Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is the polymathic genius
300 years have passed since the death of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1.07.1646-14.11.1716) - German philosopher, scientist, politician, diplomat, one of the most versatile geniuses in history.
Leibniz left his scientific heritage in mathematics, mechanics, philosophy, theology, law, history, politics, linguistics, geology, paleontology, psychology, pedagogy.
He was a lawyer, politician, diplomat, writer, science, engineer, inventor. He corresponded with almost all philosophers, scientists, politicians from contemporary Europe, he wrote about 20,000 letters to 1,100 people.
As philosopher Leibniz had three unique features. He was very astute, he found something new in well-known things, and complemented what was considered to be complete; he frequently expressed ideas on which later new science and research areas were based. He knew how to harmoniously combine something incompatible, for example ideas of new and scholastic philosophy, faith and mind. He contemplated an extremely wide range of issues - from the fundamental principles of science and philosophy to design machines and solving current issues of international policy.
Something about Leibniz`s way of life
Leipzig (1646-1667)
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born July 1, 1646, two years before the end of the Thirty Years War, which has brought great misfortune to Germany. His father, a lawyer by training, he was a professor of moral philosophy (ethics) of University of Leipzig. One of his grandfather was a professor of Roman law at the same university, another served in the mining department. At the age of six Gottfried lost his father, after whom there was a big library. In seven years, the boy began to attend city school, where from the first year of training he learned Latin. He liked to read (read in German since six years).
When Gottfried was eight years old,the illustrated "Roman history" Libya has fallen into his hands.Having only basic knowledge in Latin, he began to read the captions to illustrations and tried to understand the reading. Then he hasreturned to the beginning of the book and began to understand more. After several repetitions he has understood almost the whole book. Mother has properly estimated his son achievements and allowed him to use father's library. Many years later Leibniz recalled: "I was glad that finally saw the ancient authors, whom I knew only by name before: Cicero and Seneca, Pliny, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plato, historians of the Empire and many Latin and Greek Fathers of the Church." At age of 12 he was already an expert in Latin.
He studied logic in the last schoolclass. This subject has made a big impression on young Leibniz. He was captured by that predikament (categories) formed the general register of things. He had the idea to create something similar for judgments as well as the alphabet of human thoughts, combining sings of which it would be possible to gain new knowledge. This idea eventually becomes one of the leading in his scientific work.
In 1661 Gottfried entered in the Leipzig University. Professor of rhetoric JakobTomasi made a great impression on him, he lectured on ancient Greek and Roman literature and highly assessed Aristotle’s philosophy. Leibniz has independentlystudied some works ofF.Bekona, Y.Keplera, H.Halileya, R.Dekarta, Hobbes, P.Hassendi and other philosophers and scientists. Later he recalled that at 15-year age he had been thinking all days about the choice between Aristotle and Democritus, between scholastic and mechanistic philosophy. Then he chose mechanistic philosophy, he became a supporter of Galileo, Descartes, Hobbes philosophy, but later hecriticized it, and then during life he tried to reach compromise between aristotelizm and mekhanizm. It should also be noted that Leibniz was deeply religious man and during life he tried to combine religion and science, not allowing doubts in dogmas of the Christian faith.
Leibniz received Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1663, he defendedhis work "Metaphysical disputation about individual’s principle", which was published with Thomasia’slaudable preface. During the summer semester in 1663 he attended Eduard Veygel’s university lectures onmaths, he was a great enthusiast of idea of unlimited use of mathematics and mathematical methods in all fields. Veygel has published work "The idea of mathematical and philosophical encyclopedia",he triedto prove the Christian tenetsmathematically.
Having returned to Leipzig, Leibniz prepared and defended three disputations, having received consistently Master of Philosophy degree, Bachelor of Jurisprudence, Master of Philosophy pro loco ("for this place")in 1664-1666. The last extent gavehim the right to lecture at Leipzig University. In the first paperwork legal issues were taken up from the point of view of philosophy, in the second there was an attempt to consider legal problems in mathematical style, in the third the philosophy was combined with mathematics. In two last works it is possible to notice the influence of Veygel’s ideas. In 1666 Leibniz published "The thesis of combinatorial art", which aim was opening logic’s development, and which expressed the idea that later became development in combinatorial theory and mathematical logic.
Leipzig University refused to Leibniz to defense doctoral dissertation (as too young), he went to Nuremberg, where his relative, U.J. Leibniz, held a high post, and November 5, 1666 he brilliantly defended his doctoral thesis at theNuremberg University, located in the city Altdorf near Nuremberg. In February, 1667 he was awarded a doctorate degree of both law (civil and ecclesiastical) and offered to take the chair at the Faculty.
Mainz and Paris (1667-1676)
Leibniz declined the offer on employment department and he entered on service to Mainz Elector Johann Philipp von Schenborn in the fall of 1667. He became the assistant to the court adviser Lassera, participated in the new set of laws preparation. In 1668 he became the assistant to the former minister Mainz Elector Johann Christian von Boyneburg and joined the international policy. In particular, Leibniz wrote a memorandum, in which he justified the benefits of the German prince on the Polish throne, which Boyneburg read on the Polish Sejm during election of the king. Leibniz also worked on unification issue of Christian cults and churches, which worried those who wanted the reunification of Germany, which then was shattered into few dozen states. He studied a lot of theological literature, hoping to develop a system of dogmas acceptable for Catholics and Protestants of various denominations.
In Mainz Leibniz researched in field of natural sciences, he wrote work "The new physical hypothesis" and consisted of two parts - "The theory of abstract movement" and "The theory of specific movement." He started working on the creation of mechanical calculating machine. He started correspondence with the London Royal Society, the Paris Academy of Sciences, some scientists and philosophers.
The military threat from France was one of urgent problems for Germany. To avert this threat, Boyneburg and Leibniz and decided to develop for the French king Louis XIV the project of the gain Egypt by France. With this project Leibniz went to Paris in the autumn of 1672. Nobody reported to the Elector Sherborn about the plan.
Leibniz lived in Paris until 1676. It had huge value for his formation as scientist and philosopher. Here he communicated with thinkers - philosopher and theologian A.Arno (one of the authors of the famous textbook logically known as "The logic of Por-Royalya"), the head of philosophers Cartesians N.Malbransh, the famous Dutch physicist H.Huygens, at that time the President of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Here Leibniz has learned French in which was written many articles and letters, he began to study seriously mathematics and made his first mathematical discoveries.
In autumn 1672 he shared results of the researches concerning a way of sums finding of certain numerical ranks with Huygens. Huygens noticed that Leibniz not know math very well and advised him to read the "geometrical work," Gregory from Saint Vincent and the "endless’ arithmetic" J. Wallis - books in which in a geometric form elements of the mathematical analysis were taught.
In early 1673 Leibniz went to London as a part of the diplomatic mission of the Mainz Elector. At a meeting of the London Royal Society, he made a report on the development of mechanical calculating machine, which had to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, but wasn’t ready yet. The report made a good impression, and after his departure he was elected in members of Society. However, communication with mathematicians hasn’t brought the triumph. Leibniz learned that the method of sums finding of ranks is not new, and he generally realized his, "arrogant mathematical ignorance." Returning to Paris, he, on the advice of Huygens, studies Descartes’s "Geometry", B.Paskal’s works, including unpublished, access to which he got was due A.Arno’s recommendations.
In autumn 1673 Huygens presented to Leibniz his new book "Pendulum clock", which contained a number of his discoveries in mathematics and theoretical mechanics. The next three years Leibniz devoted mainly mathematics. He studies mathematical works, conducted a study of numerical series, algebraic equations, search of extremes and quadratures (areas of curvilinear figures), discussed mathematical problems with Huygens and young German mathematician E.V.Chirngauz. He receives short data on some results of researches of I. Newton and the English mathematicians from the secretary of the London royal society of Oldenburg. The result of this work was that in the middle of 1676 Leibnitz formulated the basic rules of differentiation and integration (see "Leibniz and Mathematics" of the books: Pogrebyssky I.B. "Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz").
Hanover (1676-1716)
In 1676 Leibniz entered on service to duke Johann Friedrich. Having left Paris, he at first went to London, where he showed his work about calculating machine. Then he visited Holland, where he met and had a long conversation with the philosopher B.Spinoza, the inventor of the microscope A.Levenguk, the mathematician Ya.Gudde.
In December 1676 Leibniz arrived in Hanover, the capital of the Duchy Brunswick-Lyuneburzky and became a librarian and court adviser of Johann-Friedrich, a year later - a government official in legal office. He offered improvements in various areas of public administration and production, from which he tried to realize the project using wind engines together with water for pumping water from mines. In December, 1679 Johann Friedrich died and his successor, Ernst August, wasn’t interested in improvements, as well as library. In 1685 he commissioned Leibniz to write a princely’s house history (which was younger branch of the Welf’s House). This was the main occupation in the Leibniz’s service till the last days of life. He treated the task creatively, he decided to write not just genealogy, but the general historical work, based on primary sources - chronicles, memoirs, decrees and other documents. For this purpose he planned a overview of archives, and in 1688 he went to Vienna, then to Italy, where he was from March, 1689 to March, 1690. There he collected a lot of material, but they required judgment and led to new searches. Actually, Leibniz was the first who took up the serious preparatory work on writing the history of Germany in the Middle Ages and became one of the first historians, who in the work used the primary sources and made their critical overview.
At the same time, Leibniz continues to work in the fields of philosophy, mathematics, physics, logic. On his initiative and with his active participation, the scientific journal "Acta eruditorum" began to appear in Leipzig, in 1682. In 1684 he published his first paper on the mathematical analysis, in 1686 an article about extent of mechanical motion appeared. He works on philosophical problems. He wrote such works as "Reflection about Metaphysics" (1686), "New system of the nature," "New experiments about human mind" (1704), "Theodicy" (1710), "Monadologiya" (1714), etc. He continued to work on the issue of unification of Christian churches, petitioned the establishment of scientific societies in Berlin, Dresden and Vienna, developed the project of Academy of Sciences for the Russian Tsar Peter I.
In 1698 the Hanover throne was succeeded by Ernst August’s son - Georg-Ludwig, who didn’t love Leibniz, always blamed him that he works a little. When Georg-Ludwig in 1714 under the name of George I became the British king, he would not take Leibniz to the London, and ordered him to remain in Hanover and finish Velf’s history.
14 November, 1716 Leibniz died in Hanover.
Scientific heritage of Leibniz
Mathematics. Together with I.Newton (and regardless of him), Leibniz was the founder of mathematical analysis - differential and integral calculus, and he made a decisive contribution to creation of this field of mathematics. There are some techniques for solving problems on carrying out tangents, search of extremes, determining of the area of curved shapes Leibniz raised in a single system, explored fundamental questions differential and integral calculus, proposed today adopted symbols and terminology. He has entered the disignations dx, d2x, dy / dx, ∫, etc., coined the term "differential", "differential calculus", "integral calculus" "differential equation", "function", "variable", "constant "" coordinates "," abscissa "," algebraic and transcendental curves ", etc. Leibniz solved a number of famous problems, in particular, the shape of the curve of fastest descent and the chain line. He corresponded with Swiss brothers Jacob and Johan Bernoulli, French P.Varinon and G.F.Lopital, other mathematicians that contributed rapid development of mathematical analysis in continental Europe. Leibniz got many other results, in particular, removed a row for the number π, described the binary system and predicted the prospects of its applications in computing.
Into philosophy, Leibniz entered truth’s separation by origin into the truths of reason and the truths of fact. He criticized the philosophical schools extended at that time - Cartesians and sensualist. Sensualist’s principle is "There is nothing in the mind, which would not have been in sensation," Leibniz added: "except the mind." If Cartesians considered the extent (physicality) is the unique attribute of matter and considered it as a passive substance (from where removed the law of inertia), the Leibniz argued that one corporality cann’t explain the corporality interaction of bodies. In his representations, the world consists of monads - the single entities possessing internal activity in which matter and movement are inseparably linked corporal and incorporeal (spiritual).
In the logic Leibniz formulated the law of sufficient reason, put forward the idea of logic’s mathematization and creation of logical calculus. In mechanics, Leibniz, near cartesian number of movement (mv), entered a new movement’s measure, "manpower" (mv2), and formulated "conservation law of manpower", which was a step to the energy conservation law. He developed a theory of resistance of beams to bending – entered Hooke's law and the moment of inertia of beams into the calculations. In geology, Leibniz one of the first suggested the evolution of the Earth and its existence in the past fiery liquid state. In biology, Leibniz entered the idea of the integrity of organisms - their inability to reduce to a set of mechanisms. In psychology, he put forward the concept of unconscious "small perceptions" and developed the theory of unconscious mental life. In linguistics, he proposed the idea of the historical origin of languages, gave their genealogical classification, developed the theory of the origin of names.
In pedagogy, Leibniz formulated the principle of student’s independence, stressed that the teacher has to teach the student to study and develop in him the need for constant updating of knowledge. He criticized Lock’s regulations about human soul as a "clean board" (tabula rasa) and compared the child’s soul with the marble block, which beauty, hidden in streaks, only master can reveal.
Leibniz also expressed interesting ideas on the organization of education, medicine, library science, he is called one of the founders of heuristics.
Destiny of scientific heritage
During lifetime Leibniz published only one major philosophical work - "Theodicy" (God’s Justification), and deserved reputation as a defender of religion. Voltaire mocked the optimism of his philosophy in the story "Candida, or Optimism". The British accused Leibniz that he stole a method of mathematical analysis in Newton. At the same time D.Didro wrote in "Encyclopedia" that Leibniz for Germany was the one who for Greece were Platon, Aristotle and Archimedes together. Eventually, when earlier unpublished Leibniz’s works and letters began to be published, the respect to him as a thinker grew. Especially highly he began to be respected in the XX century. B.Rassel said about Leibniz so: "He was a founder of mathematical logic, which importance he knew even when it wasn’t clear." N.Viner in his book "Cybernetics" wrote: "If I had to choose in the annals of the history of science of the patron saint of cybernetics, then I would choose Leibniz."
Today many scientists are exploring Leibniz’s scientific heritage, including his manuscripts. These researches have led to surprising discovery: a description of the Leibniz’s mechanical encryption machine was found, according to which in 2014 this machine was created (see. http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/8499/ and http://blog.hnf.de / herr-leibniz-und-seine-chiffriermaschine /). In 2007, Leibniz’s manuscripts, including letters were included in the World heritage list of UNESCO. It is carried out digitization of his works and manuscripts, it is created many websites devoted to Leibniz and his scientific heritage. I think, over time we learn a lot about Leibniz and his ideas.