Interpretations of Leibniz's mathesis universalis at the beginning of the xxth century
pp. 187-201
in: Yannick Chin Drian, Ralf Krömer (eds), New essays on Leibniz reception, Berlin, Springer, 2012Abstract
In his doctoral dissertation, completed in 1922 under the direction of Edmund Husserl and published in 1925 in the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Phänomenologische Forschungen, Dietrich Mahnke proposed a very valuable overview of the so-called "Leibniz Renaissance". As indicated by the choice of his title: Leibnizens Synthese von Universalmathematik und Individualmetaphysik, this renaissance was seen by Mahnke as marked by a tension between two Leibnizian programs: that of a "universal mathematics" and that of a "metaphysics of individuation". His agenda was to propose a way of reconciling these two programs through a point of view inspired by the development of Husserlian phenomenology. In this paper, I will concentrate on the first program, "universal mathematics" or mathesis universalis, and see how the interpretation of this Leibnizian theme was indeed a key point in the demarcation between different ways of articulating logic, mathematics and philosophy at the beginning of the XXth century.
