(1646-1716)

Leibniz was born June 21, 1646. His father was a professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig. Little Gottfried was a boy genius (of course) and received his doctorate at the age of 20. He spent some time gallivanting around Europe, tasting just about every philosophy the continent had to offer.

In 1672, he went to France as a diplomat. There he would begin to invent calculus, as well as a calculator that could multiply and divide. In 1676, he visited Spinoza in Holland (where he read the manuscript for Ethics), and then went on to Hanover to serve the prince there. In 1700, he founded the Berlin Academy.

His major life’s project was to reconcile Catholicism and Protestantism. He failed, obviously. It will take a lot more than genius to reconcile those two!

His major work, as far as psychology is concerned, is New Essays on Human Understanding, a refutation of Locke written in 1703, but not published until 1765.

His basic point was that the mind is not a passive “tabula rasa” (clean slate or piece of paper) upon which experience writes, as Locke and Aristotle suggested. The mind is a complex thing that works on and transforms experience. “Nothing is in the mind that has not been in the senses,” he said, paraphrasing Locke, “except the mind itself.” This would inspire Kant, and many psychologists in more recent times.

Leibniz also suggested that while we are alive, the mind is never entirely at rest, even in deep sleep. In fact, it is often functioning even when we are not conscious of it doing so. It was this conception of the unconscious that would most influence Schopenhauer and, later, Freud.

Leibniz had a very unusual metaphysics. He started with the same sort of skeptical approach as Descartes. But he ended with an idealistic metaphysics called monadology that outdoes even Berkeley's metaphysics. Monads are souls. Each soul contains within it the "perception" of the entire universe. It's not that there is an entire universe outside our souls which we all perceive as an object -- souls are all there is!

We often experience ourselves as interacting with others -- "monad a monad," you might say. But Leibniz makes it clear that we are only apparently interacting, each within our own internal universe. Monads, he tells us, are "window-less."

We consciously perceive only a small piece of this internal universe -- our "point-of-view," we could say. I am not aware, however, of what the insides of my stomach look like, or what thoughts you are having at this moment, or what's happening on some planet circling Alpha Centauri. All that and more is "in" me, but is only perceived unconsciously.

Although each soul has its own "point-of-view," all souls contain the same total perception of the universe. This is what he called harmony. But some souls have a clearer, more complete, more conscious, view of the universe within than others do. Only one soul is totally conscious, or, if you like, contains all "points-of-view." That soul is God.

Leibniz became increasingly isolated and impoverished over time, being without a political sponsor. He died alone in 1716, and his funeral was attended only by his secretary.