Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
1646-1716 · Rationalism · Renowned
Leibniz was a polymath who held that the universe is made of monads: countless mind-like points, each one a unique and whole perspective on everything, none of them touching or acting on any other. God keeps them in step like clocks wound to agree. He co-invented calculus, argued that this is the best of all possible worlds, and worked out the binary arithmetic that computing runs on.
Signature
The position Leibniz is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity
- Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo / Eternal First Cause
Positions on the 10 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (17 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (12 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (88 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (79 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (83 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- strongly leans Concurrence (90 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
10 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Leibniz refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Idealism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Compatibilism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo / Eternal First Cause
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Role of Emotion
- Evaluative Judgment
What is the proper role of emotion? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?