Talk:Gottfried Leibniz

Contents

1 Optimism and Monads 2 Spelling 3 Feedback as a unifying concept 4 Characters 5 Leipzig/Altdorf 6 Biography Section

Optimism and Monads

The following was previously part of the main page:

The best of all possible web pages,we have WindowlessMonads as well as Monads with a view.

Yet, in the 'best of all possible web pages' Monads can well afford not to have windows: They know anyway what is going on elsewhere, or atually, they have always known it. (By means of that 'PrestabilizedHarmony' Leibniz avoids the problem to explain how mind affects matter and vice versa. "Car je ne trouvois aucun moyen d'expliquer comment le corps fait passer quelque chose dans l'ame , ou vice versa, ny comment une substance peut communiquer avec une autre substance creee." Systeme Nouveau de la Nature etc.(12). Descartes' followers had introduced the "Systeme des Causes occasionelles" to solve the problem: God creates movements according to our will to move, and thoughts according to movements of exterior things. The idea of a God permanently busy to maintain the harmony of the universe seemed much less attractive to Leibniz then the harmony established once for all.)

Can anyone make any sense out of this? There seems to be actual content in the last paragraph, but i'm not nearly competent to sort it out :-/ --Anders Törlind

Spelling

Leibnitz (the correct spelling) was born in Leipzig. That´s why he can´t be a Sorb, because the area of the Sorbs does not cover this City. I say it, because I also was born in Leipzig, but my roots (on my mother´s side) are in the Lausitz (the eastern part of Saxony and the centre of the Sorbs) Angelika Lindner 21:36 Dec 31, 2002 (UTC)

Why do you think that Leibnitz is the correct spelling? Leibniz seems to be used overwhelmingly, even on German pages. AxelBoldt 21:28 Jan 4, 2003 (UTC)

And why do you think, that the spelling on theses German pages is correct? Angelika Lindner 16:48 Jan 15, 2003 (UTC)

Angelika: First of all, because Leibniz was German? His signature only suggests a Latin-like spelling: Gotfridu Gvilhelmu Leibnitics (?) Also your argument that Leipzig was no Sorb is not very convincing... as you say: you yourself have Sorb roots and were born in Leipzig? Rinke Hoekstra 8:15 Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Feedback as a unifying concept

My source for Leibnitz's discovery of the role of feedback as a unifying concept is page 79, Automation, Friend or Foe?, R. H. Macmillan, Cambridge: At the University Press, 1956. Fred Bauder 13:54 Jan 24, 2003 (UTC)

Currently, the sentence about feedback is in the wrong place. Or does it have anything to do with theodicy? I'd move it out, but it has not enough content for a section on its own, and I don't have the book in front of me. How do people think about simply deleting it? Sebastian 00:09, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

Characters

``Characters were, with Leibniz any written signs, and "real" characters were those which -- as in the Chinese ideography -- represent ideas directly, and not the words for them. Among real characters, some simply serve to represent ideas, and some serve for reasoning. Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphics and the symbols of astronomers and chemists belong to the first category...''

Neither Chinese nor Egyptian characters are purely ideographic systems (see ideogram, Chinese character, Egyptian hieroglyph.) In particular, a large number of Chinese characters are composed of radicals used mostly for their sound and with little relation to the overall meaning of the character. --Rynelm 12:48, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Leipzig/Altdorf

The change is more or less self-evident; any of the standard biographies of Leibniz will confirm that the doctorate was awarded by Altdorf, not Leipzig; reference could be made also to the Encyclopædia Britannica.

Biography Section

I inserted the second-hand "Career and Controvery" section because, other than the Education section, the article contained no biographical narrative. The Rouse Ball appears often in Leibniz Web searches, and it provides good coverage of the authorship controversies, especially with Newton. (It's from 1908, so I assume it's public domain.) Aside from an observation on his personality, though, there's still not much there about his personal life. Also, it's a bit non-NPOV, and I've edited out the first-person comments. If anyone can do an update, be my guest. Until then, this one should suffice well. — J M Rice 23:46, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)