Leibniz An Intellectual Biography [Paperback]

This intellectual biography surveys Leibniz'ss interests and offers a portrait of a unique thinker, identifying the master project that inspired his huge range of endeavors.In this first intellectual biography of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (16461716), Maria Rosa Antognazza surveys the full range of the philosophers interests and activities and offers a unified portrait of a unique thinker, identifying the master project that inspired and coordinated his huge range of apparently miscellaneous endeavors.In this first intellectual biography of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (16461716), Maria Rosa Antognazza surveys the full range of the philosophers interests and activities and offers a unified portrait of a unique thinker, identifying the master project that inspired and coordinated his huge range of apparently miscellaneous endeavors.Of all the thinkers of the century of genius that inaugurated modern philosophy, none lived an intellectual life more rich and varied than Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (16461716). Trained as a jurist and employed as a counsellor, librarian, and historian, he made famous contributions to logic, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics, yet viewed his own aspirations as ultimately ethical and theological, and married these theoretical concerns with politics, diplomacy, and an equally broad range of practical reforms: juridical, economic, administrative, technological, medical, and ecclesiastical. Maria Rosa Antognazzas pioneering biography not only surveys the full breadth and depth of these theoretical interests and practical activities, it also weaves them together for the first time into a unified portrait of this unique thinker and the world from which he came. At the centre of the huge range of Leibnizs apparently miscellaneous endeavours, Antognazza reveals a single master project lending unity to his extraordinarily multifaceted lifes work. Throughout the vicissitudes of his long life, Leibniz tenaciously pursued the dream of a systemlĪ