Leibniz (Past Masters)

by George MacDonald Ross

Book Overview

Though best known as a philosopher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a polymath with many facets to his genius. Besides providing the most detailed account of his life availale in English, George... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192876201
• Release Date: September 1984
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 0.4" x 4.4"

Customer Reviews

In dialogue with universal genius

This is an excellent introduction to the universal genius Leibniz. Leibniz was as G. MacDonald Ross makes clear a ' polymath' not simply in the sense that he had knowledge in a wide variety of areas, but rather in that he sought to make out of this knowledge a comprehensive and deep understanding of the world. He too was the subject in Voltaire's Candide and in Swift's Gulliver of much ridicule, the man of vast schemes and optimism who could be chided for not really knowing what practical, common sense, everyday life was about. But he was not so ' simple-minded' as his satirical critics make him. In fact his search for knowledge led him into dialogue with the most distinguished minds of his time. His vast correspondance fifteen- thousand letters was according to him the real abode of his wisdom and knowledge even more so than his books. Because of his diverse interests he somehow rarely completed anything including the many technical projects he worked on. His contributions to mathematics,and logic, to metaphysics and science are each given separate chapters in this work. His interests however extended into law, politics, religion, and also some of the pseudo- sciences such as alchemy. A civil-servant in the court of Hanover, living under the protection of patrons he was often accussed of ' working at everything but that which he was paid to work for'. He was the intimate of royalty and a consulted expert in the whole subject of 'dynastic succession'. In this biography we get no sense whatsoever of whether he cared for personal or family life in any way, though we do learn that his sole- heir was his sister's son. Leibniz only a small part of whose writings have been translated into English is considered one of the great universal geniuses of mankind. But he is also mocked as being a ' pure rationalist' whose emphasis on the life of the mind made him a bit less than human. This is a rich little book. One detail of it intrigues me especially. On one of his trips home Leibniz stopped in Holland and there had four days in intense conversation with the lens- grinder Spinoza. How many of us would like to hear how the monads sounded when seen from the eyes of Eternity.