Abstract

This essay explores the philosophical relationship of Spinoza and Leibniz. It argues that the relationship is best viewed as three-cornered metaphysical transaction beginning with Spinoza, continuing to Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus’s exchanges with Spinoza, and leading to reflections by Leibniz on a Spinoza mediated by these exchanges. It focuses on two topics that exemplify this three-cornered relationship: the relationship between God and things, and the derivation of things from God; and the critical Leibnizian topic of possible worlds.