ABSTRACT
Perhaps no event is more important for understanding Leibniz’s life than the Thirty Years War (1618-48) which devastated his native Germany, a country divided then (as for years to come) into countless states of unequal size. The Thirty Years War had a number of dimensions; it was perhaps primarily a dynastic quarrel, but it was also a religious conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics. The fact that there was an ideological dimension to the conflict is of great significance for understanding Leibniz’s lifelong preoccupation with what we may call ‘peace studies’;1 it helps to explain why Leibniz devoted so much energy to devising plans for reconciliation between groups which were divided at the level of ideas. In the religious sphere Leibniz sought to reconcile not only Catholics and Protestants but also Calvinists and Lutherans within the Protestant fold. And, as we have seen in the Introduction, Leibniz’s peacemaking activities extended to the philosophical sphere as well. Here he sought to find areas of agreement between such groups as the Platonists and Aristotelians, Cartesians and anti-Cartesians, and above all, Ancients and Moderns.
