Friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography

Since monads are to be differentiated in terms of their perceptions, one natural reading would simply be that suggested in the paragraph above: monad x is dominant over monad y when x has clearer perceptions than y. Monad x is dominant over monad y when x contains within it reasons for the actions of y. This is why the mind of an animal can be said to direct the actions of its body, and why, for example, there will be a hierarchy of functionality within any one animal.

Thus, one's mind has clearer perceptions than those contained in the monads of its organic body, but it contains the reasons for everything that happens in one's body; one's liver contains the reasons for what happens in its cells; a cell contains the reasons for what happens in its mitochondria; and, according to Leibniz, this relation continues infinitely on down.

Leibniz's reflections on epistemological matters do not rival his reflections on logic, metaphysics, divine justice, and natural philosophy in terms of quantity. Nevertheless, he did think deeply about the possibility and nature of human knowledge, and his main doctrines will be presented here. InLeibniz published a short treatise with the above title.

It was his first mature publication and one to which he often referred in the course of his philosophical career. In it, Leibniz sets out a series of distinctions for human knowledge or cognition cognitio : knowledge is either obscure or clear; clear knowledge is either confused or distinct; distinct knowledge is either inadequate or adequate; and adequate knowledge is either symbolic or intuitive.

Now, according to Leibniz, clear knowledge means being able to recognize something that is represented to us, for example, a rose; and knowledge is both clear and distinct when one can enumerate marks sufficient to distinguish a rose from other things. When one can give such an enumeration, one possesses a distinct notion or concept and is thus able to give a nominal definition of the thing.

Further, if all the marks that form part of a distinct notion are themselves distinctly known, then the cognition is adequate. And, finally, if a notion is complex and we are able to consider all its component notions simultaneously, then our knowledge of it is intuitive. Ultimately, Leibniz holds that human beings have intuitive knowledge only of primary notions and propositions, whereas God, of course, has intuitive knowledge of all things.

Leibniz believes his distinctions also serve to show the difference between true and false ideas. Now, possibility can be established a priori and a posteriori. On the one hand, we can know a priori that something is possible if we can resolve it into its component notions which are themselves possible and if we know that there is no incompatibility among those component notions.

On the other hand, we know a posteriori that something is possible merely through experience, for the actual existence of a thing is proof of its possibility. While Leibniz's Principle of Contradiction and Principle of Sufficient Reason were discussed above, it was not mentioned that these two principles are employed in the service of Leibniz's distinction between truths of reasoning and truths of factthat is, between necessary truths and contingent truths.

Leibniz's account of modality is treated elsewhere, but a short account of this distinction is here required. Ultimately, all truths of reasoning will be resolvable into primitives or identities, and the Principle of Contradiction is thereby operative. In the case of a truth of fact, on the other hand, its reason cannot be discovered through a finite friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography of analysis or resolution of notions.

However, there must be a reason that some particular fact is so and not otherwise PSRand, according to Leibniz, this reason is found outside the series of contingent things. See below. Leibniz is often put in the camp of rationalists and opposed to the empiricists for example, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. While there are good grounds to be unhappy with this standard textbook distinction, Leibniz does fit the bill in two important respects: he is a rationalist insofar as he holds to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and he is a rationalist insofar as he accepts innate ideas and denies that the mind is at birth a tabula rasa or blank slate.

In terms of Leibniz's classical allegiances, it is interesting to see that in the realm of metaphysics, he often couched his philosophy in Aristotelian and Scholastic terms but that in the realm of epistemology, he was a fairly open Platonist — at least in terms of the existence of innate ideas. Indeed, in the opening passages of his New Essays on Human Understandinghis book-length commentary on Locke's Essay Concerning Human UnderstandingLeibniz explicitly aligns himself with Plato on the fundamental question of the origin of ideas.

Leibniz has several straightforwardly metaphysical reasons for denying that the mind could be a tabula rasa. First, and most obvious, since there can be no genuine causal interaction among substances, then there could be no way that all our ideas could come from experience; indeed, no ideas could, strictly speaking, come from experience. Leibniz will, however, adopt a more liberal understanding of sense experience, so that this is not mooted tout court.

But, second, and rarely remarked upon, Leibniz believes that the view that our minds are blank slates at birth violates the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles. In short, PII works against qualitatively identical physical atoms and against qualitatively identical because blank souls. Further, in one telling passage, he shows us the metaphysical underpinnings of the empiricist view that he finds so objectionable.

But how could experience and the senses provide the ideas? Does the soul have windows? Is it similar to writing-tablets, or like wax? Throughout his career, Leibniz expresses no doubt that the human mind or soul is essentially immaterial, and Locke's skepticism about the nature of substance is fundamentally at odds with Leibniz's most deeply held philosophical commitments.

But, of friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography, the consequence of this is that Leibniz seeks to undermine Locke's position with respect to the origin and nature of ideas. That the mind, according to Leibniz, must be essentially immaterial has been shown above in the section on metaphysics. But Leibniz does have a particular argument for the mind's immateriality or against its mechanism that concerns the nature of thought and ideas.

This is his famous metaphor of a mill, which comes forth both in the New Essays and the Monadology. According to Leibniz, perceptions cannot be explained in mechanical or materialistic terms. Even if one were to create a machine to which one attributes thought and the presence of perceptions, inspection of the interior of this machine would not show the experience of thoughts or perceptions, only the motions of various parts.

But even when Leibniz accepts the common way of speaking — that is, as if the senses are causally responsible for some ideas — he has arguments against the empiricist claim that the senses are the origin of all ideas. According to Leibniz, while the empiricist position can explain the source of contingent truths, it cannot adequately explain the origin and character of necessary truths.

Friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a

For the senses could never arrive at the universality of any necessary truth; they can, at best, provide us with the means of making a relatively strong induction. Rather, it is the understanding itself, Leibniz claims, which is the source of such truths and which guarantees their very necessity. While we are not aware of all our ideas at any time — a fact demonstrated by the function and role of memory — certain ideas or truths are in our minds as dispositions or tendencies.

This is what is meant by an innate idea or an innate truth. On this subject, Leibniz uses a distinctive metaphor: a piece of marble has veins that indicate or are disposed to indicate shapes that a skillful sculptor can discover and exploit. The hierarchy of monads mentioned above has a corollary in Leibniz's epistemology. Monads are more or less perfect depending upon the clarity of their perceptions, and a monad is dominant over another when the one contains reasons for what happens in the other.

But some monads can also rise to the level of souls when, for example, they experience sensationsthat is, when their perceptions are very distinct and accompanied by memory. This is a position occupied by animals. Furthermore, some souls are sometimes also in a position to engage in apperceptionthat is, to reflect on their inner states or perceptions.

The point that Leibniz wants to make is clearly an anti-Cartesian one: it is not the case that animals lack souls and are mere machines. There is a continuum here from God, angels, and human beings through animals to stones and the dull monads which underlie the muck and grime of the world; and this continuum is not solely to be understood in terms of the comparative clarity of the mind's friedrich wilhelm leibniz biographies but also in terms of the kinds of mental activity possible for a particular being.

Indeed, according to Leibniz, animals operate not as mere automata as they do in the Cartesian philosophy, but rather have fairly sophisticated mental faculties. At the same time, Leibniz is quick to add that the mental activity of the dog is the same as the mental activity of human beings in friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography fourths of their actions, for most of us most of the time are not actually reasoning from causes to effects.

And yet we are different from the beasts, Leibniz believes. Thus, what makes human beings and higher minds special is the capacity, via apperception, to formulate a conception of the self. Indeed, as we see in this friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography, Leibniz suggests that rationality itself follows from the capacity for reflection: we begin with a conception of the self; we move from this point to thinking of being, of substance, of God; and we become aware as well of eternal and necessary truths.

In other words, animals and most human beings most of the time are purely empiricists; a rational person, however, is one who can engage in genuine a priori reasoning, moving from knowledge of a true cause via deduction to necessary effects. One of the fundamental theses of Leibniz's philosophy is that each substance expresses the entire universe.

In other words, everything that takes place in the universe really is expressed by each finite mind, but the infinite perceptions present in the mind — from the butterfly's flight in the Amazonian jungle to the penguin's waddling in Antarctica — are usually too minute or too indistinct to outweigh, for example, the appearance of this computer screen or the feeling of hunger.

Indeed, this infinity of perceptions is likened by Leibniz to the roar of the sea. The infinity of petites perceptions is, then, simply epistemological white noise. For Leibniz, the simplicity and unity of the mind still allows for the multiplicity of perceptions and appetitions. The multiplicity, however, should not only be interpreted as diachronous but also synchronous ; that is, the mind despite its simplicity and unity has within it at any time an infinity of different petites perceptions.

A human being, in a waking state, is conscious of particular perceptions, but never all. And here we see that Leibniz's doctrine is important, insofar as it offers a contrast to the Cartesian theory of the mind. According to Leibniz, the mind is always active, for there are always perceptions present to it, even if those perceptions are minute and do not rise to such a level that we are cognizant of them.

Thus, even in a deep and dreamless sleep, the mind is active, and perceptions are in the mind. Moreover, if Descartes really did advocate the perfect transparency of the mind, then it should be clear that Leibniz allows for a subtler picture of mental contents: there are many things in the mind that are confused and minute and to which we do not always have complete access.

Leibniz, however, does not simply disagree with Locke about the nature of the mind and the possibility of innate ideas. It is also Leibniz's contention that human beings are capable of knowledge in a way that Locke had clearly denied. As shown above, Leibniz is convinced that our knowledge of necessary truths has a completely different foundation from that for which Locke argues.

Similarly, Leibniz holds that we can have genuine knowledge of the real essences of things, something called into question by Locke. Leibniz, however, holds that we can know certain things not only about individuals but also about their species and genera. It would seem, then, that Leibniz has something like the following in mind: experience informs us of a certain consistent set of sensible properties in, for example, gold; that is, a certain set of properties is compossible.

And, more important, we ought to be able to assert with certainty that if some object has the greatest ductility, then it also has the greatest weight. Like most of his great contemporaries Descartes, Spinoza, MalebrancheLeibniz developed a number of arguments for the existence of God. But they have long histories in Leibniz's thought. Yet, unlike Descartes and Spinoza at least, Leibniz also expended great efforts in explaining and justifying God's justice and benevolence in this world.

In other words, Leibniz was keen to answer the problem of evil. His work on this subject led to his thesis, so roundly mocked in Voltaire's Candidethat we live in the best of all possible worlds. Leibniz made an important contribution to the history of the ontological argument. His reflections on this form of argument go back to the s, and we know that he shared his thoughts on this matter with Spinoza when Leibniz visited him on the way to Hanover.

According to Leibniz, the argument that Descartes gives implicitly in the Fifth Meditation and explicitly in the First Set of Replies is faulty. Descartes had argued that God is a being having all perfections, existence is a perfection, therefore, God exists. If this is so, then and only then an ens perfectissimum can be said to exist. And with this definition in hand, Leibniz is then able to claim that there can be no inconsistency among perfections, since a perfection, in being simple and positive, is unanalyzable and incapable of being enclosed by limits.

Therefore, it is possible that any and all perfections are in fact compatible. And, therefore, Leibniz reasons, a subject of all perfections, or an ens perfectissimumis indeed possible. But this argument by itself is not sufficient to determine that God necessarily exists. Leibniz must also show that existence is itself a perfection, so that a being having all perfections, an ens perfectissimummay be said to exist.

More exactly, Leibniz needs to show that necessary existence belongs to the essence of God. In other words, if it is the case that a necessary being is the same thing as a being whose existence follows from its essence, then existence must in fact be one of its essential properties. In short, Leibniz's argument is the following:. As we have seen, the Principle of Sufficient Reason is one of the bedrock principles of all of Leibniz's philosophy.

In the MonadologyLeibniz appeals to PSR, saying that even in the case of contingent truths or truths of fact there must be a sufficient reason why they are so and not otherwise. In the TheodicyLeibniz fills out this argument with a fascinating account of the nature of God. First, insofar as the first cause of the entire series must have been able to survey all other possible worlds, it has understanding.

Second, insofar as it was able to select one world among the infinity of possible worlds, it has a will. Third, insofar as it was able to bring about this world, it has power. And, fifth, insofar as everything is connected together, there is no reason to suppose more than one God. Thus, Leibniz is able to demonstrate the uniqueness of God, his omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence from the twin assumptions of the contingency of the world and the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

Leibniz's account of the nature of possible worlds is dealt with in a separate entry. Here the following simple question will be addressed: How can this world be the best of all possible worlds? After all, as Voltaire brought out so clearly in Candideit certainly seems that this world, in which one finds no short supply of natural and moral horrors, is far from perfect — indeed, it seems pretty lousy.

Certainly only a fool could believe that it is the best world possible. But, Leibniz speaks on behalf of the fool, with an argument that has essentially the following structure:. In other words, Leibniz seems to argue that, if one is to hold the traditional theistic conception of God and believe that one can meaningfully assert that the world could have been other than it is, then one must hold that this world is the best possible.

Naturally, this argument is simply the Christian retort to the Epicurean argument against theism. But what are the criteria by which one can say that this world is the best? It should be clear that Leibniz nowhere says that this argument implies that everything has to be wonderful. Indeed, Leibniz is squarely in the tradition of all Christian apologists going back to Augustine, arguing that we cannot have knowledge of the whole of the world and that even if a piece of the mosaic that is discoverable to us is ugly the whole may indeed have great beauty.

Still, Leibniz does offer at least two considerations relevant to the determination of the happiness and perfection of the world. So, is this world of genocide and natural disaster better than a world containing only one multifoliate rose? Yes, because the former is a world in which an infinity of minds perceive and reflect on the diversity of phenomena caused by a modest number of simple laws.

To the more difficult question whether there is a better world with perhaps a little less genocide and natural disaster Leibniz can only respond that, if so, God would have brought it into actuality. And this, of course, is to say that there really is no better possible world. The editors would like to thank Sally Ferguson for noticing inaccuracies in a claim and in a quote attributed to Leibniz.

Life 1. Overview of Leibniz's Philosophy 3. Some Fundamental Principles of Leibniz's Philosophy 3. Metaphysics: A Primer on Substance 4. Metaphysics: Leibnizian Idealism 5. Epistemology 6. Philosophical Theology 7. Life Leibniz was born in Leipzig on July 1,two years prior to the end of the Thirty Years War, which had ravaged central Europe.

Overview of Leibniz's Philosophy Unlike most of the great philosophers of the period, Leibniz did not write a magnum opus ; there is no single work that can be said to contain the core of his thought.

Friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography: German philosopher, mathematician, and

He writes: …I have tried to uncover and unite the friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography buried and scattered under the opinions of all the different philosophical sects, and I believe I have added something of my own which takes a few steps forward. The circumstances under which my studies proceeded from my earliest youth have given me some facility in this.

I discovered Aristotle as a lad, and even the Scholastics did not repel me; even now I do not regret this. But then Plato too, and Plotinus, gave me some satisfaction, not to mention other ancient thinkers whom I consulted later. After finishing the trivial schools, I fell upon the moderns, and I recall walking in a grove on the outskirts of Leipzig called the Rosental, at the age of fifteen, and deliberating whether to preserve substantial forms or not.

Mechanism finally prevailed and led me to apply myself to mathematics…. But when I looked for the ultimate reasons for mechanism, and even for the laws of motion, I was greatly surprised to see that they could not be found in mathematics but that I should have to return to metaphysics. This led me back to entelechies, and from the material to the formal, and at last brought me to understand, after many corrections and forward steps in my thinking, that monads or simple substances are the only true substances and that material things are only phenomena, though well founded and well connected.

Of this, Plato, and even the later Academics and the skeptics too, had caught some glimpses… I flatter myself to have penetrated into the harmony of these different realms and to have seen that both sides are right provided that they do not clash with each other; that everything in nature happens mechanically and at the same time metaphysically but that the source of mechanics is metaphysics.

As he puts it in the New Essaysalthough time and place i. Thus, although diversity in things is accompanied by diversity of time or place, time and place do not constitute the core of identity and diversity, because they [sc. To which it can be added that it is by means of things that we must distinguish one time or place from another, rather than vice versa.

His father, Friedrich Leibniz, a professor of moral philosophy at Leipzig University, passed away when Gottfried was only six years old. As a result, he was brought up by his mother, Catharina Schmuck, whose teachings had an enormous impact on his philosophical beliefs in his mature life. He inherited the personal library of his father which enabled him to study from an early age various theological, literary, and philosophical works.

At the same time, to give the German principalities, recently weakened by the Thirty Years Wara respite for economic recovery, he conceived a plan whereby Louis might gain Holland's valuable possessions in Asia by way of a " holy war " against non-Christian Egypt. Leibniz was invited to Paris to present his plan; although it was not adopted, his 4-year stay in the French capital, with visits to London in andwas crucial for his intellectual development.

Before coming to Paris, Leibniz had devised a calculating machine based on the principles of an earlier one invented by Blaise Pascal but capable of performing much more complicated mathematical operations. Especially important as a friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography to Leibniz's interest in mathematics was his contact in Paris with the Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygenswhich resulted in Leibniz's developing both the integral and the differential calculus during the years of his residence there.

In Leibniz transferred his services to the house of Brunswick and moved to Hanover, which became his home and the seat of his activities for the remaining years of his life. He was sent on important diplomatic missions, with freedom to seek out leading scholars wherever he went; he received many honors, as well as a generous stipend, and had ample leisure for pursuing his own interests.

Charged with the writing of a history of Brunswick from earliest times, he had access not only to the resources of the ducal library but also to the historical repositories of Germany and Italy. In the history itself which at his death he had completed to the year Leibniz brought geological data to bear for the first time on historical interpretation and made use of original documents in a thoroughly modern way.

To his historical research was due also his dedication to the solving of political conflict by enlightened compromise. In a pamphlet of he had proposed an alliance of all the European powers against Turkey; now he sought a reunification of all Christians, not in war but in peace. Through correspondence with the French prelate Jacques Bossuet, he tried, by adducing historical evidence, to establish the reasonableness of Christian unity; but in this he was no more successful than in his earlier grandly conceived attempts at mediation of differences.

In Leibniz founded the Acta eruditorum, a journal for the publication of scholarly papers which gained wide circulation in Europe and in which, over the next 35 years, most of his own published writings appeared. In the same year, upon his recommendation, the Akademie der Wissenschaften was founded at Berlin. It was also through his influence that similar academies were established at Dresden, St.

Petersburgand Vienna. Leibniz's disposition to moderation and tolerance fitted him well for his role as diplomat and for his position of leadership among European scholars. His enormous correspondence reflects the warmth and loyalty of many friends and supporters, among whom were a number of women.

Friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography: Friedrich Leibniz was the

The philosopher-diplomat must have had an appeal for the new "learned woman" of his time. In several instances prominent women smoothed the way for Leibniz's contact with people who might otherwise have been difficult to access, helped him to promote interest in the founding of academies of science, and were responsible for his putting some aspects of his philosophy into simplified form for the general reader.

The last years of Leibniz's life were clouded by the controversy with Isaac Newton over the invention of the calculus, now considered to have been a case of independent discovery by two highly gifted minds. The unfortunate taking of sides and exchanges of accusations, the dragging on of the affair, kept alive for more than 10 years by bursts of partisanship on one side and then the other, the "findings" of a biased investigating commission, which exonerated Newton and failed to remove the charge of plagiarism against Leibniz, had serious and far-reaching effects on the development of science.

The cutting off of free communication of ideas between the English scientists and those of the Continent was ironically to the detriment of the former: Leibniz's notation was more efficient than Newton's it has since been generally adopted and facilitated the great strides in mathematical physics made on the Continent during the next hundred years, in which the participation of English scientists was negligible.

For Leibniz himself, who had always been a proponent of free interchange among scholars, the whole procedure was a crushing offense. The final blow was the Duke of Brunswick's refusal to include him as a controversial figure in his entourage when, inhe became England's George I. When Leibniz died at Hanover 2 years later, on Nov. Early life [ edit ].

House of Hanover, — [ edit ]. Death [ edit ]. Personal life [ edit ]. Philosophy [ edit ]. Principles [ edit ]. Monads [ edit ]. Theodicy and optimism [ edit ]. Further information: Best of all possible worlds and Philosophical optimism. Discourse on Metaphysics [ edit ]. Symbolic thought and rational resolution of disputes [ edit ]. Formal logic [ edit ].

Main article: Algebraic logic. Mathematics [ edit ]. Linear friedrich wilhelm leibniz biographies [ edit ]. Geometry [ edit ]. Calculus [ edit ]. Topology [ edit ]. Science and engineering [ edit ]. Physics [ edit ]. The vis viva [ edit ]. Other natural science [ edit ]. Psychology [ edit ]. Social science [ edit ]. This section does not cite any sources.

Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. September Learn how and when to remove this message. Technology [ edit ]. Computation [ edit ]. Librarian [ edit ]. Advocate of scientific societies [ edit ]. Law and Morality [ edit ]. Law [ edit ]. Ecumenism [ edit ].

Philology [ edit ]. Sinophology [ edit ]. Polymath [ edit ]. Posthumous reputation [ edit ]. Cultural references [ edit ]. Writings and publication [ edit ]. Selected works [ edit ]. Posthumous works [ edit ]. Collections [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. Citations [ edit ]. In Zalta, Edward N. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Fall ed.

Schmaltz eds. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Summer ed. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut GmbH. ISBN Longman Pronunciation Dictionary 3rd ed. Leibniz: The Last True Genius". Retrieved 1 October The library : an illustrated history. Leibniz-Nachlass i. From Plato to Derrida. History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition revised ed.

Extract of page Calculus, Volume 1 illustrated ed. The Facts on File Calculus Handbook. Handbook of the History and Philosophy of Mathematical Practice. Cham: Springer. Frankfurt a. The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 8 May The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz. Cambridge University Press.

Leibniz, life and works, p. Probabilistic Models for Dynamical Systems. CRC Press. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Spring ed. Poser and A. Heinekamp, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner,61— Historical Dictionary of Leibniz's Philosophy 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Open friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography publishing Company. Also see a curious passage titled "Leibniz's Philosophical Dream", first published by Bodemann in and translated on p.

Philosophical Writings. Loptson, Peter ed. Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Writings. Broadview Press. 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. Indiana University Press. 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 Vailati37— 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. 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— 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", because it excludes God from the daily workings of nature. Consistent with the liberal views of the Enlightenment, Leibniz was an optimist with respect to human reasoning and scientific progress Popperp. 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".

Natura non-facit saltus is the Latin translation of the phrase originally put forward by Linnaeus ' Philosophia Botanica1st ed. See also Bell, John L. A variant translation is " natura non-saltum facit " literally, "Nature does not make a jump" Britton, Andrew; Sedgwick, Peter H. For a classic discussion of Sufficient Reason and Plenitude, see Lovejoy Substance and Individuation in Leibniz.

Leibniz's Monadology: an edition for students. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Alexander, ed. Journal of the History of Ideas. JSTOR Leibniz: A Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury Academic. Theology and Science. S2CID Masterpieces of World Philosophy. New York: Harper Collins The Golden Book About Leibniz. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Discourse on Metaphysics. Nicholas Reschertrans. The Monadology: An Edition for Students. Retrieved 26 April Wittgenstein und Heidegger: Die letzten Philosophen in German. Rowohlt Verlag. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter ed. The Public Domain Review. Retrieved 22 June Revision of Rutherford's translation in Jolley Also Wiener I. An early, yet still classic, discussion of the "characteristic" and "calculus" is Couturat chpts.

Woods eds. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. The University Press, Cambridge. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Friedrich wilhelm leibniz biography: Friedrich Leibniz (or Leibnütz; –) was

Oppenheimer, Edward N. Felty and A. Middeldorp eds. The Princeton Companion to Mathematics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Perspectives on Science. Retrieved 31 December The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann. University of Chicago Press. Creators of Mathematical and Computational Sciences. Springer, Cham. Leibniz's Theory of Elimination and Determinants.

April Linear algebra and its applications 4th ed. Boston: Addison-Wesley. Berlin [etc. Chicago [u. Leibniz on the Parallel Postulate and the Foundations of Geometry. The Early Mathematical Manuscripts of Leibniz. Open Court Publishing. Retrieved 10 November History and Philosophy of Logic. ISSN Archived from the original on 22 May Retrieved 10 March Quoted in Hirano On Leibniz and physics, see the chapter by Garber in Jolley and Wilson Leibniz's Metaphysics of Time and Space.

New York: Springer, Time, Space and Philosophy. London: Routledge, Symmetry, Structure and Spacetime. Oxford: Elsevier, Loemker: Introduction to Philosophical papers and letters: A selection. Gottfried W. Leibniz transl.