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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

    June 21, 1646 – November 14, 1716

    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German polymath and philosopher whose influence spans mathematics, philosophy, physics, and computer science. He is considered one of the most significant thinkers of the 17th century, independently developing calculus with notation still in use today. Leibniz's ideas anticipated modern logic and analytic philosophy, with his philosophy grounded in rationalism and deductive reasoning. Though his vast body of work covers numerous fields from mathematics to theology, and was written in Latin, French, and German, a comprehensive collection of his writings remains unavailable.

    Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
    Briefwechsel Zwischen Leibniz und Christian Wolf; aus den Handschriften der Koeniglichen Bibliothek zu Hannover Herausgegeben
    Discourse on metaphysics and The monadology
    Theodicy
    Philosophical writings
    De summa rerum
    Confessio philosophi
    • Confessio philosophi

      • 220 pages
      • 8 hours of reading
      4.3(15)Add rating

      This volume contains papers that represent Leibniz’s early thoughts on the problem of evil, centering on a dialogue, the Confessio philosophi, in which he formulates a general account of God’s relation to sin and evil that becomes a fixture in his thinking. How can God be understood to be the ultimate cause, asks Leibniz, without God being considered as the author of sin, a conclusion incompatible with God’s holiness? Leibniz’s attempts to justify the way of God to humans lead him to deep discussion of related topics: the nature of free choice, the problems of necessitarianism and fatalism, the nature of divine justice and holiness. All but one of the writings presented here are available in English for the first time.

      Confessio philosophi
    • The Yale Leibniz is a series of books containing texts and translations of the works of G.W. Leibniz. The series is intended to produce neither a complete edition of Leibniz's writings nor a comprehensive selected works edition...The focus of the series is Leibniz's philosophical thought, but this is interpreted broadly enough to include not only his metaphysics and epistemology, but also his theology, his physics, and even aspects of his mathematics.

      De summa rerum
    • Philosophical writings

      • 336 pages
      • 12 hours of reading

      With wide format pages to give generous margins for notes, the editor presents the latest Leibniz scholarship in an introduction, and also includes notes, selected criticism and chronology of Leibnitz's life and times.

      Philosophical writings
    • Theodicy

      • 448 pages
      • 16 hours of reading
      3.7(138)Add rating

      In order to be truly free, must you act arbitrarily? If an event did not happen, could it have happened? Since there is evil, and God could have made the world without evil, did God fail to pick the best course? Grappling with such simple--yet still intriguing--puzzles, Leibniz was able to present attractively his new theories of the real and the phenomenal, freewill and determinism, and the relation between minds and bodies. Theodicy was Leibniz's only book-length work to be published in his lifetime, and for many years the work by which he was known to the world. Fully at home with the latest scientific advances, Leibniz ultimately rejected the new atomistic philosophies of Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes, and drew upon the old cosmology of Aristotelian scholasticism. There could be no conflict, he argued, between faith and reason, freedom and necessity, natural and divine law. Ingeniously defending his postulate of pre-established harmony, Leibniz made important advances in the precise analysis of concepts.

      Theodicy
    • This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

      Briefwechsel Zwischen Leibniz, Arnauld und dem Landgrafen Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels