Chapter seven
Leibniz: Hyperkinetic Happiness
Leibniz’s optimistic metaphysics, [Voltaire wrote] . . . was at once insulting and depressing: whatever is, is manifestly not right.1 Born in Leipzig on July 1, 1646, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz taught himself languages, philosophy and theology. He studied jurisprudence, earning his doctorate in law at the University of Altdorf. His prodigious intellect and learning attracted the attention of the elector of Mainz, for whom he began working at age twenty. His early concerns were matters of state more than issues in philosophy.2 But even on state missions to Paris, Lon- don and the Netherlands, Leibniz had contact with some of the philoso- phers, mathematicians and scientists who made the seventeenth century an age of genius. He encountered important Cartesians such as Antoine Arnauld (1612–1694) and Nicholas Malebranche (1636–1715), and, as we know from Chapter 6, had a private conversion with Spinoza. Leibniz was himself to become a commanding figure in a remarkable era that included Locke, the Dutch physicist Christian Huygens (1629–1695), the chemist Robert Boyle (1627–1691) and Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Leibniz was named a member of London’s Royal Society in 1673 and, following his return to Paris, spent much of his time studying mathemat- ics. By 1675, he had managed to develop the principles of the differential and integral calculus. This achievement led to a bitter exchange of medi- ated letters debating whether he or Newton first invented the calculus and whose version was superior.3 The importance of this exchange between the two intellectual giants of the second half of the seventeenth-century is unprecedented.
1 Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1966), page 52. 2 For one of his political schemes, which involved capturing Egypt and thereby dimin- ishing the power of Dutch trade in the East, see Benson Mates, The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), page 21. 3 For an abbreviated discussion of what divided Newton and Leibniz in this dispute, see James Gleick, Isaac Newton (New York: Helix Books, 2003), pages 167–174. 208 chapter seven
Before leaving Paris, Leibniz ended his services with the elector of Mainz and in 1675 accepted a position with the Duke of Brunswick. His new home was the city of Hanover where he lived for the next forty years. His official duties were the preparation of a history of the house of Brunswick, supervising the mint and directing mining operations in the Harz mountains. Queen Anne of England died without heirs in 1714 and through dynastic ties, Elector George Louis of Hanover became King George I of England. Leibniz hoped to accompany his former employer to England but was not permitted to cross the channel. Nicholas Rescher notes that “The feeling against him in England ran high in the wake of the priority dispute over the calculus between his adherents and Newton’s. Leibniz was ordered to remain at Hanover and finish his history of the house of Brunswick . . .”4 Leibniz died on November 14, 1716. He left behind an enormous col- lection of letters, essays, tracts and articles that testify to the breath of his genius. As a philosopher, mathematician, logician, physicist, econo- mist and practical statesman he had no other equals. Indeed, where the extent and depth of his many talents are concerned, it is possible that he has had no equals from 1716 into the present.5
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The reasons to read Leibniz speak for themselves, but despite the impos- ing body of literature on Leibniz’ metaphysics, epistemology, validation of evil and philosophy of science, there is comparatively little secondary lit- erature on his view of happiness. Donald Rutherford offers some insights on the topic and notes that Leibniz’ definition of “happiness” ( félicité) is “a lasting state of pleasure.” He adds that Leibniz preferred the pleasures of knowledge and reasoning to those of the senses.6 This observation serves as a point of departure.
4 Nicholas Rescher, The Philosophy of Leibniz, page 4. 5 For the most comprehensive biography of Leibniz in English, see Eric J. Aiton, Leib- niz: A Biography (Bristol: Taylor and Frrancis, 1985). For a recent account of Leibniz as a philosopher with a progressive plan for the improvement of humankind, see Maria Rosa Antognazza, Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 6 Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pages 49 and 50. Rutherford’s source is Leibniz’ short paper “Felicity” (c. 1694–1698), in Leibniz, Political Writings, second edition, ed. Patrick Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni- versity Press, 1988), page 83. In this paper, Leibniz defines “pleasure” as “a knowledge or