Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Leibniz_Hannover.jpg
Note:
This bibliography barely scratches the surface of what Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
did throughout his life, and is exclusively focused on significant works
directly or indirectly related to his notion of monads.
Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz is considered to be one of the great philosophical thinkers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth century, among many other accolades he achieved
throughout his life. Throughout his life, Leibniz contributed to an astonishing
amount of fields of study such as metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of
religion, logic, mathematics, physics, geology, jurisprudence (philosophy of
law), and history. Rightfully so, the Stafford Encyclopedia of Philosophy names
him as the last “universal genius”.
Born
on July 1, 1646 to Catharina Schmuck and Friedrich Leibniz in Leipzig, Germany,
Gottfried was born into a Lutheran family of educated elites on both sides of
his family. Leibniz’s father died in 1652, when Gottfried was 6, so the
majority of his upbringing and education was facilitated by both his mother,
his uncle, and himself. Leibniz’s father left an extensive library behind,
filled with ancient history that he studied on his own until going off to the
University of Leipzig.
Germany
was not incredibly influenced by modern philosophy during the time, so
Leibniz’s philosophic education was primarily scholastic in its nature. It’s
also important to know that Leibniz was practically isolated from the
intellectual circle, and only had limited contact with other great minds during
the time, with most exchanges happening through letters. During his stay at the
university, he began to form his notion of what a “monad” is. In the summer
term of 1663, he went to Jena to study. There, he learned the importance of
numbers and their relationship with philosophy, which he then used for his
dissertation for his Master’s Degree in philosophy.
In
1666 Leibniz made one of his major philosophical publications,
Dissertatio de arte combinatorial (Dissertation
on the combinatorial art). The premise Leibniz aimed for was to reduce all
reasoning and discovery to a combination of basic elements such as numbers,
letters, sounds and colors.
Later on in 1675, Gottfried laid the
foundation for differential and integral calculus, which supported his idea of
monadology because he didn’t consider time and space of substance anymore. In
1679 he continued to work on the groundwork for his theory of metaphysics,
which attempted to reduce reasoning to an algebra of thoughts, with him
eventually publicizing Discours de métaphysique (Discourse on Metaphysics) in
February 1686.
Much later in life, in 1714 Leibniz
synthesized his notion of monads and published Monadologia. This was one of the last works published before his
death on November 14, 1716.
Sources:
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