Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (b. 1646–d. 1716) was one of the greatest of the early modern “rationalist” philosophers. He is perhaps best known to students of philosophy as an advocate of the principle of sufficient reason, the preestablished harmony of mind and body, philosophical optimism, and the doctrine of monads. While many if not all of these ideas have fallen out of favor, it is nevertheless the case that Leibniz’s arguments are deep and important and worth taking very seriously. Leibniz was an eclectic philosopher; he sought to draw out views that he thought were close to the truth and combine them in new ways to arrive at the most plausible picture of the world. It is for this reason that, while he is sympathetic to parts of the “modern” philosophy of René Descartes (b. 1596–d. 1650), Thomas Hobbes (b. 1588–d. 1679), and Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza (b. 1633–d. 1677), he offers criticisms of it at the same time through the language and ideas of ancient and medieval philosophy. He was not just a philosopher, however, but was also a mathematician, natural philosopher, engineer, historian, lawyer, and diplomat of the first rank. As this bibliography is intended principally for students of philosophy, his other work will largely be ignored, as well as scholarship on it.