Product Description

Of all the thinkers of the century of genius that inaugurated modern philosophy, none lived an intellectual life more rich and varied than Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Trained as a jurist and employed as a counsellor, librarian, and historian, he made famous contributions to logic, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics, yet viewed his own aspirations as ultimately ethical and theological, and married these theoretical concerns with politics, diplomacy, and an equally broad range of practical reforms: juridical, economic, administrative, technological, medical, and ecclesiastical. Maria Rosa Antognazza's pioneering biography not only surveys the full breadth and depth of these theoretical interests and practical activities, it also weaves them together for the first time into a unified portrait of this unique thinker and the world from which he came. At the centre of the huge range of Leibniz's apparently miscellaneous endeavours, Antognazza reveals a single master project lending unity to his extraordinarily multifaceted life's work. Throughout the vicissitudes of his long life, Leibniz tenaciously pursued the dream of a systematic reform and advancement of all the sciences, to be undertaken as a collaborative enterprise supported by an enlightened ruler; these theoretical pursuits were in turn ultimately grounded in a practical goal: the improvement of the human condition and thereby the celebration of the glory of God in His creation. As well as tracing the threads of continuity that bound these theoretical and practical activities to this all-embracing plan, this illuminating study also traces these threads back into the intellectual traditions of the Holy Roman Empire in which Leibniz lived and throughout the broader intellectual networks that linked him to patrons in countries as distant as Russia and to correspondents as far afield as China.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #444942 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 652 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780521806190
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"This is a magnificent portrait of Leibniz in all his depth and complexity. Antognazza's Leibniz is a philosopher and a mathematician, a diplomat, a theologian, a courtier, an historian and an engineer, but most of all a human being, struggling to realize his grand ambitions. Antognazza has written the biography that we have been awaiting for many years, and it will be the standard account for many years to come."
-Daniel Garber, Princeton University

"In my opinion, this is the best intellectual biography of Leibniz ever written. Maria Rosa Antognazza's vivid picture of Leibniz's protean personality and her reliable account of Leibniz's main achievements in the various fields to which he devoted his genius will be easily accessible even to the general reader."
-Massimo Mugnai, Scuola Normale Superiore

"Maria Rosa Antognazza has given us the monumental, up-to-date biography that has been lacking in the recent flowering of Leibniz studies. Distinguished in scholarship, it will prove indispensable, providing a narrative that makes integrated psycho-social as well as intellectual sense of Leibniz's life as a whole, in its historical context."
-Robert Merrihew Adams, Christ Church, Oxford University

"This unsurpassed, sensitive, and accurate picture of Leibniz the universal genius based on a thorough study of the sources and the criticism as well as of the historical contexts deserves to be extolled as a masterpiece. It is an intellectual adventure to read it and get unexpected rich information."
- Professor Dr. Heinrich Schepers, University of Muenster

About the Author
Maria Rosa Antognazza is Reader in the Philosophy of Religion at King's College London. A recipient of research fellowships from the British Academy, the Herzog August Bibliothek, and the Leverhulme Trust, she is the author of Leibniz on the Trinity and the Incarnation: Reason and Revelation in the Seventeenth Century and has contributed to The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy.