Gottfried wilhelm leibniz cause of death

He made deep and important contributions to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of religion, as well as mathematics, physics, geology, jurisprudence, and history. The aim of this entry is primarily to introduce Leibniz's life and summarize and explicate his views in the realms of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical theology.

Leibniz was born in Leipzig on July 1, , two years prior to the end of the Thirty Years War, which had ravaged central Europe. His family was Lutheran and belonged to the educated elite on both sides: his father, Friedrich Leibniz, was a jurist and professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Leipzig, and his mother, Catharina Schmuck, the daughter of a professor of Law.

Leibniz's father died in , and his subsequent education was directed by his mother, uncle, and according to his own reports, himself. He was given access to his father's extensive library at a young age and proceeded to pore over its contents, particularly the volumes of ancient history and the Church Fathers.

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In Leibniz began his formal university education at the University of Leipzig. While in Leipzig, Leibniz met Jacob Thomasius, who would have an important influence on Leibniz and who supervised Leibniz's first philosophical treatise On the Principle of Individuation De principio individui. It was Thomasius more than anyone else perhaps who instilled in Leibniz a great respect for ancient and medieval philosophy.

Indeed, one of the leitmotifs of Leibniz's philosophical career is his desire to reconcile the modern philosophy with the philosophy of Aristotle, Plato, the Scholastics and the Renaissance humanist tradition. After receiving his baccalaureate from Leipzig, he continued his studies at the University of Altdorf. Although Leibniz was offered a position on the faculty of Law upon the completion of his Doctorate of Law in , he had a different future in mind.

While in the court of the Elector, Leibniz composed a series of works in philosophical theology, the Catholic Demonstrations , which are another manifestation of Leibniz's lifelong irenicism: in this case, in their attempt to provide a basis and justification for the reconciliation of Protestantism and Catholicism.

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Leibniz also turned his mind to natural philosophy, having finally been able to study some of the works of the moderns; the result was a two-part treatise in , the New Physical Hypothesis Hypothesis physica nova. These works, however, were not likely to impress their audiences, for, given his circumstances, Leibniz could not but produce amateurish works in the field.

This changed, however, in , when Leibniz was given the single most important opportunity of his life: the Elector of Mainz sent him on a diplomatic mission to Paris, the center of learning and science at the time.