ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book examines in some detail Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’ efforts to vindicate the enterprise of reduction in opposition to the intuitionism of Descartes and John Locke. It discusses his emphasis, in arguing against these contemporaries, on the value of his doctrine in providing a formal and objective method for the demonstration of “truths of reason". It finds that Leibniz’ efforts to establish against the conventionalists that necessary truths, although dependent on definition, are not arbitrary, are by no means wholly successful or convincing. Leibniz, who was aware of the problem, apparently attempted to resolve it by introducing a distinction between finite and infinite analyzability. Necessary truths are those in respect of which the containment of the predicate in the subject may be demonstrated by a finite number of steps; whereas the analysis of the subject of contingent truths proceeds to infinity.
