Bertrand Russell, the logician, had a bust of Leibniz, an earlier logician, that he would address. Russell talked logic, of course. He also berated Leibniz for choosing a life at court rather than at a university.
If you ask me, both were better logicians than philosophers. Interesting the reading public in their best work strikes me as a difficult assignment.
But I enjoyed Anthony Gottlieb’s new essay in The New Yorker. For me, the highlight was not Leibniz’s logic or his philosophy but his letters. He wrote 15,000. He had more than 1,000 correspondents.
Leibniz, like Gottlieb, was a networker: someone interested in circulating interesting ideas, hoping the good ones don’t get lost.
• Source: Anthony Gottlieb, “He was a genius for the ages. Can we give him a break?” The New Yorker, Jan. 6, 2025. It’s here:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/01/13/leibniz-in-his-world-the-making-of-a-savant-audrey-borowski-book-review-the-best-of-all-possible-worlds-a-life-of-leibniz-in-seven-pivotal-days-michael-kempe
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