Gottfried Leibniz

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GOTTFRIED LEIBNIZ
The mathematician that I chose to write about is Gottfried Leibniz. He was a master of his field and wasn’t really highly respected.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born on July 1( June 21, old style), 1646 in Leipzig, Germany. “Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz had a deep conviction that all mathematical and scientific concepts could be derived from logic, and as a result he became the first serious student of symbolic logic;” “one difference between symbolic logic and Aristotelian logic is that in symbolic logic, as its name implies, symbols usually letters represent written statements”( Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=48789 ).
Leibniz was a political advisor and mathematician, as well as, a metaphysician and logician. He was also known for his invention of the differential and integral calculus. He was eventually known for his theodicy ( which means he thought his world is the best world God could have created). Many philosophers were skeptical of his beliefs and produced a number of parodies to mock his beliefs. One such parody was “Candide” by Voltaire. He worked from the belief that philosophy and theology were incapable of contradiction. He also believed that it wasn’t possible to have evil in the world if God was here. Leibniz quoted, “I argue that reality is composed of an infinite number of monads,

immaterial and indivisible substances of which no two are exactly alike.” Leibniz also said, “I think that they were conscious sources of spiritual energy which, to varying degrees mirror the universe, however, monads may be conscious but only some monads are self-conscious.”
“A further point of Leibniz’s philosophy was the distinction between necessary and contingent propositions; the former he called truths of reason, which are known to be true because of the law of no contradiction.”( http://atheism.about.com/library/glossary/gen...