Gottfried Leibniz Quotes on Knowledge
Leibniz's New Essays on Human Understanding (composed by 1704, published 1765) is the most extended early-modern rationalist response to Locke's empiricism, defending the doctrine that the human mind contains innate intellectual content — not as fully formed propositions but as structuring dispositions ("nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses, except the intellect itself"). The Monadology and the Discourse on Metaphysics articulate the corresponding distinction between truths of reason, knowable a priori through the principle of contradiction, and truths of fact, contingent on the principle of sufficient reason and ultimately on God's choice of the best of all possible worlds.
Quotes
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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. -
Attributed to Gottfried Leibniz:
“Nothing happens without a sufficient reason.”
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Attributed to Gottfried Leibniz:
“Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion, more interesting than the inventions themselves.”
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Attributed to Gottfried Leibniz:
“There is nothing in the intellect which was not first in the senses, except the intellect itself.”
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“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 -
“The famous calculemus of Leibniz appears in several places of his writing; this is the most frequently quoted; variants are found in the Preface to his New Essays on Human Understanding , and in Dissertatio de Arte Combinatoria (1666). See R. Chrisley, Artificial Intelligence (2000), p. 14 ; H. Busche, Leibniz' Weg ins perspektivische Universum (1997), p. 134 .”
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 -
“Theologus: Amare autem? Philosophus: Felicitate alterius delectari.”
Theologian: But what is to love ? Philosopher: To be delighted by the happiness of another. | Confessio philosophi (1673) -
“Confessio philosophi (1673)”
Theologus: Amare autem? Philosophus: Felicitate alterius delectari. -
“Nam filum labyrintho de compositione continui deque maximo et minimo ac indesignabili at que infinito non nisi geometria praebere potest, ad metaphysicam vero solidam nemo veniet, nisi qui illac transiverit.”
Only geometry can hand us the thread [which will lead us through ] the labyrinth of the continuum ’s composition, the maximum and the minimum, the infinitesimal and the infinite ; and no one will arrive at a truly solid metaphysic except he who has passed through this [labyrinth]. | Dissertatio Exoterica De Statu Praesenti et Incrementis Novissimis Deque Usu Geometriae [ 1 ] (Spring 1676) [ 2 ]