History of the Origins of World Philosophy, Seventeenth Century Western Philosophy NO. 6: Leibniz 2

Seventeenth Century Western Philosophy No. 6: Leibniz 2

In addition, as a versatile expert, his focus on science and technology has reached an almost boundless level. His biographer said, "Leibniz never gave up any opportunity to advocate other beloved plans," and at one point he believed that "by introducing the production of silk fabrics, it is possible to revitalize the German economy." He personally conducted experiments in the yard, using mulberry trees grown from tree species imported from Italy.". "He also made other proposals for Berlin, such as a public health system, a fire alarm service system, a ground drainage plan, and a steam fountain; he was also invited to direct the design of a new palace and garden; he proposed the construction of street lamps in Vienna, the construction of a national bank and an isolation ward for plague patients, and so on." So much cluttered and specialized content is not to be said to be done, but to think that in general, people with only professional knowledge - must inflate their heads. Mr. Leibniz not only thought about it, but also made a plan, and experimented with some of the content himself. Leibniz dabbled in so much technology and so proficient that it was no wonder that his German compatriots at the time said that he was "himself an academy of sciences."

　　Leibniz's contribution to the cause of science was not only that he was able to lead the way, but also to do better than others— he was a top figure in more than one professional field. At the same time, he is also a leader and manager of an outstanding scientific career. He was the director of the library, a competent curator, and soon became an expert in bibliography; he was the president of the Academy of Sciences, and he was also an excellent dean, who made his academy of sciences the most influential scientific research site in Europe and the world. From 1695 onwards, he lobbied for the establishment of such an academy of sciences in Berlin, persevering until 1700 when he received strong support from the powerful.

　　The 17th century was a golden age, or the first golden age, in the development of the Scientific Community in the West. During this period, several well-known societies played a great role in the development of human science and technology, including the Académie de La Cimento, founded in Florence in 1657, the Royal Society, which began to operate weekly in 1645, and the French Academy of Sciences, founded in 1666. The fourth, then, is the Berlin Academy of Sciences, founded by Leibniz, which is considered by historians of science to be "the only German scientific society that can stand on a par with the Royal Society or the French Academy of Sciences."

　　Leibniz must not only run an academy of sciences, but also make the Berlin Academy of Sciences a scientific research unit full of creativity and scientific research strength. He stressed the importance of properly teaching subjects such as mathematics, physics, biology, geography and history. He was anxious to replace Latin with German as the medium of education. If this step had been taken, knowledge would have spread throughout the country, and the union of language and antiquity would have been broken in Germany, just as they had been broken in England and France by the influence of the Chinese writings of Bacon and Descartes. He argued that "this society should be composed of a limited number of scholars whose duties are to document experiments, to communicate and cooperate with other scholars and foreign scientific societies, to establish a large library, and to provide advice on issues related to business and technology." This association shall have the right to approve in Germany only those books that meet their standards. How rich these plans and ideas are in the sense of the times and the sense of internationality, as a Chinese scholar, I still feel emotional when I read them to this day.

　　Unfortunately, his Berlin Academy of Sciences did not succeed as he wished, but his enthusiasm for running the Academy of Sciences grew. He was determined to make the scientific community grow all over the world, and he proposed the establishment of academies of science to Poland, Russia, Austria and China, and he was always enthusiastic and busy with it, regardless of the attitude of the authorities in these countries.

　　What is particularly surprising is that the great philosopher and great scientist was also a visionary political strategist and diplomat, and he was equally devoted to both of the roles he had assumed. He lived in a time when Germany was fragmented and full of contradictions. Its western neighbor, France, under the rule of Louis XIV, was a powerful country and a growing threat to the countries of Central Europe. So he, or someone else, came up with a strategy called balance of power. The immediate purpose of this strategy is to mobilize Louis XIV to attack North Africa, thereby reducing the pressure on the countries of Central Europe, and its deeper meaning is otherwise said.

　　Leibniz said this, and the mission to France fell on his head. When they proposed it, "balance of power" may have been just a strategy, but looking at the vicissitudes of world history for more than 300 years, "balance of power" has become a strategy of great development significance for the course of human political history, which cannot but be lamented by those professional diplomats and politicians. Although Louis XIV did not accept their specific plan at the time, when Napoleon rediscovered it, the great military man was still chafed that this grand dream had appeared before his action.

　　And so on, it is no wonder that Leibniz's researchers have to express such an exclamation: "It can be said that Leibniz lived not only one life, but several lifetimes." As a diplomat, historian, philosopher, and mathematician, he accomplished enough in every field for an ordinary person to do for a lifetime. So, how did it come to this? Let's look first at Leibniz's brief biography.

　　Leibniz was born on 1 July 1646 in Leipzig, Germany. His father was a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Leipzig, and his mother was a devout believer. He was unfortunate at an early age, and his father died when he was 6 years old. Although he was born in a university professor's house, his early education did not receive direct help from his father.

　　Fortunately, his father had a lot of books, and he was born precocious, and these books became his friends of enlightenment. As an adult, he also called himself a "self-learner." In terms of his erudition, this is true; in the case of his early education, it is not bad at all. When he was 18, his mother also died. But by then, he had already shown his talent.

　　Leibniz entered school at the age of 8, fully mastered Latin by the age of 12, and later mastered Greek by his own efforts. At 14 o'clock he entered the University of Leipzig to study law. But he had a wide range of interests, excellent energy, and knowledge that was more than law. As soon as he enters school, he can keep up with the standard second-year curriculum.

　　His studies include philosophy, rhetoric, mathematics, and Hebrew. He himself was very interested in the works of the great philosophers of the time such as Bacon, Campanella, Kepler, and Galileo, and drew a lot of inspiration from them.

　　Not only did he have much experience with these new learnings, but he was also very interested in the traditional disciplines taught in the school, such as scholastic philosophy and aristotle writings, and he was very precocious in his thinking, and he had great ambitions at a young age. At the age of 15, he proposed a reform of traditional logic, and in his reform ideas, he also revealed his later buds about ordinary symbolic language or ordinary teaching.

　　Leibniz was indeed a child prodigy. He mastered Latin at the age of 12, entered university at the age of 14, and passed the thesis defense at the age of 17. At the age of 20, he met the academic criteria for applying for a doctorate, and it was only because the professors in charge of the degree at the University of Leipzig were very jealous of his achievements that they refused to award him a doctorate on the grounds that he was too young, because he was young and did not give a degree, which was inevitably suspected of being unreasonable. But what the University of Leipzig is reluctant to do, the University of Altdorf in Nuremberg is absolutely willing to do. Not only did they agree to award him the title of Doctor immediately, but they also hired him as a professor at the university. This time, it was Leibniz's turn to refuse. He did not accept the position of professor, not because he was angry with the University of Artdorf, but because he had realized that, with his knowledge and pursuits, the world of the university was too narrow and too unfree for him. Although he did not directly announce these reasons, his later actions proved that he did not dislike school but did not like the academic life that limited his learning.

　　He left Leipzig in 1666, where he lectured his thesis at the University of Nuremberg. But being a full-time legal scholar or lawyer is not what he wants. At that time, there was no way to find a better position, but soon he was introduced to the Archbishop of Mainz. The bishop was also an elector of Germany. He was very worried about the fragmentation of Germany, and he hoped that after 30 years of war (1618-1648), Germany would be able to adjust its internal contradictions, and he also hoped that the foreign powers, mainly Louis XIV of France, would not come east. And leibniz, who was a wise man, could fall in love with almost anything, and once he fell in love with something, he could come up with something different. The bishop, with his own wisdom and his colleagues, proposed the famous "balance of power" plan. The plan, in short, was to persuade the French to attack Egypt, so he was sent to France.

Leibniz came to France in 1672 at the age of 24 and lived in France for 4 years, which was a golden part of his life. Without this experience, Germany would still have gained a polymath, and the world might have lost a philosopher. At that time, Paris was actually the cultural center of the European continent and one of the most civilized regions in the world. When Leibniz arrived in Paris, the French did not care about his plans; but he was crooked, and the diplomatic gains were minimal and the academic gains were enormous. It was in Paris that he became acquainted with many famous scholars. Among these scholars were the philosopher Malebrans, the philosophical theologian Arnolds, and the great mathematician Huygens. Malebrances was the successor to Cartesian philosophy, and Arnold's thought contained both Cartesian wisdom and a wealth of theological knowledge. Their thoughts were mainly descartes' thoughts that had a major impact on Leibniz. Moreover, with Leibniz's wisdom and brilliance, from the very beginning he was trying to find a way of thinking that transcended not only them but also their predecessors—even though this search may not be in a state of complete self-realization. It is said that the idea of "single theory" that he attaches the most importance to germinates at this stage. Since, in order to reconcile the contradictions between the various religious denominations within Germany, it was necessary to find a way of thinking that could be agreed upon by different doctrines, and with the wisdom of an outstanding young philosopher, he came up with the monotheism, even though his approach, in the eyes of traditional religious people, was no better than The Cartesian method.

　　Leibniz's greatest achievement in Paris was that he met Huygens, who soon discovered that the young German was indeed a mathematical genius. Leibniz asked Huygens to teach him math lessons, and Huygens happily agreed. Through the latter's help and guidance, Leibniz truly saw his own talent in mathematics. And once he used his heart, he quickly proved himself to be a student who was stronger in mathematics than his husband. In fact, with his type of knowledge, he could not and would never be willing to be any Huygensian scholar– he had to have his own creation. Before he met Huygens, he had built his famous computer. After knowing Huygens, but in a few years, he sorted out his "ordinary symbol" ideas more specifically and systematically. In August 1679, he wrote to his husband that he had discovered a "new symbolic language completely different from algebra, which is of great benefit to reproduce in the mind precisely and naturally (without graphics) everything dependent on imagination". Six years earlier, in 1673, he had been forced to interrupt his mathematics courses and go to England as an attaché of the Elector. But the trip had the same great ideological gain. In London, he attended a meeting of the Royal Society and also demonstrated his computer capable of performing four operations and opening squares. The most important thing is that he also got acquainted with a group of mathematicians represented by Boyle and others. This group of mathematicians surprised him to find that everything he knew about mathematics was understood here. Instead, they told him about mathematical ideas and discoveries that he had never heard of before. In particular, the numerical method of infinite series led to a strong interest in the subject. This played an important role in his later discovery of infinitesimal computation and the algebraic method of inventing calculus.

　　Leibniz was a multitasking genius, and in England, which was more advanced than France, he naturally did his best to meet more of the people he longed to meet, including the famous Mr. Hobbes. Unfortunately, Hoon was too old and his mind was not very obedient, so the meeting had to be abandoned. 2 months later, before he returned to Paris, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society.

　　Back in Paris, he devoted his time to the study of mathematics, but he was heavily involved in his official duties, and most of his leisure time was used. Around 1675-1676, he discovered the principles of calculus on his own and listed some of the basic formulas.

　　In 1676 he returned to Germany to work in Nohanville as the royal librarian of the Duke of Brunswick. On his way to the post, he made a special detour to the Netherlands to visit Spinoza, the most famous philosopher in Europe at that time. The two spent about a month together. He was inspired by Spinoza, and at his insistence, Spinoza showed him the manuscript of his unpublished book Ethics. Unfortunately, Si Gong met a genius, but he never met a gentleman.

　　Bounded by 1676, Leibniz's lifelong academic activities can be divided into two stages. Before 1676, it was a period of rapid formation of his academic thought, especially mathematical thought, and Leibniz's thought in this period was extremely active, and many of the major academic discoveries that affected his life were at this time. The 40 years after 1676 were a period of continued academic discussion. During this time his ideas began to mature; his influence grew; his main energies had been concentrated on philosophy; his main activity was to form scientific societies; his main methods of communication and research were decades of correspondence with friends and colleagues; and much of his precious time was spent repairing the history of the Brunswick family.

　　In 1684, he published the results of his calculus research, which led to a controversy with Newton, which soon turned into a serious war between the mainland and the British mathematical community.

　　In 1690, after the publication of the English empiricist philosopher Locke's Treatise on Human Reason, he began to criticize Locke's philosophical ideas, but Locke was dismissive of his criticism. His masterpiece, The New Treatise on Human Reason, devoted to opposing Locke and summarizing his philosophical ideas, was thus completed. However, with the exception of a small number of them published in dissertation form, the rest remained until 49 years after his death, when they were published in his collection of latin and French writings.

　　In 1700 he became president of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

　　In 1710, he published his first philosophical work, Theosophism.

　　Since then, he has worked hard for various scientific, technological, public undertakings, and for Brunswick's family history.

　　His major works, in addition to the above-mentioned "New Theory of Human Reason" and "Theosophical Theory", also include "Metaphysical Discussion", "New System" and "List Theory".

　　It is said that the evening view of Leibniz is bleak. With the death of two of Brunswick's masters, he lost his former reliance. When his new employer went to England to be king, he was sent to the Hanover Library, when he was 68 years old. Two years later, he died alone.

　　Looking back on his life, his academic career is colorful, his academic contributions are even more outstanding, and his ending is very bleak. He never married, and died with only his secretary and coachman by his side.

　　And people have an even worse opinion of him. His biographer wrote: "It was inevitable that Leibniz was also unpopular in his homeland, and he had to pay the price for his universalist views on political and religious issues. For a broader unity, he was indeed prepared to sacrifice the narrow interests of his own state and party, which led him to rise up against the nationalism and regionalism of his time. Sadly, he spent his old age among those who saw him as a tolerant traitor. But even as a foreigner living in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, or London, he may not live better in his later years. Why?

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