Hanging with History
Gottfried Leibniz; The Last Universal Genius
The last universal genius. There are minutes spent just lightly covering Leibniz’s contributions to science and his place in history, they are so extensive. He is put forward as the father of modern computing and patron saint of cybernetics. What you may not realize is that in philosophy he was also a detective and a spy. Then we cover his biography from the time he is a young man in Paris, the employment at the court in Hanover, and the point in his life where he changed from being an amazing student of the knowledge of his time, into becoming the creator of a philosophy designed to combat Spinoza. Leibniz believed in relative space and time, but he set out to defend absolute morality.
Building from the toy ideas Voltaire includes in Candide we go into what the Theodicy really is about.
There are great similarities between Leibniz and Spinoza in terms of method and philosophical assumptions, that are quite different from Newton’s. We introduce Voltaire’s role as a propagandist for Newtonianism (including Locke), but that will be developed more thoroughly next episode.
The last universal genius. There are minutes spent just lightly covering Leibniz’s contributions to science and his place in history, they are so extensive. He is put forward as the father of modern computing and patron saint of cybernetics. What you may not realize is that in philosophy he was also a detective and a spy. Then we cover his biography from the time he is a young man in Paris, the employment at the court in Hanover, and the point in his life where he changed from being an amazing student of the knowledge of his time, into becoming the creator of a philosophy designed to combat Spinoza. Leibniz believed in relative space and time, but he set out to defend absolute morality.
Building from the toy ideas Voltaire includes in Candide we go into what the Theodicy really is about.
There are great similarities between Leibniz and Spinoza in terms of method and philosophical assumptions, that are quite different from Newton’s. We introduce Voltaire’s role as a propagandist for Newtonianism (including Locke), but that will be developed more thoroughly next episode.