ABSTRACT
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is undoubtedly one of the major philosophers of the Western tradition, but he is also an unusually difficult philosopher. His two most famous doctrines are apt to appear bizarre and implausible: many readers find it hard to overcome their initial resistance to the theory of monads and the thesis that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds. The ‘mirror of God’ theme is perhaps even more prominent in those areas of Leibniz’s philosophy where he narrows his focus to human minds; it plays a major role in his theory of knowledge, his account of freedom and even his solution to the problem of evil. Despite the fragmentary character of many of his writings, Leibniz is a systematic philosopher; his ideas in logic, metaphysics, theology, and the foundations of physics form a largely coherent whole.
