ABSTRACT
Leibniz's philosophy is perhaps best known for its principles and for the idea that the rules of reasoning can be represented within a formal symbolic system to allow for computational or artificial intelligence. With respect to life sciences, Leibniz provided a remarkable framework for investigating complex, organic, and particularly mental phenomena by conceiving the surface organization of phenomena as dependent on a deeper order of underlying micro-processes so as to account for the emerging organization. In particular, Leibniz postulated genuine units (monads) as autonomous and predisposed tendencies of living activity resulting in a multitude of original worldviews. Unity and activity were the concepts on which Leibniz's metatheory of being, his dynamic holism, essentially relied. Leibniz's monadology is not restricted to organic or mental aspects of life, but embedded within a more general cosmological view. It relies on indecomposable units as centers of force or activity, rather than on inert material elements on which formal principles are imposed.
