The Art of Controversies

by Marcelo Dascal, Marcelo Dascal

Remembered mainly as a logician and mathematician, Leibniz also endeavored to resolve political and religious conflicts of his day by bringing opponents into negotiation. The dialectical Leibniz who emerges from the texts here translated, commented, and interpreted is certainly not the familiar one. The book sheds new light on the familiar, yet incomplete image of Leibniz, providing further reason for cherishing and cultivating the heritage of a truly great man.

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.