Friday, September 24, 2010

Leibniz (1646 - 1716)

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 "pre-established harmony" between the outer world and maind, and developed a philosophy of Rationalism by which he attempted to reconcile the existence of matter with the existence of God. 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

Leibniz's reflections on epistemological matters do not rival his reflections on logic, metaphysics, divine justice, and natural philosophy in terms of quantity. Nevertheless, he did think deeply about the possibility and nature of human knowledge, and his main doctrines 

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