-0-19-505946-5.
31. Mackie (1845), 21
32. Mackie (1845), 22
33. "Leibniz biography" (http://www-history.mc
s.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Leibniz.ht
ml) . www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk.
Retrieved 8 May 2018.
34. Mackie (1845), 26
35. Arthur 2014, p. x.
36. Hubertus Busche, Leibniz' Weg ins
perspektivische Universum: Eine Harmonie
im Zeitalter der Berechnung, Meiner Verlag,
1997, p. 120.
37. A few copies of De Arte Combinatoria were
produced as requested for the habilitation
procedure; it was reprinted without his
consent in 1690.
38. Jolley, Nicholas (1995). The Cambridge
Companion to Leibniz. Cambridge
University Press.:20
39. Simmons, George (2007). Calculus Gems:
Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics (ht
tps://archive.org/details/calculusgemsbrie
0000simm) . MAA.:143
40. Mackie (1845), 38
41. Mackie (1845), 39
42. Mackie (1845), 40
43. Aiton 1985: 312
44. Ariew R., G.W. Leibniz, life and works, p. 21
in The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz,
ed. by N. Jolley, Cambridge University
Press, 1994, ISBN 0-521-36588-0. Extract of
page 21 (https://books.google.com/books?
id=SnRis5Gdi8gC&pg=PA21)
45. Mackie (1845), 43
46. Mackie (1845), 44–45
47. Benaroya, Haym; Han, Seon Mi; Nagurka,
Mark (2 May 2013). Probabilistic Models
for Dynamical Systems (https://books.goog
le.com/books?id=rYEqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1
35) . CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-4398-5015-2.
48. Mackie (1845), 58–61
49. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (https://plato.sta
nford.edu/entries/leibniz/#Life) . 2017.
{{cite book}}: |website= ignored
(help)
50. Mackie (1845), 69–70
51. Mackie (1845), 73–74
52. Davis, Martin (2018). The Universal
Computer : The Road from Leibniz to
Turing. CRC Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-1-138-
50208-6.
53. On the encounter between Newton and
Leibniz and a review of the evidence, see
Alfred Rupert Hall, Philosophers at War: The
Quarrel Between Newton and Leibniz,
(Cambridge, 2002), pp. 44–69.
54. Mackie (1845), 117–118
55. For a study of Leibniz's correspondence
with Sophia Charlotte, see MacDonald
Ross, George, 1990, "Leibniz's Exposition of
His System to Queen Sophie Charlotte and
Other Ladies." In Leibniz in Berlin, ed. H.
Poser and A. Heinekamp, Stuttgart: Franz
Steiner, 1990, 61–69.
56. Mackie (1845), 109
57. Brown, Stuart (2023). Historical Dictionary
of Leibniz's Philosophy (2nd ed.). Lanham:
Rowman and Littlefield. p. 1.
ISBN 9781538178447.
58. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von
(1920). The Early Mathematical
Manuscripts of Leibniz: Translated from the
Latin Texts Published by Carl Immanuel
Gerhardt with Critical and Historical Notes
(https://books.google.com/books?id=bOIG
AAAAYAAJ&q=leibniz+altered+manuscripts
&pg=PA90) . Open court publishing
Company. ISBN 9780598818461.
59. See Wiener IV.6 and Loemker §40. Also see
a curious passage titled "Leibniz's
Philosophical Dream", first published by
Bodemann in 1895 and translated on p. 253
of Morris, Mary, ed. and trans., 1934.
Philosophical Writings. Dent & Sons Ltd.
60. "Christian Mathematicians – Leibniz – God
& Math – Thinking Christianly About Math
Education" (http://godandmath.com/2012/
01/30/christian-mathematicians-leibniz/) .
31 January 2012.
61. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (2012). Loptson,
Peter (ed.). Discourse on Metaphysics and
Other Writings. Broadview Press. pp. 23–
24. ISBN 978-1-55481-011-6. "The answer
is unknowable, but it may not be
unreasonable to see him, at least in
theological terms, as essentially a deist. He
is a determinist: there are no miracles (the
events so called being merely instances of
infrequently occurring natural laws); Christ
has no real role in the system; we live
forever, and hence we carry on after our
deaths, but then everything—every
individual substance—carries on forever.
Nonetheless, Leibniz is a theist. His system
is generated from, and needs, the postulate
of a creative god. In fact, though, despite
Leibniz's protestations, his God is more the
architect and engineer of the vast complex
world-system than the embodiment of love
of Christian orthodoxy."
62. Christopher Ernest Cosans (2009). Owen's
Ape & Darwin's Bulldog: Beyond Darwinism
and Creationism. Indiana University Press.
pp. 102–103. ISBN 978-0-253-22051-6. "In
advancing his system of mechanics,
Newton claimed that collisions of celestial
objects would cause a loss of energy that
would require God to intervene from time to
time to maintain order in the solar system
(Vailati 1997, 37–42). In criticizing this
implication, Leibniz remarks: "Sir Isaac
Newton and his followers have also a very
odd opinion concerning the work of God.
According to their doctrine, God Almighty
wants to wind up his watch from time to
time; otherwise it would cease to move."
(Leibniz 1715, 675) Leibniz argues that any
scientific theory that relies on God to
perform miracles after He had first made
the universe indicates that God lacked
sufficient foresight or power to establish
adequate natural laws in the first place. In
defense of Newton's theism, Clarke is
unapologetic: "'tis not a diminution but the
true glory of his workmanship that nothing
is done without his continual government
and inspection"' (Leibniz 1715, 676–677).
Clarke is believed to have consulted closely
with Newton on how to respond to Leibniz.
He asserts that Leibniz's deism leads to
"the notion of materialism and fate" (1715,
677), because it excludes God from the
daily workings of nature."
63. Hunt, Shelby D. (2003). Controversy in
Marketing Theory: For Reason, Realism,
Truth, and Objectivity. M. E. Sharpe. p. 33.
ISBN 978-0-7656-0931-1. "Consistent with
the liberal views of the Enlightenment,
Leibniz was an optimist with respect to
human reasoning and scientific progress
(Popper 1963, p. 69). Although he was a
great reader and admirer of Spinoza,
Leibniz, being a confirmed deist, rejected
emphatically Spinoza's pantheism: God and
nature, for Leibniz, were not simply two
different "labels" for the same "thing"."
64. Leibniz on the Trinity and the Incarnation:
Reason and Revelation in the Seventeenth
Century (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2007, pp. xix–xx).
65. Ariew & Garber, 69; Loemker, §§36, 38
66. Ariew & Garber, 138; Loemker, §47; Wiener,
II.4
67. Later translated as Loemker 267 and
Woolhouse and Francks 30
68. A VI, 4, n. 324, pp. 1643–1649 with the title:
Principia Logico-Metaphysica
69. Ariew & Garber, 272–284; Loemker, §§14,
20, 21; Wiener, III.8
70. Mates (1986), chpts. 7.3, 9
71. Loemker 717
72. See Jolley (1995: 129–131), Woolhouse
and Francks (1998), and Mercer (2001).
73. Gottfried Leibniz, New Essays, IV, 16: "la
nature ne fait jamais des sauts". Natura
non-facit saltus is the Latin translation of
the phrase (originally put forward by
Linnaeus' Philosophia Botanica, 1st ed.,
1751, Chapter III, § 77, p. 27; see also
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"Continuity and Infinitesimals" (http://plato.
stanford.edu/entries/continuity/) and
Alexander Baumgarten, Metaphysics: A
Critical Translation with Kant's Elucidations,
Translated and Edited by Courtney D.
Fugate and John Hymers, Bloomsbury,
2013, "Preface of the Third Edition (1750)",
p. 79 n.d. (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=Jw-Q3hfXTqoC&q=%22must+also+ha
ve+in+mind+Leibniz%27s+%22natura+non+
 facit+saltus%22+%5Bnature+does+not%22
&pg=PA79) : "[Baumgarten] must also have
in mind Leibniz's "natura non-facit saltus
[nature does not make leaps]" (NE IV, 16).").
A variant translation is "natura non-saltum
facit" (literally, "Nature does not make a
jump") (Britton, Andrew; Sedgwick, Peter H.;
Bock, Burghard (2008). Ökonomische
Theorie und christlicher Glaube (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=goW6JsEUz4E
C) . LIT Verlag Münster. p. 289. ISBN 978-3-
8258-0162-5. Extract of page 289 (https://b
ooks.google.com/books?id=goW6JsEUz4E
C&pg=PA289) .)
74. Loemker 311
75. Arthur Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being.
Harvard University Press, 1936, Chapter V
"Plenitude and Sufficient Reason in Leibniz
and Spinoza", pp. 144–182.
76. For a precis of what Leibniz meant by these
and other Principles, see Mercer (2001:
473–484). For a classic discussion of
Sufficient Reason and Plenitude, see
Lovejoy (1957).
77. O'Leary-Hawthorne, John; Cover, J. A. (4
September 2008). Substance and
Individuation in Leibniz. Cambridge
University Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-521-
07303-5.
78. Rescher, Nicholas (1991). G. W. Leibniz's
Monadology: an edition for students (http
s://archive.org/details/gwleibnizsmonado0
0resc) . Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh
Press. p. 40 (https://archive.org/details/gwl
eibnizsmonado00resc/page/n40) .
ISBN 978-0-8229-5449-1.
79. Ferraro, Rafael (2007). Einstein's Space-
Time: An Introduction to Special and
General Relativity (https://books.google.co
m/books?id=wa3CskhHaIgC&q=time+%22a
bsolute+space%22&pg=PA1) . Springer.
p. 1. ISBN 978-0-387-69946-2.
80. See H. G. Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clarke
Correspondence, Manchester: Manchester
University Press, pp. 25–26.
81. Agassi, Joseph (September 1969).
"Leibniz's Place in the History of Physics" (h
ttps://www.jstor.org/stable/2708561) .
Journal of the History of Ideas. 30 (3):
331–344. doi:10.2307/2708561 (https://do
i.org/10.2307%2F2708561) .
JSTOR 2708561 (https://www.jstor.org/sta
ble/2708561) .
82. Perkins, Franklin (10 July 2007). Leibniz: A
Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury
Academic. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-8264-8921-0.
83. Perkins, Franklin (10 July 2007). Leibniz: A
Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury
Academic. p. 23. ISBN 978-0-8264-8921-0.
84. Rutherford (1998) is a detailed scholarly
study of Leibniz's theodicy.
85. Franklin, James (2022). "The global/local
distinction vindicates Leibniz's theodicy" (ht
tps://doi.org/10.1080%2F14746700.2022.2
124481) . Theology and Science. 20 (4):
445–462.
doi:10.1080/14746700.2022.2124481 (http
s://doi.org/10.1080%2F14746700.2022.212
4481) . S2CID 252979403 (https://api.sem
anticscholar.org/CorpusID:252979403) .
86. Magill, Frank (ed.). Masterpieces of World
Philosophy. New York: Harper Collins
(1990).
87. Magill, Frank (ed.) (1990)
88. Anderson Csiszar, Sean (26 July 2015). The
Golden Book About Leibniz. CreateSpace
Independent Publishing Platform. p. 20.
ISBN 978-1515243915.
89. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Discourse on
Metaphysics. The Rationalists: Rene
Descartes – Discourse on Method,
Meditations. N.Y.: Dolphin., n.d., n.p.,
90. Monadologie (1714). Nicholas Rescher,
trans., 1991. The Monadology: An Edition
for Students. Uni. of Pittsburgh Press, p.
135.
91. "The Fundamental Question" (https://www.h
edweb.com/witherall/existence.htm) .
hedweb.com. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
92. Geier, Manfred (17 February 2017).
Wittgenstein und Heidegger: Die letzten
Philosophen (https://books.google.com/bo
oks?id=JUiFDQAAQBAJ&pg=PP166) (in
German). Rowohlt Verlag. ISBN 978-3-644-
04511-8. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
93. Kulstad, Mark; Carlin, Laurence (2020),
"Leibniz's Philosophy of Mind" (https://plat
o.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/l
eibniz-mind/) , in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.),
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Winter 2020 ed.), Metaphysics Research
Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 22 June
2023
94. Gray, Jonathan. " "Let us Calculate!":
Leibniz, Llull, and the Computational
Imagination" (https://publicdomainreview.or
g/essay/let-us-calculate-leibniz-llull-and-the
-computational-imagination/) . The Public
Domain Review. Retrieved 22 June 2023.
95. The Art of Discovery 1685, Wiener 51
96. Many of his memoranda are translated in
Parkinson 1966.
97. Marcelo Dascal, Leibniz. Language, Signs
and Thought: A Collection of Essays
(Foundations of Semiotics series), John
Benjamins Publishing Company, 1987, p.
42.
98. Loemker, however, who translated some of
Leibniz's works into English, said that the
symbols of chemistry were real characters,
so there is disagreement among Leibniz
scholars on this point.
99. Preface to the General Science, 1677.
Revision of Rutherford's translation in
Jolley 1995: 234. Also Wiener I.4
100. A good introductory discussion of the
"characteristic" is Jolley (1995: 226–240).
An early, yet still classic, discussion of the
"characteristic" and "calculus" is Couturat
(1901: chpts. 3, 4).
101. Lenzen, W., 2004, "Leibniz's Logic," in
Handbook of the History of Logic by D. M.
Gabbay/J. Woods (eds.), volume 3: The
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2004.
204. Letter to Vincent Placcius, 15 September
1695, in Louis Dutens (ed.), Gothofridi
Guillemi Leibnitii Opera Omnia, vol. 6.1,
1768, pp. 59–60.
205. "Leibniz-Edition" (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20080107012231/http://www.leibniz-edi
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rg/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britanni
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(ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11
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two chief collections which were issued by
the philosopher are the Accessiones
historicae (1698–1700) and the Scriptores
rerum Brunsvicensium....".

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Du Bois-Reymond, Emil, 1912.

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Russell, Bertrand, 1900, A Critical
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Adams, Robert Merrihew. 1994. Leibniz:

Determinist, Theist, Idealist. New York:
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External links
Wikisource has the text of the 1911
Encyclopædia Britannica article
"Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm".
Wikimedia Commons has media related
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Wikisource has original works by or
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Works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (http

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Works by or about Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz (https://archive.org/search.php?
query=%28+%28Gottfried+OR+Godefro
i%29+AND+%28Wilhelm+OR+Guillaum
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9+%29) at Internet Archive
Works by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (http
s://librivox.org/author/1353) at LibriVox
(public domain audiobooks)
Look, Brandon C. "Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz" (https://plato.stanford.edu/entri
es/leibniz/) . In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.).
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Peckhaus, Volker. "Leibniz's Influence on
19th Century Logic" (https://plato.stanfo
rd.edu/entries/leibniz-logic-influence/) .
In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Burnham, Douglas. "Gottfried Leibniz:
Metaphysics" (http://www.iep.utm.edu/l
eib-met) . Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
Carlin, Laurence. "Gottfried Leibniz:
Causation" (http://www.iep.utm.edu/leib
-cau) . Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
Horn, Joshua. "Leibniz: Modal
Metaphysics" (http://www.iep.utm.edu/l
eibniz-modal-metaphysics) . Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Jorarti, Julia. "Leibniz: Philosophy of
Mind" (http://www.iep.utm.edu/leibniz-
mind) . Internet Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
Lenzen, Wolfgang. "Leibniz: Logic" (htt
p://www.iep.utm.edu/leib-log) . Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund
F., "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz" (https://m
athshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographie
s/Leibniz.html) , MacTutor History of
Mathematics Archive, University of St
Andrews
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (https://mathg
enealogy.org/id.php?id=60985) at the
Mathematics Genealogy Project
Translations (http://www.earlymodernte
xts.com/) by Jonathan Bennett, of the
New Essays, the exchanges with Bayle,
Arnauld and Clarke, and about 15
shorter works.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Texts and
Translations (https://web.archive.org/w
eb/20110411024054/http://philosophyf
aculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rutherford/Leib
niz/index.html) , compiled by Donald
Rutherford, UCSD
Leibnitiana (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20160609145125/http://www.gwleibn
iz.com/) , links and resources edited by
Gregory Brown, University of Houston
Philosophical Works of Leibniz
translated by G.M. Duncan (1890) (http
s://archive.org/details/philosophicalwor
00leibuoft)
The Best of All Possible Worlds:
Nicholas Rescher Talks About Gottfried
Wilhelm von Leibniz's "Versatility and
Creativity" (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20181106203853/https://simplycharl
y.com/people/gottfried-wilhelm-von-leib
niz/read/interviews/nicholas-rescher-on
-gottfried-wilhelm-von-leibniz)
"Protogæa" (http://lhldigital.lindahall.or
g/cdm/ref/collection/earththeory/id/10
169) (1693, Latin, in Acta eruditorum) –
Linda Hall Library
Protogaea (http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/
cdm/ref/collection/earththeory/id/169
4) (1749, German) – full digital
facsimile from Linda Hall Library
Leibniz's (1768, 6-volume) Opera omnia
(http://lhldigital.lindahall.org/cdm/searc
h/collection/philsci/searchterm/omnia!
Leibniz/field/title!creato/mode/all!all/co
nn/and!and/order/nosort) – digital
facsimile
Leibniz's arithmetical machine, 1710,
online and analyzed on BibNum (https://
www.bibnum.education.fr/calculinformati
que/calcul/la-machine-calculer-de-leibni
z) [click 'à télécharger' for English
analysis]
Leibniz's binary numeral system, 'De
progressione dyadica', 1679, online and
analyzed on BibNum (https://www.bibnu
m.education.fr/calculinformatique/calcu
l/de-la-numeration-binaire) [click 'à
télécharger' for English analysis]

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