Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

by Dascal, Marcelo; Racionero, Quintin; Cardoso, Adelino

• ISBN13: 9781402052279
• ISBN10: 1402052278
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-12-30
• Publisher: Springer Nature

Summary

Leibniz is known to the wide public and to many scholars mainly as a logician and mathematician, and as the creator of a fascinating but strange metaphysical system. In these, as well as in other fields, his remarkable innovations where achieved through painstaking efforts to establish a fruitful critical dialogue with the leading contemporary thinkers. He was no less important, however, in his practical endeavor to bring opponents to negotiate reasonable solutions to key political and religious conflicts of his time. Both, his theoretical and practical activities, were informed by a philosophical mind that sought in all circumstances the most general underlying principles; by a juridical mind that sought to bring order and structure to human interaction, without sacrificing the necessary flexibility; by an argumentative mind that knows that persuading is often more important than proving; by a scientific mind eager to organize past and present knowledge so as not to miss any bit of information capable of pointing the way to new discoveries; by a theologian mind that refuses to admit that religious conflicts between true believers are irresolvable; and by an ethical and political mind whose major concern is to direct all our intellectual work towards improving the well being of humankind. All these perspectives (and more) are united in what this book identifies as his Art of Controversies, which might be also called an Art of Dialectical Cooperation. For it is based on the idea that knowledge production, acquisition, and evolution is not a one-man affair, but the result of the cooperation of many, coming from different perspectives; whence it follows that not only tolerance vis-à-vis the other, but also valuing the other's contribution and integrating it ' whether it stems from another age, continent, culture, discipline, religion, or individual ' is indispensable. This dialectical Leibniz that emerges from the selected texts here translated, commented, and interpreted in the light of their context, isn't for sure the familiar one. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, it is capable of shedding light on that old, familiar, yet incomplete image of Leibniz, and of adding thus a further reason for cherishing and cultivating the heritage of a truly great man.

Table of Contents

Vices of mingled disputes	p. 1
The controversy of controversies	p. 7
The religion of a peasant	p. 25
The elements of thinking	p. 29
The balance of law	p. 35
Can there be an obligation to believe?	p. 41
Controversies on sacred matters	p. 49
The judge of controversies	p. 55
Towards a heuristics for litigation	p. 65
The method of jurists and the method of doctors	p. 75
Interpretation and argumentation in law	p. 77
Towards a heuristics for discovery	p. 93
Estimating the uncertain	p. 105
Towards a numerical universal language	p. 119
The encyclopedia and the method of discovery	p. 129
Towards a heuristics for persuading	p. 143
The other's place	p. 163
Persuading a skeptic	p. 167
On controversies	p. 201
On principles	p. 209
Two prefaces to the general science	p. 213
Introduction to a secret encyclopedia	p. 219
On the creation of a new logic	p. 225
New openings	p. 231
Theology and the principle of contradiction	p. 237
Changing religion	p. 241
Methods of reunion	p. 247
An Ars Characteristica for the rational sciences	p. 263
'Characterizing' definitions and demonstrating propositions	p. 271
Advancing the art of discovery	p. 275
Correspondence with the Hamburg Jungians	p. 285
The philosophical sin controversy	p. 305
Confronting the Catholic hardliners : two memoirs for Pellisson	p. 309
Defining what pertains to faith	p. 325
Judgment of a Catholic doctor	p. 329
Presumptions and fictions in legal argumentation : correspondence with Johannes Werlhof	p. 341
The 'method of establishments' : to Thomas Burnett of Kemeny	p. 359
The achievements of logic and beyond : to Gabriel Wagner	p. 373
Pacts, contracts, and natural law	p. 391
Approaching the church of England	p. 399
Dialectic principles and their application	p. 419
The history and tasks of logic : to Cornelius Dietrich Koch	p. 429
Bold conjectures : to Louis Bourguet	p. 435
The dynamics of formulating and expounding the system : to Nicolas-Francois Remond	p. 445
The use of logic against skepticism : to Karl G. Ehler	p. 451
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