CoPhi: Goffried Leibniz: The Great Philosopher!

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Goffried Leibniz: The Great Philosopher!

Previously during my last post we discovered to philosophers Goffried Leibniz and Voltaire. I discussed their way of thinking on the Amazing topic of “The Best of All Possible Worlds.”

Voltaire

Leibniz

What intrigued me the most was Leibniz! Who is he, What exactly made him famous or well known today?

Born from 1646-1716, He was The Godfather (Founder) of Calculus (In my opinion), He was a historian, a poet, a legal theorist, a diplomat, a cryptographer, and a philosopher who thought it possible to reconcile theology with metaphysics and science. He dabbled in many fields such as religion and science. It was kind of like a no brainer as to why his mind raced for questionable thoughts or theories.

His imagination sparked quite a line of curiosity when he made the statement after his death claiming, " This world was the best of all that are possible." He wasn't just ordinary, he was the type of man whose optimism was carefully looked at.

One of his greatest works," Theodicy" brought forth the question that many would eventually ask: How God can be good and just and all-powerful if evil and injustice and suffering exist?

Leibniz defines “world” as “the whole succession and the whole agglomeration of all existent things, lest it be said that several worlds could have existed in different times and different places. For they must needs be reckoned all together as one world or, if you will, as one Universe.”

He believed that there were equally possible worlds at one time. With creating this world, this was the first cause (Infinite in all ways) as stated. This included power, wisdom and goodness.

Leibniz also made it very clear that he didn't mean the best world would have been composed of the best parts but more so of the kinder things, "The part of a beautiful thing is not always beautiful."

You are probably asking yourself what does that mean? Well simply put by Leibniz, "

"It is true that one may imagine possible worlds without sin and without unhappiness, and one could make some like Utopian … romances: but these same worlds again would be very inferior to ours in goodness, there is no rational creature without some organic body, and there is no created spirit entirely detached from matter, subject to pain and decay. To be free and to be both spirit and matter is good, even if this condition allows for evil and unhappiness. For sometimes an evil brings forth a good, and it is a false maxim that the happiness of rational creatures is the sole aim of God.”

I believe that trying to understand Leibniz way of thinking is more like everyone else's who may be Christian or just searching for answers. Leibniz seemed to care more about improvement and living life with knowing this could be the best of all other worlds. In my opinion it's about living life to the fullest , with no regrets. If i could go back into time and have a full interview with Leibniz, i feel like i would be enlighten by listening to his ideas and thoughts. Going deeper into what he thought of our world, and would he want to at least change anything!

Work cited:

Atlantis https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-optimistic-science-of-leibniz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN8EV5yxcUQ

https://iep.utm.edu/leib-met/

1 comment:

Haven WordMay 5, 2021 at 12:09 AM
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The author of "William James's Springs of Delight: The Return to Life, (VU Press, 2001) " Phil Oliver specializes in the American philosophical tradition with supporting interests in applied ethics (particularly Bioethics and Environmental Ethics), Anglo-American literature, history, humanism, naturalism, science and exploration, peripatetic ("walking & talking") philosophy, baseball, cycling, swimming, the pursuit of happiness, and the perpetual dawn of day. One of his favorite MTSU courses is The Philosophy of Happiness. He is academic advisor for minors in American Culture (American Studies), and a founding board member and current Vice-President of the William James Society. You can follow him on Threads, Instagram (@OSOPHER), Substack (philoliver.substack.com) and on his blogsite Up@dawn (jposopher.blogspot.com) but of course, as Immanuel Kant and Monty Python's Brian Cohen agreed: You don't have to follow anybody. "Sapere aude," have the courage to think for yourself. But not by yourself. Good philosophy collaborates and converses.

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Admirable profession

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I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion... "

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I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

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― Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

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― William Blake

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“I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
==

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”

“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

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“We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

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― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

==
On the other hand, eastern enlightenment...

“Not thinking about anything is Zen. Once you know this, walking, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is Zen.”
― Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

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