Gottfried Leibniz vs John Locke
Leibniz and Locke are the two greatest philosophers of the late seventeenth century. Leibniz wrote the New Essays on Human Understanding as a sustained critical commentary on Locke's Essay, paragraph by paragraph.
At a glance
| Gottfried Leibniz | John Locke | |
|---|---|---|
| Dates | 1646 – 1716 | 1632 – 1704 |
| Nationality | German | English |
| Era | Modern | Modern |
| Movements | Rationalism, Early Modern Philosophy | Empiricism, Enlightenment, Social Contract |
| Profile | Gottfried Leibniz → | John Locke → |
Where they agree
Both held that the new natural sciences require a philosophical foundation, both took the analysis of ideas and reasoning as central to philosophy, and both shaped the early eighteenth-century European intellectual landscape decisively. Both engaged in extensive philosophical correspondence with their contemporaries.
Where they disagree
Locke held the mind at birth is a blank slate, with all ideas derived from sensation or reflection. Leibniz responded that the mind has innate dispositional truths, present as veins in marble, which experience activates rather than installs. Where Locke gave a corpuscularian account of bodies, Leibniz held bodies are appearances of underlying immaterial monads. The dispute ranges over the whole of early-modern epistemology and metaphysics.
Representative quotes
Gottfried Leibniz
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“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
John Locke
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“No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”
Book II, Ch. 1, sec. 19 -
“All mankind being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
Second Treatise of Government , Ch. II, sec. 6 -
“The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”
Second Treatise of Government , Ch. VI, sec. 57
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