ABSTRACT
In a century full of brilliance and great personalities Malebranche, Arnauld, and Leibniz deserve credit for shining particularly brightly. Arguably the seventeenth century's three most important thinkers after Descartes, they nonetheless were gifted in different ways: Leibniz was blessed with sheer natural brilliance and a vision both broad and penetrating; Arnauld's talent lay in keen analytical skills and perhaps the most acute critical mind of his time; and Malebranche, while slow at times, was the great and pious synthesizer (of Augustine and Descartes) and system builder. What makes these three philosophers particularly fascinating as a group is their mutual relations. The Arnauld-Malebranche debate is one of the intellectual events of the century; the Arnauld-Leibniz correspondence proves crucial in the development of Leibniz's mature metaphysics; and Leibniz's admiration for Malebranche is evident even when the two are deeply engaged in polemic. Sometimes the fray was bloody, and tangling with Arnauld could be a dangerous affair. Leibniz, for one, knew what he was getting into, but was nonetheless taken aback when Arnauld trashed the outline of the Discours de la metaphysique (1686; henceforth, Discours) that Leibniz had sent for his perusal. To paraphrase Leibniz, "It's no wonder you don't have any friends left.'"
