Note on the Moderns

The big deal in the 1600-1700's for philosophy was to 1) show stuff could be known and how it could be known and 2) know it.

So for example you could say that Descartes showed things could be known with his system of doubt, which reveals a basic foundation of knowledge.

He then busted out all of what he found in physics, geometry, math, and biology.

For Spinoza, he was also considered a foundationalist, but it had more to do with careful assessment rather than a system of doubt. For example, Spinoza might have said, of course, we all know 2+2 = 4 because of logic. He then proceeded to write his entire system based on this. He dabbled in optics and the physics of optics. Although he only wrote one or two papers on the subject, he did work as a lens grinder (reading-glasses-maker).

John Locke thought he was just working off of Newton, and there's a pretty good quote like this by Locke. Newton can be considered a philosopher, because everyone has to defend their science, and Newton certainly did. Locke hated the idea that Leibniz, Spinoza, and Descartes thought that you could know something before you experience it. While the rest of us are like, "duh," it was a really crazy thing for all of them to say back then.

Locke's major contributions are known to most high schoolers as Political Science, but he had some all right ones in science, too.

Hobbes died happily thinking that he had squared the circle. (His last words were still philosophical, he said, "A great leap in the dark!" and kicked the bucket).

I just wrote about Leibniz's contributions. As a philosopher of science, Leibniz did something really cool by integrating the sciences.

Berkeley wrote a weird philosophical/scientific treatise on the chemical creation of tar and its uses as a medicine, while Hume was first and foremost a historian.

Writing this about Hume, and I'll explain why I feel this way in a bit, I think it's so cool that it's hard to separate the sciences and philosophies from the person. While mathematics seems about as remote from a person as anything, you can see how these philosopher's (ahem) philosophies shine through. Even without the Hume example I haven't provided, you can sort of see the mathematical rigor of both Spinoza's theory of knowledge and his ventures into optics. You can see how Berkeley wanted to help people by writing a medicine piece on tar between works on how the soul is immortal and God is the only thing that's real. Cool stuff abounds!

The Moderns! continued (Part II)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz

Gottfried Leibniz (1 July 1646 [OS: 21 June] – 14 November 1716) was one of the greats because of his integration of sciences, not to mention his white knuckle ability for work.

Over the course of his years he invented binary, which every computer in the world uses in the present day. He also pretty much single handedly invented Library Sciences, and it was his integration of maths that led him to invent the Calculus independently and before Newton. Americans still use Leibnizian notation.

Leibniz worked nonstop over the course of his life, often travelling as he did it. Various other contributions to sciences such as politics, geometry, geology, engineering, and even poetry were all pretty abundant. He invented one of the first calculators.

Working more than probably anyone else of his era, the extent of Leibniz's works have still not been assessed and translated 400 years later. It is possible that Leibniz has other ideas as good as some of his computer solutions lost in his papers.

As for his philosophical contributions, Leibniz re-systemized logic. This paved the way for analytic truth ventures. His Principle of Identity and Principle of Sufficient Reason are really cool. He also made some pretty good cases for Free Will being Compatible with rigid Scientific Organization, or Determinism if you will.

A tremendous leader in so many fields, Leibniz established some of the first German academies of sciences, which would forge Germany into a world power in the 19th and 20th centuries.

If I may speak freely here, I might say that Leibniz was really angry about people being unable to recognize the wonders of this world. He put the problem out there as noumena versus phenomena, whereupon we could know the real essences of things. His theory of Pre-established harmony reminded people that things happen for a reason and we can trust those reasons.