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Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716) - surname in some sources: Leibnitz |
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German philosopher,
mathematician,
historian
and jurist, contemporary of Newton (1642-1727), with whom he feuded
bitterly over the invention of calculus. Although Gottfried Leibniz
left behind no philosophical magnum opus, he
is still considered to be among the giant thinkers of the 17th-century.
Leibniz believed in "real metaphysic union" between the mind and body. He developed a philosophy of Rationalism by which he
attempted to reconcile the existence of matter with the existence of
God. The Monadology summarized a number of Leibniz's doctrines in a highly systematic way. "1. The Monad, of which we shall here speak, is nothing but a simple substance, which enters into compounds. By 'simple' is meant 'without parts.' (Theod. 10.)" (The Monadology by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, translated by Robert Latta, 2015, p. 3) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in Leipzig, the son of a professor of moral philosophy, and Catharina Schmuck, the daughter of a famous lawyer. When Leibniz was only six years old, his father died and he grew up in the care his mother. At school Leibniz was a brilliant student who taught himself Latin by reading an illustrated edition of Livy. Leibniz received his masters degree from the University of Leipzig at the age of 18, but his academic career was cut short when the university turned down his application for doctoral degree. After receiving his doctorate in law at Altdorf in 1667, Leibniz entered into the service Baron Johann Christian von Boineburg. Never looking back at Leipzig, he moved to Frankfurt, where he threw himself into the world of politics. In spite of Leibniz's peculiar physical appearance was – he was shortsighted and smallish, his nose was very obvious, his limbs were crooked, and he had a protrusion on his head about the size of a quail's egg – his courtly career in Frankfurt and Maiz was first marked by success. In 1672 he traveled to Paris with his plan for a new crudade, trying to persuade Louis XIV to expel the Turks from Egypt in order to distract the king's attention from the possible invasion of Holland. The ploy did not work, but for Leibniz's Paris years were otherwise productive. Leibniz made in 1675 his most important scientific discovery, the differential and integral calculus, but he also found time to visit craftmen in their shops and develop an idea for a new kind of watch, see a talking dog, and produce 150,000 sheets of writing. The discovery resulted in a controversy with Isaac Newton over whether he or Newton was the inventor. Nowadays it is generally agreed that they both discovered independently the basic foundations, Newton first but Leibniz's publication prededed that of Newton. Leibniz's system of notation is still in use today. Newton's absolute space also was something Leibniz could not accept: "I hold space to be something merely relative, as time is. . . . For space denotes, in terms of possibility, an order to things which exist at the same time, considered as existing together, without inquiring into their particular manner of existing." (A Critical Exposition of The Philosophy of Leibniz: With an Appendix of Leading Passages by Bertrand Russell, 1992, p. 301) As an alternative to Newton's physics Leibniz published an article in the Acta Eruditorum, arguing that the movements of the planets may be explained by the existence of a cosmic fluid. "Just what would Newton have lost if he had acknowledged Leibniz's originality? Absolutely nothing! He would have gained a lot. And yet, how hard it is to acknowledge something of this sort: someone who tires it feels as though he were confessing his own incapacity. Only people who hold you in esteem and at the same time love you can make it easy for you to behave like this." (Culture and Value by Ludwig Wittgenstein, translated by Peter Winch, 1984, p. 58c) While not being concerned with gaining truth
and
knowledge, Leibniz had time to think about the idea of
founding a public exhibition of scientific inventions and outline
the project in Drôle de pensée (1675). After
diplomatic missions Leibniz was employed as Counsellor and Librarian to
Duke
Johann Friedrich of Brunswick at Hanover, a position which he retained
until his death. The library had only 3,310 books and 158
manuscripts. In a memorandum to
Johann Friedrich he presented two plans for a classification of the
library. Leibniz did not create these plans from nothing: there was a
classified catalog prepared by his predecessor in the office. By the
mid-1710s, the library contained over 13,000 volumes. The philosopher
himself was called "a living library". In 1690 Leibniz was appointed privy-councellor and librarian of the famous Bibliotheca Augusta at Wolfenbüttel. For Leibniz's disappointment, in Hanover he had to adjust to the fact that he was not
any more living in centers of fashionable scientific and philosophical
thought. One of Leibniz's duties was to prepare a history of the House
of Brunswick, a task which he found boring compared with inventing a
new kind of windmill in the Harz Mountains. In the late 1680s Leibniz traveled to
Austria and Italy, under the pretencre of collecting source
material for his work, but he was also seeking employment elsewhere,
including as the histographer of England. While in Rome in 1689 he
hoped to meet Queen Christina, who lived there after her abdication of
power. She was seriously ill – the same year she died. For
the Hanoverian Princess Sophie Charlotte Leibniz
wrote an essay in which he gave an account of Christina's thoughts of
the universal Soul, seeing that her philosophical beliefs are in line
with the heretical tradition of Averroes –
this Medieval Spanish-Arab philosopher denied individual
immortality. Eventually Leibniz was ordered to stay in Germany until the history of the House of Brunswick was complete. In 1700 Leibniz planned the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin and was its first president. Unpopular with George Luis of Hanover, Leibniz was not permitted to go to England, when the Elector moved his court to London as George I. Leibniz never married. He died on Saturday, November 14, 1716, in Hanover, embittered by ill health, plagued with gout, under secret surveillance, neglected, and labelled as an atheist. His death was not much noted by the academies of which he was a member. The funeral rites were meager; Leibniz was buried in an unmarked grave. Only later it was marked by a simple copper plate. Almost all of Leibniz's major treatises on optics, chemistry, philosophy, economics, mathematics etc. remained unpublished in his lifetime. Neither his two philosophical books, the New Essays on Human Understanding (c. 1705) and Theodicy (1710) only showed the tip of the iceberg. His work in symbolic logic was not resurrected until the twentieth century. Leibniz's philosophical writings, Die philosophischen Schriften, were published in 1857-90 (7 vols., edited by C.I. Gerhardt). Werke (1864-84, 11 vols.), edited by Onno Klopp, included Leibniz's historial and political works. Mathematical works were published in Leibnizens mathematische Schriften (1849-63, 7 vols.). The history of the House of Brunswick was not published until 1843. Leibniz's formalistic poems in perfect meter and rhyme were not openly slaughtered by critics. Leibniz was a convinced advocate of a Eurasian policy and
published a collection of documents on China (Novissima Sinica,
1679). Leibniz's interest in China was prompted by the Jesuit Claudio
Grimaldi, who had spent seventeen years in Beijing and whom Leibniz met
on on journey in Italy. He saw that China was better than Europe in the
elegance of life, but Europe was ahead in abstract mathematical
sciences and metaphysics. Moreover, for his surprise he noted that
Chinese philosophy in its ancient form looks like his own philosophy.
He announced in 1697 that "I shall have to post a notice on my door:
Bureau of
Information for Chinsese Knowledge." (Civilization: The West and the Rest
by Niall Ferguson, 2011 p. 46) Bertrand Russel wrote that Leibniz's intellect "was highly abstract and logical; his greatest claim to fame is as an inventor of the infinitesimal calculus." (A Critical Exposition of The Philosophy of Leibniz: With an Appendix of Leading Passages by Bertrand Russell, 1992, p. 29) When Father Joachim Bouvet, who had been in China, described in a letter the I Ching, an ancient book of wisdom and oracles, Leibniz recognized in the enigmatic hexagrams representations of his binary digits. To demonstrate this he wrote Explication de l'arithmétique binaire (1705). "The I Ching was important for its divinatory contents, but for Leibniz it becomes further evidence in proving the universal value of his formal calculus (and in a letter to Father Bouvet he suggests that its inventor was Hermes Trismegistus; as a matter of fact, Fu-hsi, the legendary inventor of the hexagrams, like Hermes was considered the father of all inventions)." (Serendipities: Language and Lunacy by Umberto Eco, 1999, p. 96) Along with many Germans of his age, Leibniz conducted his
correspondence mostly in Latin and French. He produced every year
hundreds of letters. To the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes he wrote
two letters (1670, 1674). Most likely Hobbes never got them; he never
replied. Between 1663 and 1672, Leibniz referred to Hobbes in his
notes, writings, and letters 98 times, mostly critically. During his lifetime Leibniz was a very public figure, characterized by George I of England as a "walking encyclopedia." At that time in the small intellectual world, Catholics and Protestants changed ideas through incessant correspondence in mutual respect, which prepared way to the Enlightenment. Leibniz himself tried to formulate a sound philosophical and theological basis for church reunions projects which arose occasionally. His hopes were high that Prostestants and Catholics would join in a universal church. Leibniz had a lifelong interest in alchemy, and his system, complex and forbidding, has been seen to resemble in some ways mystical or cabbalistic accounts of reality. Leibniz's fascination with alchemy was inspired by Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, a physician and Kabbalist, who was the son of Jean-Baptiste van Helmont, the discoverer of gas. In one of
his
early writings, Leibniz stated that the bubbles are the seeds of all
things. (The Complex
Itinerary of Leibniz’s Planetary Theory: Physical Convictions,
Metaphysical Principles and Keplerian Inspiration by Paolo
Bussotti, 2015, p. 78) Noteworthy, the obscure idea resonates
with the modern
inflationary universe model, in which our universe has been seen as a
bubble floating in an ocean of other bubbles. In his Monadologie
(1714) Leibniz maintained that the divine order of the universe is
reflected in each of its parts, each part being called a monad, a term
that means 'unit' or 'unity' – or a counterpart of atom. Monads are
incorporeal automata and adre called by Leibniz 'entelechies': "66.
Whence it is evident that there is a world of created beings – living
things, animals, entelechies, and souls – in the least part of matter.
67. Each portion of matter may be conceived as a garden full of plants,
and as a pond full of fish. But every branch of each plant, every
member of each animal, and every drop of their liquid parts is itself
likewise a similar garden or pond." (Philosophical Writings by Leibniz.
Selected and translated by Mary Morris. Introduction by C.R. Morris,
1934, p. 15) The Monadology was
first published by Heinrich Köhler in 1720, in a German translation.
The title of the book was coined by Köhler; Leibniz had used the 'The
principles of philosophy, by Mr Leibniz' as the title in his
manuscript. Leibniz
concluded that there must be an infinite number of substances, monads.
They are not material particles and the only way in which two monads
can differ is in having different properties. The whole range of monads
can be divided into stages from inanimate world to rational minds. This
idea he had formulated in other words in a letter to Burcher de Volder,
a professor of philosophy at the University of Leiden:
"Considering matters accurately, it must be said that there is nothing
in things except simple substances, and, in them, nothing but
perception and appetite. Moreover, matter and motion are not so much
substances or things as they are the phenomena of percipient beings,
the reality of which is located in the harmony of each percipient with
itself (with respect to different times) and with other percipients." ('Leibniz' by R.C.Sleigh, Jr., in The Philosophers: Introducing Great
Western Thinkers, edited by Ted Honderich, 1999, p. 88) Rational monads are capable of self-consciousness, but because
their
position in the universe is fixed (i.e. there is no choice of action),
there is no such thing as free will. Evil exist, but only to accentuate
goodness, one cannot be without the other. Each monad perceives all the
other monads more or less clearly, but only God perceives all monads
with utter clarity. God have pre-established a harmony between the
monads, and the world that these monads compose is the best possible.
"It must be shown that God is a person, i.e., an intelligent substance.
It must be demonstrated rigorously that he senses his own action on
himself, for nothing is more admirable than for the same being to sense
and to be affected by itself",
he concluded as an answer to Spinoza, whose God was Nature. (Leibniz on the Problem of
Evil by Paul Rateau, 2019, p. 92) God is all-powerful and morally perfect, hence, of necessity,
whatever possible world created by God is the best possible world.
Whatever states of affairs obtain in it, they do so of necessity. It
has often been said, that Leibniz's optimism was later ridiculed by
Voltaire in Candide (1759). The real target was possibly
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698-1759), a philosopher and
scientist, whose
writings attracted wide attention at that time; is has been said the he
was the "learned man of the North, who demonstrated by A plus B minus C
divided by Z, that the sheep must be red, and die of the rot." Voltaire
accused Maupertuis of trying to prove the existence of God by
algebra. In Candide,
after guiding his protagonist through a number of disasters, Voltaire
showed justifiable the question that if God cannot make a better world
that the one we know, is his powers or goodness limited? However,
Leibniz intended a metaphysical concept that applied to a world of
absolutely fixed, predeterminated order. From Candide's last remark,
"We must cultivate our garden," one may conclude that Voltaire
considered work far more profitable than metaphysical speculations. Or, as poet Alexander Pope wrote in his poem 'An Essay on Man' (1733-1734): All nature is but art, unknown to thee; For further reading: Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, by Bertrand Russell (1900); Logic and Reality in Leibniz's Metaphysics by G.H.R. Parkinson (1965); The Philosophy of Leibniz by N. Rescher (1967); Leibniz: A Collection of Critical Essays by H. Frankfurt (1972); Leibniz's Philosophy of Logic and Language by H. Ishiguro (1972); Leibniz, ed. by R.S. Woodhouse (1981); Leibnitz by S. Brown (1984); Leibniz by G.M. Ross (1984); The Philosophy of Leibnitz by B. Mates (1986); Leibniz: Language, Signs and Thought by Marcelo Dascal (1987); G.W. Leibniz's Monadology: An Edition for Students by G.W. Leibniz, Nicholas Rescher (1991); The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque by Gilles Deleuze (1992); A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz: With an Appendix of Leading Passages by Bertrand Arthur Russell, John G. Slater (1993); The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz, ed. by Nicholas Jolley (1994, paperback); Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature by Donald Rutherford (1995); Leibniz's Universal Jurisprudence by Patrick Riley (1996); Leibniz's 'New System' and Associated Contemporary Texts, ed. by Richard Francks (1997); Liebniz: Representation, Continuity, and the Spatio-Temporal by Dionysios Anapolitanos (1998); The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written by Martin Seymour-Smith (1998); The Universal Computer: The Road from Leibniz to Turing by Martin Davis (2000); The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World by Matthew Stewart (2006). Leibniz's law: If one thing is identical with another the anything that is true of the one must also be true of the other. Selected works:
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