Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)

Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
 

Philosopher and mathematician, born in Leipzig, Germany. He studied there and at Altdorf, spent time in Paris and London, and in 1676 became librarian to the Duke of Brunswick at Hanover. He also travelled in Austria and Italy, and went in 1700 to persuade Frederick I of Prussia to found the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, of which he became the first president. A man of remarkable breadth of knowledge, he made original contributions to optics, mechanics, statistics, logic, and probability theory. He conceived the idea of calculating machines, and of a universal language. He wrote on history, law, and political theory, and his philosophy was the foundation of 18th-c Rationalism. He was involved in a controversy with Isaac Newton over whether he or Newton was the inventor of integral and differential calculus; the Royal Society formally declared for Newton in 1711, but the matter was never really resolved. Unpopular with George of Hanover, he was left behind in 1714 when the Elector moved his court to London (as George I). He died in Hanover two years later, without real recognition and with almost all his work unpublished.

From Richard Osbourne's Philosophy for Beginners (ostensibly a comic-book, but in fact a work to rival those of Will Durant or Bertrand Russell in the popularization of the history of philosophy):
"Leibniz was probably the supreme intellect of his age, writing prodigiously on many subjects, as well as inventing the differential calculus. That he was slightly contradictory can be seen from the fact that most of what he published while alive was designed to appeal to the Royalty to whom he attached himself, and was reactionary and shallow, and what he left unpublished was more often profound, original and philosophically important.

"In public, Liebniz propounded the "principle of the best", which, amongst other things, argued that God has created the best possible world. This Leibniz was caricatured in Voltaire's "Candide" as Dr. Panglos.

"Instead of Spinoza's ONE substance, Leinbiz proposed an INFINTIY of infinitesimal substances or MONADS

"Each MONAD is different, and mirrors the entire Universe, but is not located in space or time . . . Monads have no windows by which anything goes in or out.

"Each MONAD is immaterial and has a soul . . . Monads can't interact with each other

"The MONADS appear to act together only because of a pre-established harmony ordained by God

"'I'll sue the authors!' (shouts Leibniz) 'What about my work on the metaphysical proofs of God's existence, the problem of evil, the subject-predicate relation, a universal symbolic language, logic, the law of contradiction, history, jurisprudence, kinetics, chemistry, geology & mechanics?'"

He seems to have made an impression upon Norbert Wiener

His mathematical work was later made use of by Jacques Bernoulli

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