Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Essay

Why does an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God allow natural and moral evil to happen without any restrictions? John Hick, a proponent of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s theodicy defense, answered: “in order that human beings, as free responsible agents, may use this world as a place of “soul making,” which involves the spiritual perfection of our character and persons” (Pojman 74). According to Hick, creation has not been finished its work, it is still undergoing a process, that is, the lives of individual

Voltaire was a rebellious and radical thinker, whose sharp wit and pointed satire drew the ire of critics who say he disrespected the orthodoxy of church and state, and won the respect of a growing rationalist movement that had emerged out of the public sphere in Europe between the 17th and 18th centuries. Although Voltaire is known today for being a philosophical powerhouse, whose writing is the stuff of legend, for most of his life he only wrote plays, poems, and novels. It wasn’t until he was

Throughout the history of philosophy, the thoughts and works of two men have intertwined their way into the philosophers to follow. The two men were followers of Socrates; thus, technically, Socrates can take some of the credit. These two men are Plato and Aristotle. The Platonic and Aristotelian ideas of philosophy are contradicting but equally represented in their influence. Plato believed that to find truth, one must look to the metaphysical world beyond reality. He believed this because he thought

(i) assert themselves (e.g., ‘A is A’) or (ii) deny the opposite of their opposites (e.g., ‘A is not not A’). Examples of Unqualified primary truths are: (i) ‘I am always identical to myself’, and (ii) ’I am always not not identical to myself’. Leibniz claims that these type truths can be supplemented by his Principle of Contradiction (PC). PC states that anything which implies a contradiction is false. Hence, if people disagree with the claim (i) ‘I am always identical to myself’ they would be

In the First Night of John Perry’s paper, “A Dialogue on Personal Identity and Immortality”, Perry introduces us to Gretchen Weirob, a teacher of philosophy who was hospitalized due to injuries that she sustained from a motorcycle incident, and her long-time friend chaplain, Sam Miller. Both have different views on life after death, particularly since Gretchen’s demise is imminent which is why Miller says, “how can I hope to comfort you with the prospect of life after death, when I know you will

free will. Furthermore, since God is an all-knowing being, how can free will exist if he already knows what we are going to do? Leibniz offers an interesting argument to tackle this issue. First, I want to explain his concept of the monad, then delve into his position on free will, and finally tie the two ideas together and evaluate if his logic is sound. According to Leibniz, a Monad is the simplest building block for everything that we perceive in our reality. A monad has

In God everything is spontaneous, all persons have the freedom to do what he wills when said persons are conscious, and this is a volition. Volition stems from “to do it” and the ability “to do so.” When conditions are par with the will to do something and equally par with the will to not do something no violation occurs (pg1 para1). This equilibrium causes a balance of indifference. Accepting that all conditions are primed for action, the willing still remains stagnant if conditions are equally

Rationalism is the principle that maintains that through reason alone we can gain at least some positive knowledge of the world. The three major rationalists, Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Welhelm Leibniz, used this idea in order to defy skepticism and expose the true nature of reality. However, each philosopher is frequently in disagreement. The idea for ‘God’, and what constitutes substance, matter and reality are the four key structural beliefs that aid each rationalist in the forming

calculus? This was a question that was the premise of a dispute between two mathematicians, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz. The discovery of a new branch of mathematics requires years of research and trial-and-error experiments. That is why, when the controversy arose concerning the genuine “Father of Calculus”, one of the biggest intellectual controversies emerged. Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz each claimed that they established calculus as a true branch of mathematics on their own. However, it

Gottfried Leibniz’s philosophy is based on optimism. He believed that everything in this world is the way for a reason. This is because it is all good’s work and god are all-knowing and powerful. When things seem to turn out poorly, just know that there is always a reason for why it is happening. There is not a whole perfect world because that would be God since he is perfect. Voltaire completely disagrees with Leibniz’s philosophy, he displayed his criticism of his philosophy in his famous book