Leibniz, dynamics, and metaphysics according to Martial Gueroult
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Martial Gueroult’s major contribution to the study of Leibniz’s work can be found in his book Dynamique et métaphysique leibniziennes (1934). In accordance with his constant conception of the history of philosophy, Gueroult highlights the “synoptic” unity of Leibniz’s thought. His method aims to identify commonalities and resolve apparent contradictions between metaphysics and dynamics. To bring metaphysics and dynamics together in their reciprocal reactions, he aims to show that dynamics is not a mathematical construction independent of metaphysics and that the connections between scientific thought and metaphysics are both profound and necessary. Gueroult thus conducted an investigation that drew on all the texts by Leibniz that were available at the time, while situating the original contribution of Leibniz’s dynamics within the achievements of classical science. The central concept of the “derivative force” enables the characterization of dynamics as a “mixed science,” whose object has a degree of reality that combines the real and the imaginary. In this way, Gueroult established that dynamics and metaphysics “no longer appear as independent constructions, but as parts of a single structure.”
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