Search results
In this regard, a 1669 invitation from Duke John Frederick of Brunswick to visit Hanover proved to have been fateful. Leibniz had declined the invitation, but had begun corresponding with the duke in 1671. In 1673, the duke offered Leibniz the post of counsellor.
- Overview
- The Hanoverian period of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Leibniz continued his work but was still without an income-producing position. By October 1676, however, he had accepted a position in the employment of John Frederick, the duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. John Frederick, a convert to Catholicism from Lutheranism in 1651, had become duke of Hanover in 1665. He appointed Leibniz librarian, but, beginning in February 1677, Leibniz solicited the post of councillor, which he was finally granted in 1678.
Trying to make himself useful in all ways, Leibniz proposed that education be made more practical and that academies be founded; he worked on hydraulic presses, windmills, lamps, submarines, clocks, and a wide variety of mechanical devices; and he devised a means of perfecting carriages and experimented with phosphorus. He also developed a water pump run by windmills, which ameliorated the exploitation of the mines of the Harz Mountains, and he worked in these mines as an engineer frequently from 1680 to 1685. Leibniz is considered to be among the creators of geology because of the observations he compiled there, including the hypothesis that Earth was at first molten. These many occupations did not stop his work in mathematics: in March 1679 he perfected the binary system of numeration (i.e., using two as a base), and at the end of the same year he proposed the basis for analysis situs, now known as general topology, a branch of mathematics that deals with selected properties of collections of related physical or abstract elements. He was also working on his dynamics and his philosophy, which was becoming increasingly anti-Cartesian. At this point, Duke John Frederick died on January 7, 1680, and his brother, Ernest Augustus I, succeeded him.
France was growing more intolerant at home—from 1680 to 1682 there were harsh persecutions of the Protestants that paved the way for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes on October 18, 1685—and increasingly menacing on its frontiers, for as early as 1681, despite the reigning peace, Louis XIV took Strasbourg and laid claim to 10 cities in Alsace. France was thus becoming a real danger to the empire, which had already been shaken on the east by a Hungarian revolt and by the advance of the Turks, who had been stopped only by the victory of John III Sobieski, king of Poland, at the siege of Vienna in 1683. Leibniz served both his prince and the empire as a patriot. He suggested to his prince a means of increasing the production of linen and proposed a process for the desalinization of water; he recommended classifying the archives and wrote, in both French and Latin, a violent pamphlet against Louis XIV.
During this same period Leibniz continued to perfect his metaphysical system through research into the notion of a universal cause of all being, attempting to arrive at a starting point that would reduce reasoning to an algebra of thought. He also continued his developments in mathematics; in 1681 he was concerned with the proportion between a circle and a circumscribed square and, in 1684, with the resistance of solids. In the latter year he published Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis (“New Method for the Greatest and the Least”), which was an exposition of his differential calculus.
Leibniz’s noted Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et Ideis (Reflections on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas) appeared at this time and defined his theory of knowledge: things are not seen in God—as Nicolas Malebranche suggested—but rather there is an analogy, a strict relation, between God’s ideas and those of humans, an identity between God’s logic and humans’. It was also in this work that Leibniz criticized Descartes’s version of the ontological argument for God’s existence and provided a version of his own. In February 1686 Leibniz wrote his Discours de métaphysique (Discourse on Metaphysics), which contains the first explicit formulation of his principle of the identity of indiscernibles (it is impossible for two numerically distinct objects to have all of the same properties). In the March publication of Acta, he disclosed his dynamics in a piece entitled Brevis Demonstratio Erroris Memorabilis Cartesii et Aliorum Circa Legem Naturae (“Brief Demonstration of the Memorable Error of Descartes and Others About the Law of Nature”). A further development of Leibniz’s views, revealed in a text written in 1686 but long unpublished, was his generalization concerning propositions that in every true affirmative proposition, whether necessary or contingent, the predicate is contained in the notion of the subject. This notion seemed to imply determinism and thus to undermine human freedom—as did Leibniz’s conception of monads, the soul-like individual substances that make up the universe, as in a sense “containing” all of their pasts and futures. Leibniz’s solution was to argue that, even though each monad already contains all of its future actions, God can create those actions as “free.”
In 1685 Leibniz was named historian for the house of Brunswick and, on this occasion, Hofrat (“court adviser”). His job was to prove, by means of genealogy, that the princely house had its origins in the house of Este, an Italian princely family, which would allow Hanover to lay claim to a ninth electorate. In search of these documents, Leibniz began traveling in November 1687. Going by way of southern Germany, he arrived in Austria, where he learned that Louis XIV had once again declared a state of war; in Vienna, he was well received by the emperor; he then went to Italy. Everywhere he went, he met scientists and continued his scholarly work, publishing essays on the movement of celestial bodies and on the duration of things. He returned to Hanover in mid-July 1690. His efforts had not been in vain. In October 1692 Ernest Augustus obtained the electoral investiture.
Leibniz continued his work but was still without an income-producing position. By October 1676, however, he had accepted a position in the employment of John Frederick, the duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg. John Frederick, a convert to Catholicism from Lutheranism in 1651, had become duke of Hanover in 1665. He appointed Leibniz librarian, but, beginning in February 1677, Leibniz solicited the post of councillor, which he was finally granted in 1678.
Trying to make himself useful in all ways, Leibniz proposed that education be made more practical and that academies be founded; he worked on hydraulic presses, windmills, lamps, submarines, clocks, and a wide variety of mechanical devices; and he devised a means of perfecting carriages and experimented with phosphorus. He also developed a water pump run by windmills, which ameliorated the exploitation of the mines of the Harz Mountains, and he worked in these mines as an engineer frequently from 1680 to 1685. Leibniz is considered to be among the creators of geology because of the observations he compiled there, including the hypothesis that Earth was at first molten. These many occupations did not stop his work in mathematics: in March 1679 he perfected the binary system of numeration (i.e., using two as a base), and at the end of the same year he proposed the basis for analysis situs, now known as general topology, a branch of mathematics that deals with selected properties of collections of related physical or abstract elements. He was also working on his dynamics and his philosophy, which was becoming increasingly anti-Cartesian. At this point, Duke John Frederick died on January 7, 1680, and his brother, Ernest Augustus I, succeeded him.
France was growing more intolerant at home—from 1680 to 1682 there were harsh persecutions of the Protestants that paved the way for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes on October 18, 1685—and increasingly menacing on its frontiers, for as early as 1681, despite the reigning peace, Louis XIV took Strasbourg and laid claim to 10 cities in Alsace. France was thus becoming a real danger to the empire, which had already been shaken on the east by a Hungarian revolt and by the advance of the Turks, who had been stopped only by the victory of John III Sobieski, king of Poland, at the siege of Vienna in 1683. Leibniz served both his prince and the empire as a patriot. He suggested to his prince a means of increasing the production of linen and proposed a process for the desalinization of water; he recommended classifying the archives and wrote, in both French and Latin, a violent pamphlet against Louis XIV.
During this same period Leibniz continued to perfect his metaphysical system through research into the notion of a universal cause of all being, attempting to arrive at a starting point that would reduce reasoning to an algebra of thought. He also continued his developments in mathematics; in 1681 he was concerned with the proportion between a circle and a circumscribed square and, in 1684, with the resistance of solids. In the latter year he published Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis (“New Method for the Greatest and the Least”), which was an exposition of his differential calculus.
Leibniz’s noted Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et Ideis (Reflections on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas) appeared at this time and defined his theory of knowledge: things are not seen in God—as Nicolas Malebranche suggested—but rather there is an analogy, a strict relation, between God’s ideas and those of humans, an identity between God’s logic and humans’. It was also in this work that Leibniz criticized Descartes’s version of the ontological argument for God’s existence and provided a version of his own. In February 1686 Leibniz wrote his Discours de métaphysique (Discourse on Metaphysics), which contains the first explicit formulation of his principle of the identity of indiscernibles (it is impossible for two numerically distinct objects to have all of the same properties). In the March publication of Acta, he disclosed his dynamics in a piece entitled Brevis Demonstratio Erroris Memorabilis Cartesii et Aliorum Circa Legem Naturae (“Brief Demonstration of the Memorable Error of Descartes and Others About the Law of Nature”). A further development of Leibniz’s views, revealed in a text written in 1686 but long unpublished, was his generalization concerning propositions that in every true affirmative proposition, whether necessary or contingent, the predicate is contained in the notion of the subject. This notion seemed to imply determinism and thus to undermine human freedom—as did Leibniz’s conception of monads, the soul-like individual substances that make up the universe, as in a sense “containing” all of their pasts and futures. Leibniz’s solution was to argue that, even though each monad already contains all of its future actions, God can create those actions as “free.”
In 1685 Leibniz was named historian for the house of Brunswick and, on this occasion, Hofrat (“court adviser”). His job was to prove, by means of genealogy, that the princely house had its origins in the house of Este, an Italian princely family, which would allow Hanover to lay claim to a ninth electorate. In search of these documents, Leibniz began traveling in November 1687. Going by way of southern Germany, he arrived in Austria, where he learned that Louis XIV had once again declared a state of war; in Vienna, he was well received by the emperor; he then went to Italy. Everywhere he went, he met scientists and continued his scholarly work, publishing essays on the movement of celestial bodies and on the duration of things. He returned to Hanover in mid-July 1690. His efforts had not been in vain. In October 1692 Ernest Augustus obtained the electoral investiture.
Aug 22, 2024 · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (born June 21 [July 1, New Style], 1646, Leipzig [Germany]—died November 14, 1716, Hanover [Germany]) was a German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus.
- Leibniz was born on June 21 (July 1, New Style), 1646.
- Leibniz died on November 14, 1716.
- Leibniz’s voluminous writings include the Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas; the Discourse on Metaphysics; the Correspondence with Arnauld...
- Leibniz is famous for being arguably the last polymath in history; for being, with Descartes and Spinoza, one of the three great representatives of...
Jul 1, 2011 · Reluctantly Leibniz accepted a position from the Duke of Hanover, Johann Friedrich, of librarian and of Court Councillor at Hanover. He left Paris in October 1676 making the journey to Hanover via London and Holland.
May 18, 2018 · Partly due to prejudices against his religion and nationality, Leibniz failed to attain appropriate employment in Paris, and in 1676 he reluctantly accepted an offer from Johann Friedrich to serve as librarian and adviser at the court of Hanover.
Roger Caldwell is happy to introduce Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). For Bertrand Russell, Leibniz was something of an enigma. Although Russell thought he could see how Leibniz’s logical principles entailed his grand metaphysical system, he was unable to square this with the doctrines outlined in many of Leibniz’s published writings.
People also ask
Why did Leibniz visit Hanover?
What did Leibniz do when he arrived in Hannover?
What did Leibniz do in 1670?
Why did Leibniz leave Paris?
During the 1670s, Leibniz worked on the invention of a practical calculating machine, which used the binary system and was capable of multiplying, dividing and even extracting roots, a great improvement on Pascal ’s rudimentary adding machine and a true forerunner of the computer.
