Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Selected Writings and Monadology

Life
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born in 1646 in Leipzig. He had access to a substantial library early in life and is said to have taught himself Latin to read the Church Fathers and Latin Classics. He attended universities in Leipzig and Altdorf, earned a doctorate in law in 1667, turned down a faculty position, and went to work for the Elector of Mainz. In 1672 he had the opportunity to visit Paris to discuss his Egypt Plan, in which France would invade Egypt and leave Germany and the Netherlands alone. There he met several leading French thinkers, including Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Arnauld, and studied mathematics under Christian Huygens (discovering integral and differential calculus after about three years). He created a calculating machine and, based on this work, was made in 1673 a member of the Royal Society. In 1676 he began working in the court of the Duke of Hanover. He spent much of his life promoting science, libraries and learning and was the first president of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences. Leibniz made contributions to not only mathematics but physics, theology, and philosophy. He sought to reconcile Catholicism and Lutheranism and, in his own way, modern science and philosophy to certain Aristotelian ideas, such as the substantial form and final cause. He died in Hanover in 1716.

Themes
Leibniz is regarded, along with Descartes and Spinoza, as one of the most important rationalist philosophers of his age. He wrote a work in response to John Locke arguing that some principles or ideas are in some sense innate. In metaphysics, he asserted the principle of sufficient reason, which says that things happen when there is more reason for them to happen than not, and claimed that, strictly speaking, all true statements are analytic (e.g., it can be truly predicated of Ceasar a priori that he crossed the Rubicon). Unhappy with atomistic and other accounts of substance, he argued that monads (dimensionless, soul-like entities) are fundamental, reflect everything that has ever happened or will happen, and are in sync with each other through a pre-established order chosen by God. From the conclusion that God has chosen this world, and that God can only choose the best, Leibniz famously claimed that this is the best of all possible worlds. The system Leibniz set up would seem to leave little room for human freedom, but he tried to argue that people were nonetheless free in some sense. Right or wrong, his views are complex and interesting.

Works and This Month's Reading
Leibniz wrote so much that the critical edition of his collected works, underway for several decades, remains unfinished. Much of this output consists of short works—letters, journal articles—rather than a magnum opus. His only book-length statement of his philosophy published in his lifetime is Theodicy. His other major works include Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, and New Essays on Human Understanding. Except for Monadology, our readings this month are not from his most famous works; however, the selections in the Shorter Leibniz Texts are helpfully arranged, cover many of Leibniz's main claims, and, because the selections are short, can be read in coherent, manageable chunks.

Readings
· The Shorter Leibniz Texts (Strickland)
· Monadology (Google Books, pp. 215-271) – The Strickland version listed below is a good alternative. Both have more footnotes and explanatory text than text from Leibniz.

Optional
· Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, IEP – Summarizes Leibniz’s thought based on Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, Theodicy, and New Essays on Human Understanding.
· Leibniz's Monadology: A New Translation and Guide (Strickland) – An alternative to the version on Google (above), this version also has relevant selections from Theodicy.
· Leibniz: Philosophical Essays – Contains Discourse on Metaphysics, Monadology, the Preface to New Essays on Human Understanding, and several other short works and letters.
· The Philosophy of Spinoza & Leibniz (YouTube) - Magee & Quinton, 1987
· The Essence of Calculus (YouTube) - 3Blue1Brown - Quick intro.
· Mathematical Treasure: Leibniz's Papers on Calculus (MAA) – If you’re curious what Leibniz’s calculus looked like.
· Mathematics - 19th Century, Algebra, Calculus | Britannica – History of math, with some math.