Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant

An exhilarating work of scholarship, Leibniz in His World demonstrates how this uncommon intellect, torn between his ideals and the necessity to work for absolutist states, struggled to make a name for himself during his formative years.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was a German polymath, mathematician, linguist, courtier, diplomat, theologian, jurist, and, most famously perhaps, the inventor — alongside his English counterpart, Isaac Newton — of the calculus. Described by Voltaire as “perhaps a man of the most universal learning in Europe,” Leibniz is often portrayed as a rationalist and philosopher who was wholly detached from the worldly concerns of his fellow men. Leibniz in His World provides a groundbreaking reassessment of Leibniz, telling the story of his trials and tribulations as an aspiring scientist and courtier navigating the learned and courtly circles of early modern Europe and the Republic of Letters.

Drawing on extensive correspondence by Leibniz and many leading figures of the age, Audrey Borowski paints a nuanced portrait of Leibniz in the 1670s, during his “Paris sojourn” as a young diplomat and in Germany at the court of Duke Johann Friedrich of Hanover. She challenges the image of Leibniz as an isolated genius, revealing instead a man of multiple identities whose thought was shaped by a deep engagement with the social and intellectual milieus of his time. Borowski shows us Leibniz as he was known to his contemporaries, enabling us to rediscover him as an enigmatic young man who was complex and all too human.

Leibniz in His World is a sweeping intellectual biography that restores the Enlightenment polymath to the intellectual, scientific, and courtly worlds that shaped his early life and thought.

About the Speaker:

Audrey Borowski is a research fellow with the Desirable Digitalisation project, a joint initiative of the Universities of Bonn and Cambridge that investigates how to design AI and other digital technologies in responsible ways. She was a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy as well as a research associate at the University of Oxford. She completed her doctorate (D.Phil) in the history of ideas at the University of Oxford on the philosopher and scientist G. W. Leibniz.

Her research background lies at the intersection of philosophy, history and science and in the last few years she started working more closely on the philosophical history and philosophy of computing and AI. In 2021 she was contracted by Princeton University Press to write a book entitled Philosophers of the Digital Age: A Philosophical History of Computing and AI from Leibniz to the Present. Audrey is also an essayist and contributes regularly to the Times Literary Supplement and Aeon. Her first monograph, Leibniz in His World: The Making of a Savant is published by Princeton University Press.

Website: https://www.cst.uni-bonn.de/en/persons/audrey_borowski

The Moderator:

Catherine Wilson was Anniversary Professor of Philosophy at the University of York from 2012-2018 and is currently Emeritus Professor of the Department. Her ongoing research is centred on early modern philosophy in relation to the physical and life sciences of the 17th and 18th centuries. Her best-known books include Leibniz’s Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study (1989); The Invisible World (1995); Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity (2008); and a book for the lay reader, How to Be an Epicurean (2018). Forthcoming in 2022 is Kant and the Naturalistic Turn of 18th Century Philosophy, which interprets Kant’s metaphysics as a reaction against the radical empiricism and egalitarianism of major and minor figures of the Enlightenment in France and Germany.

Website: https://www.york.ac.uk/philosophy/people/emeritus-honorary-visiting-staff/catherine-wilson/

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Note: This is an online conversation and audience Q&A presented by the UK-based journal The Philosopher. It is open to the public and held on Zoom.

About The Philosopher (https://www.thephilosopher1923.org/):

The Philosopher is the longest-running public philosophy journal in the UK (founded in 1923). It is published by the The Philosophical Society of England (http://www.philsoceng.uk/), a registered charity founded ten years earlier than the journal in 1913, and still running regular groups, workshops, and conferences around the UK. As of 2018, The Philosopher is edited by Newcastle-based philosopher Anthony Morgan and is published quarterly, both in print and digitally.

The journal aims to represent contemporary philosophy in all its many and constantly evolving forms, both within academia and beyond. Contributors over the years have ranged from John Dewey and G.K. Chesterton to contemporary thinkers like Christine Korsgaard, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Elizabeth Anderson, Martin Hägglund, Cary Wolfe, Avital Ronell, and Adam Kotsko.