Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

It is often said that phenomenological solipsism turns subjectivity into a monad “without doors or windows,” to use the phrase so dear to Leibniz.

In: Historiological Discussions, Silo,

Chapter 3: History and Temporality, 3.1 Temporality and Process

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - 1716)

Philosopher, mathematician, logician and polymath.

Biographical information

He worked as a diplomat, consultant and librarian for various European rulers.

Leibniz travelled extensively throughout Europe, established contacts with leading scholars of his time and maintained an extensive correspondence.

1646 Birth on 1 July 1646 in Leipzig. He grew up in an educated family, which gave him access to a comprehensive humanistic and philosophical education.
1661 At the age of 15, Leibniz began his studies in Leipzig. There he intensively studied the writings of scholasticism and modern philosophy and began to develop his own philosophical ideas.
1666 At the age of 20, Leibniz published his doctoral thesis De arte combinatoria, which presents his early ideas on logic and combinatorics. This work laid the foundation for his later ideas on mathematics and symbolic logic.

1672 Leibniz moved to Paris, where he met mathematicians and philosophers such as Christiaan Huygens and Antoine Arnauld. Under Huygens' guidance, he deepened his mathematical knowledge, which led to the development of infinitesimal calculus.

1676 After returning to Germany, Leibniz entered the service of the Duke of Hanover, where he served as a librarian and court counsellor. He used this position to pursue scientific and philosophical studies and to further develop his theories.

1684 In 1684, Leibniz published his first treatise on infinitesimal calculus (Nova Methodus), which was developed in parallel with the work of Isaac Newton. This marked a significant advance in mathematics and laid the foundation for modern analysis.

1710 In his work Essais de Théodicée (Theodicy), Leibniz developed the idea of the ‘best of all possible worlds’. This essay on the problem of evil and divine justice shaped the philosophical debate on the relationship between God, freedom and determinism.

1716 Leibniz died in Hanover on 14 November 1716.

Topics

Philosophy: Leibniz developed the theory of monadology, which states that all natural phenomena - including humans - consist of indivisible units or monads.
Mathematics: Leibniz and Isaac Newton are considered the founders of infinitesimal calculus, although their approaches were different.
Logic: Leibniz worked on formal logic and developed the concept of symbolic logic, which laid the foundation for modern logic.
Metaphysics: He postulated the idea of the best of all possible worlds, which was later widely discussed in literature and philosophy.

Leibniz studied the works of Aristotle extensively and was particularly impressed by his logic and metaphysics. Aristotle's emphasis on causality and formal logic had a lasting influence on Leibniz's own philosophical developments.

Although he studied Aristotle, he was also heavily influenced by the ideas of Plato, particularly Plato's concept of the world of ideas and his theory of forms. Leibniz‘ metaphysical ideas, including his theory of monads, bear some similarities to Plato's theory of ideas.

Leibniz’ philosophy therefore shows a synthesis of Aristotelian thought, especially in terms of logic and causality, and Platonic idealism, especially in terms of metaphysical considerations and the search for universal truths.

Major works

‘Monadology’ (1714): This work presents Leibniz's metaphysical system of monads, which constitute the universe as indivisible, immaterial units. The monads are the fundamental building blocks of reality and reflect the entire universe.
‘New Treatises on the Human Mind’ (1704, published posthumously in 1765): This book is a discussion of John Locke's ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding’. Leibniz argues against Locke's empiricist epistemology and emphasises the role of innate ideas.
‘Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal’ (1710): In this work, Leibniz discusses the problem of evil and attempts to reconcile the goodness of God with the existence of evil in the world. He introduces the concept of ‘best of all possible worlds’.
‘Discours de Métaphysique’ (1686): This early work by Leibniz presents many of his fundamental metaphysical ideas, including the principles of identity, cause and effect, and the role of God in creation.
‘De Arte Combinatoria’ (1666): In this mathematical work, Leibniz develops his ideas on combinatorics and logical calculation, which later influenced the development of modern computer science.

Influence

Leibniz's work had an enormous influence on various fields of knowledge, including philosophy, mathematics, logic and law.

His ideas influenced later thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell.

The Monadology and his concept of the best of all possible worlds were particularly influential and controversial.

Leibniz's mathematical notation and infinitesimal calculus laid the foundation for modern differential and integral calculus.

His influence on the intellectual development of Europe and beyond is undeniable. Many important inventions and discoveries originated with Leibniz. Leibniz was a pioneer in the development of the calculating machine, the computer. He discovered that calculating processes can be carried out much more easily with a binary number coding and, furthermore, that the principles of arithmetic can be linked with the principles of logic by means of the binary number code.

Why is he mentioned by Silo in ‘Historiological Discussions’?

Leibniz's expression of the ‘monad’ is mentioned here because it was he who described in detail that man (as well as all other natural elements such as stone, plant, animal) consists of monads; the monad, an inherent unit that cannot be influenced from the outside (‘without doors or windows’) because it carries the development (purpose) determined by God within itself. The monad as a philosophical concept (from Latin monas and Greek monás, meaning simplicity and unity) was first used by the pre-Socratics, but was also used – in different interpretations – by the Neoplatonists, in Christian mysticism, Jewish Kabbalah, by Descartes and many others until all these approaches were summarised by Leibniz.

The phenomenological approach that humans can only make statements about themselves, but the perceived outside world is only subjective experience (solipsism: Latin sōlus ‘alone’ and ipse ‘self’), and thus does not allow any universally valid statements, is here related by Silo to the inaccessibility of the ‘monad’; in the very next sentence, he calls into question this trivial, ‘tired’ view, which – if it were correct – would not allow a general basis for a historiography.

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