1001Philosophers

Baruch Spinoza vs Gottfried Leibniz

Spinoza and Leibniz are two of the three great seventeenth-century rationalist substance theorists, with very different answers to the question of what there fundamentally is.

At a glance

Baruch SpinozaGottfried Leibniz
Dates1632 – 16771646 – 1716
NationalityDutchGerman
EraModernModern
Movements Rationalism, Early Modern Philosophy, Jewish Philosophy Rationalism, Early Modern Philosophy
Profile Baruch Spinoza → Gottfried Leibniz →

Where they agree

Both held that genuine knowledge is achieved by the intellect rather than the senses, both used the principle of sufficient reason as a fundamental philosophical principle, and both held that the existence of God can be demonstrated a priori. Each developed his metaphysics in critical engagement with Descartes.

Where they disagree

Spinoza held there is exactly one substance, God or Nature, of which everything else is a mode. Leibniz held there are infinitely many substances, the monads, each of which is a unique perspective on the universe with no real causal interaction with the others. Spinoza's necessitarianism makes everything that exists necessary; Leibniz preserves contingency and the freedom of God's choice of the actual world from among possible worlds. Spinoza's God is identical with nature; Leibniz's stands outside it as creator.

Representative quotes

Baruch Spinoza

  • “The free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a meditation, not on death, but on life.”

    Homo liber de nulla re minus, quam de morte cogitat, et ejus sapientia non mortis, sed vitae meditatio est.

  • “All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”

    Et sane arduum debet esse, quod adeo raro reperitur. Qui enim posset fieri, si salus in promptu esset et sine magno labore reperiri posset, ut ab omnibus fere negligeretur? Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia, quam rara sunt.

  • “Letter to William van Blyenbergh (1665) as quoted by Sir Frederick Pollock , Spinoza: His Life and Philosophy (1880) pp. 50-51”

    If you find the light of Scripture clearer than the light of reason (which also is given us by divine wisdom), you are doubtless right in your own conscience in making your reason yield. For my part, since I plainly confess that I do not understand the Scriptures, though I have spent many years upon them, and since I know that when once I have a firm proof I cannot by any course of thought come to

Gottfried Leibniz

  • “There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; truths of fact are contingent and their opposite is possible.”

    Il y a aussi deux sortes de vérités, celles de Raisonnement et celle de Fait. Les vérités de Raisonnement sont nécessaires et leur opposé est impossible, et celles de Fait sont contingentes et leur opposé est possible.

  • “quando orientur controversiae, non magis disputatione opus erit inter duos philosophos, quam inter duos computistas. Sufficiet enim calamos in manus sumere sedereque ad abacos, et sibi mutuo (accito si placet amico) dicere : calculemus”

    De arte characteristica ad perficiendas scientias ratione nitentes in C. I. Gerhardt (ed.), Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (7 vols. 1875–1890) VII 200. | [...] if controversies were to arise, there would be no more need of disputation between two philosophers than between two calculators. For it would suffice for them to take their pencils in their hands and to sit dow

  • “De arte characteristica ad perficiendas scientias ratione nitentes in C. I. Gerhardt (ed.), Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (7 vols. 1875–1890) VII 200.”

    quando orientur controversiae, non magis disputatione opus erit inter duos philosophos, quam inter duos computistas. Sufficiet enim calamos in manus sumere sedereque ad abacos, et sibi mutuo (accito si placet amico) dicere : calculemus

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