The Art of Controversies

by Marcelo Dascal, Marcelo Dascal

Leibniz is known to the wide public and to many scholars mainly as a logician and mathematician, and as the creator of a fascinating but strange metaphysical system. In these, as well as in other fields, his remarkable innovations were achieved by painstaking efforts to establish a fruitful critical dialogue with the leading contemporary thinkers. He was no less important, however, in his practical endeavor to bring opponents to negotiate reasonable solutions to key political and religious conflicts of his time. Both his theoretical and practical activities were informed by a philosophical mind that sought in all circumstances the most general underlying principles; by a juridical mind that sought to bring order and structure to human interaction, without sacrificing the necessary flexibility; by an argumentative mind that knows that persuading is often more important than proving; by a scientific mind eager to organize past and present knowledge so as not to miss any bit of information capable of pointing the way to new discoveries; by a theologian mind that refuses to admit that religious conflicts between true believers are irresolvable; and by an ethical and political mind whose major concern is to direct all our intellectual work towards improving the well-being of humankind.

592 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Douglas Summers-Stay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read a few chapters on the topics that interest me: the art of invention; towards a numerical universal language; the secret encyclopedia; on the creation of a new logic, etc... Here is one paragraph I particularly liked:

The General Science is nothing but the science of what is thinkable in general as far as it is such. This includes not only what has hitherto been regarded as logic [he means deductive syllogisms] but also the art of discovery, along with the method or the means of arrangement, synthesis and analysis, didactics or the science of teaching, the so called Gnostology, Noology, the art of reminiscence or mnemonics, the art of characters or of symbols, the Art of Combinations, the Art of Subtlety, and philosophical grammar; the Art of Llull, the Cabala of the wise, and natural magic. Perhaps it also includes Ontology, or the science of something and nothing...

It sounds like the entire field of artificial intelligence, in the language of 1684.