ABSTRACT
Perhaps no topic mattered more to Leibniz throughout his philosophical career than the nature of human and divine freedom. For Leibniz, as for other philosophers, it was of the utmost importance to be able to show that God and human beings are free in a way that allows them to be morally responsible for their actions, and thus subject in principle to praise and blame. Once again Leibniz’s treatment of the issues is constrained by his conviction that human minds are mirrors of God; as he says in a note, ‘the root of contingency in man is the divine image’ (Gr I 298).1 Accordingly, Leibniz seeks to develop an analysis of freedom which applies to God and to human beings alike.
