Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German pronunciation: [ˈlaɪpnɪts]; also Leibnitz or von Leibniz; 1 July 1646 [OS: 21 June] – 14 November 1716) was a German philosopher, polymath and mathematician who wrote primarily in Latin and French.
He occupies a grand place in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. He invented infinitesimal calculus independently of Newton, and his notation has been in general use since then. He also invented the binary system, foundation of virtually all modern computer architectures. In philosophy, he is mostly remembered for optimism, i.e. his conclusion that our universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one God could have made. He was, along with René Descartes and Baruch Spinoza, one of the three greatest 17th-century rationalists and anticipates modern logic and analysis, but his philosophy also looks back to the scholastic tradition, in which logic was an important part. Leibniz also made major contributions to physics and technology, and anticipated notions that surfaced much later in biology, medicine, geology, probability theory, psychology, linguistics, and information science. He also wrote on politics, law, ethics, theology, history, philosophy and philology, even occasional verse. His contributions to this vast array of subjects are scattered in journals and in tens of thousands of letters and unpublished manuscripts. As of 2009, there is no complete edition of Leibniz's writings.[1]
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The Associated Press
... and to Italian philosopher Paolo Rossi for his studies on the history of science and on philosophers including Francis Bacon and Gottfried Leibniz . ...
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