On What There Is

January 12, 2010 4:30 PM

"Ontologiam seu scientiam de Aliquo et Nihilo, Ente et Non ente, Re et modo rei, Substantia et Accidente." - Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716).

Comprehensive Index
Theory and History of Ontology.

Vocabulary: Being | Existence | Substance | Truth
Definitions from Wolff to Husserl; from Hartmann to the present time.

Table of Descriptive and Formal Ontologists
Alphabetic List of Philosophers: A-F | G-O | P-Z

posted by ageispolis (18 comments total)

I hope I'm not the only one who saw the fpp and thought "oh shit, liebniz died?"

Also, this is great.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 4:45 PM on January 12, 2010 [16 favorites]

Also, when I thought that, I spelled it right.
posted by Dormant Gorilla at 4:46 PM on January 12, 2010 [3 favorites]

TEAM NEWTON!
posted by qvantamon at 4:52 PM on January 12, 2010 [2 favorites]

Best of all possible the web.
posted by 7segment at 5:04 PM on January 12, 2010 [3 favorites]

Brilliant, wonderful post! :)
posted by zarq at 5:18 PM on January 12, 2010

A wild folksonomy appears!
posted by mullingitover at 5:32 PM on January 12, 2010

The last great polymath.
posted by oddman at 5:34 PM on January 12, 2010

The last great polymath.

Franklin? And probably others I'm forgetting since then.
posted by DU at 5:55 PM on January 12, 2010

Euler is pretty much spread out everywhere on exact sciences as well. Quantum Mechanics, Pure Mathematics, Theory of Computation...
posted by qvantamon at 6:01 PM on January 12, 2010

Leibniz. Newton. Cantor we just get along?
posted by Splunge at 6:29 PM on January 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Euler is all over math and some physics, but that doesn't make him a polymath. Whereas Leibniz and Franklin were both scientists, diplomats, conversationalists and so forth.
posted by DU at 7:03 PM on January 12, 2010

Shit, I had Euler and Von Neumann muddled in my head. The late 18th century is a bit too early for Quantum Mechanics or Theory of Computation (although Euler's name is plastered all over those fields as well).

But I'm fairly certain the guy I was thinking about was Von Neumann.
posted by qvantamon at 7:27 PM on January 12, 2010

.
posted by fourcheesemac at 8:25 PM on January 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

Actually Leibniz did some stuff with information theory. Read your Stephenson, people!
posted by delmoi at 11:34 PM on January 12, 2010

It's a derail but I can't leave it out there: From what I (and Wikipedia) know, Von Neumann wasn't really a polymath either. A genius for sure. And a poly"math" in the sense of having his fingers in a lot of (what are now) separate fields of math. But he didn't operate at an excellent level in completely unrelated fields the way Leibniz and Franklin did.
posted by DU at 7:52 AM on January 13, 2010

"If there weren't Monads, Spinoza would be right."—Leibnitz to Louis Bourguet, Hanover, December 1714.
posted by No Robots at 8:00 AM on January 13, 2010

Leibniz was also the subject of a joke on The Big Bang Theory's recent Christmas episode. (It's under the Sir Isaac Newton = Christmas section.)
posted by zarq at 8:41 AM on January 13, 2010

fuck yeah awesome post. this is gonna take me some time to sift through, but thanks in advance!
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:52 AM on January 13, 2010