Leibniz's Monadology

[Sethomas]

I'm a ways into this right now, and I absolutely love his work. My own theory is very very similar to his, so it just makes me curious as to why he's been overlooked so much. The central problem in his thinking is that he posits the soul as having only passive abilities of perception, and thus he has to make such contortions of logic as "the evil of Judas is more than balanced by the good of the world". Well, I agree with that, but Judas remains SOL for being predetermined to betray Christ with no real culpability attached to his own soul.

Anyone else have thoughts on Leibniz?

[ScruU2wice]

He didn't invent calculus. A panel of judges which included newton proved that..

[ziggytrix]

no, not really.

[Helm]

not that I can be sure, but the concept of a dualistic soul sounds really dodgy to me, so I guess anyone who builds on that doesn't really do anything for me

[Sethomas]

Well, Leibniz wasn't satisfied with Cartesian dualism, so he decided that the soul and consciousness were totally separate and only incidentally agreed with each other due to divine design.

[Helm]

yeah well D. Design, meet O. Razor.

[kahljorn]

YES.

[Sethomas]

Well, yes, that was a huge reason for why I disagree with Leibniz on his ultimate conclusions. His methodology and line or reasoning, however, is very worthwhile nevertheless.

[Helm]

Yes, and that could very well be that his arguments are well formed, and should be inspected for the enjoyment of just that, but currently I'm more interested in arguments that are both validly formed, and also relate to reality in a more tangible way. This means I do not bother with ontology a lot.

[ScruU2wice]

Originally Posted by ziggytrix

no, not really.

"In 1711, Leibniz appealed to the Royal Society of London, of which he was a member and Newton was President, to clear up these accusations. In public, Newton pretended to have nothing to do with the scandal, remaining silent about it. But, it seems that he secretly was the motivating force behind the accusations. The Royal Society appointed a commission, and essentially found Leibniz guilty of plagiarism."

http://www.jimloy.com/calc/newtleib.htm

See leibniz was guilty of plagiarism

[ziggytrix]

I was talking to Seth.

[ScruU2wice]

oh...


It's just one of those things that really pisses me off so I'm ready to jump on it any chance I get. and I don't really get too many chances.

[kellychaos]

I see calculus as a natural progression in mathematics. Somebody at some time would have developed it. They were nibbling at it for years waiting for someone to put it all together ... with logical, verifiable mathematical proofs, of course.

[Ant10708]

32.33...repeating of course