PHIL 54502 Leibniz: Logic and Metaphysics
In this seminar, we will examine the logical and metaphysical writings of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. We will begin by exploring the metaphysical underpinnings of Leibniz’s calculus of analytic containment, as developed in such essays as General Inquiries into the Analysis of Concepts and Truths (1686) and A Mathematics of Reason (1690). We then consider how Leibniz’s logic informs some of the metaphysical ideas developed in some of Leibniz’s less technical philosophical writings, including Discourse on Metaphysics (1686) and On the Ultimate Origination of Things (1697). These distinctive logico-metaphysical conceptions, which give a singular shape to Leibniz’s philosophy, reach their full maturity in his best known essay on metaphysics, the Monadology (1714), with which the seminar will conclude. (IV)