17th/18th Century Philosophy > 17th/18th Century German Philosophy > Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz > Leibniz: Philosophy of Science
Leibniz: Philosophy of Science
Edited by Christopher P. Noble (New College of Florida, New College of Florida)
About this topic
Summary | Within the Anglophone philosophical world, Leibniz is recognized chiefly as a metaphysician, logician, and mathematician. However, he made wide-ranging contributions to the natural sciences of his day, participating in a number of discussions and controversies in fields as diverse as physics--in which he developed a science of force or "dynamics"--the sciences of life, medicine, optics, and geology. In scientific investigation, Leibniz relied on theoretical principles such as continuity, non-contradiction, and sufficient reason to constrain proposed hypotheses, and he maintained the compatibility of efficient and final causal explanation. As an inventor and a designer, he developed an early mechanical calculator, and, famously, failed in an attempt to harness wind-power to extract water from flooded mines in the Harz mountains. This theoretical and practical work was coupled by a life-long interest in furthering the growth of natural knowledge, including his project of a general science and encyclopedia aimed at organizing existing knowledge and aiding discovery. Leibniz also promoted the development of scientific societies, and was the founder and first president of what is now the Berlin-Brandenburgische Academy of Sciences and Humanities. |
Key works | The following primary texts, listed chronologically in terms of their composition by Leibniz and in English translation, have been selected to provide the reader with an overview of Leibniz's approach both to particular sciences including physics, cosmology, and geology, as well as to general topics of scientific discovery and methodology such as hypothesis, causal explanation, and the organization of knowledge in encyclopedic form. They also exhibit Leibniz's views regarding the utility of scientific knowledge for human life and highlight the interconnection of Leibniz's natural philosophy and metaphysics. Leibniz 1678-79? is an outline of an unrealized book on physics composed in the late 1670s, and is followed by a useful appendix on scientific methodology. In a text known as the Project of a New Encyclopedia to be Written Following the Method of Invention (Leibniz 1679), we find one of Leibniz's many sketches for an Encyclopedia that would organize, catolog, and promote the growth of knowledge. In the Brief Demonstration (Leibniz 1686), Leibniz provides an important critique of Cartesian physics focusing on the correct formulation of conservation laws. The Protogaea (Leibniz et al 2008) is Leibniz's speculative geological treatise on the origins of the Earth that was intended (in Leibniz's typically ambitious, incisive, yet diffuse intellectual manner) to serve as the opening of his never completed history of the House of Hannover. The Specimen Dynacum (Leibniz 1989) presents Leibniz's new science of force, or dynamics. In the Tentamen Anagogicum (Leibniz 1696), Leibniz defends the use of final causes in physics and features an early version of the principle of least action. Leibniz argues in De Ipsa Natura (Leibniz 1698) that a coherent philosophy of nature requires the postulation of an inherent force within natural substances. The New Essays on Human Understanding (Leibniz 1981) represents Leibniz's point by point critique of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, and covers a number of topics related to the philosophy of science. The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence (Leibniz et al 2000) is Leibniz's well-known debate with the Newtonian Samuel Clarke, highlighting the differences between the Leibnizian and Newtonian accounts of nature. |
Introductions | For a general overview of Leibniz's scientific methodology, see Duchesneau 1993. Smith 2011 focuses on Leibniz's involvement with the life sciences of his day, and reveals the tight connection between Leibniz's metaphysics and his attempts to explain the nature of living organic bodies.. |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- Leibniz: Metaphysics (1,325)
- Leibniz: Epistemology (156)
- Leibniz: Philosophy of Mind (200)
- Leibniz: Philosophy of Action (90)
- Leibniz: Philosophy of Language (97)
- Leibniz: Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic (392)
- Leibniz: Philosophy of Religion (608)
- Leibniz: Political Philosophy (61)
- Leibniz: Ethics (139)
- Leibniz: Aesthetics (20)
- Leibniz: Works (139)
- Leibniz, Misc (646)
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