The Philosophy of Leibniz [Paperback]

Bertrand Russell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 041508296X | ISBN-13: 978-0415082969 | Publication Date: December 22, 1992 | Edition: 3

`Mr Russell's very brilliant criticism of Leibniz ... is a piece of controversial philosophy as well as a contribution to history.' - Bernard Bosanquet

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It is impossible not to see in Mr. Russell's work elements of real originality and great power of argument..." -- The Guardian

"Mr. Russell's very brilliant criticism of Leibniz . . . is a piece of controversial philosophy as well as a contribution to history." -- Bernard Bosenquet

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 3 edition (December 22, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041508296X
• ISBN-13: 978-0415082969
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,586,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970). Philosopher, mathematician, educational and sexual reformer, pacifist, prolific letter writer, author and columnist, Bertrand Russell was one of the most influential and widely known intellectual figures of the twentieth century. In 1950 he was awarded the Noble Prize for Literature in 1950 for his extensive contributions to world literature and for his "rationality and humanity, as a fearless champion of free speech and free thought in the West."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars WAIT! This is not what it appears to be!, July 1, 2010

By 

John T. Roberts (Greensboro, NC) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, With an Appendix of Leading Passages (Paperback)

The advertising makes this appear to be a new printing of a wonderful old book that has gone out of print. That isn't what it is at all.

An outfit called General Books took an old copy of this out-of-print book, scanned it, used a computer program to covert it into text, and then printed it out (with new pagination, bearing no relation whatever to the original pagination) and bound it. The result is a complete mess. There are misspelled words everywhere (the software apparently isn't so good at recognizing letters in older fonts); the footnotes and chapter headings were absorbed into the text; the original page numbers are lost; the table of contents is completely useless because it gives page numbers corresponding to the original pagination. There are also many apparently meaningless long strings of characters.

For example, here is how the book begins:

ffamititrge: PBINTED BY J. and O. F. OLAT AT THE TJNIVEBSITT PRESS. PEEFACE. The history of philosophy is a study which proposes to itself two somewhat "different objects, of which

and here's a randomly selected passage from page 85:

It remains to say something concerning time and change. Here we have fewer passages to refer to, and so far as I know no thoTOugh discussion after Leibniz's philoso phy i s matare.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a mess!, March 30, 2010

By 

Joseph H. Monast - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, With an Appendix of Leading Passages (Paperback)

This is probably the worst produced and printed book I've seen in many years. Typos, misprints, paragraphs separated.

Note that I'm not talking about the content, which remains to be read, but rather about the production itself. It is so bad that even glancing through it immediately highlights problems - no need to look hard.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Historically important work, but dismissible for its contents, October 29, 2007

By 

G. Gecewicz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Philosophy of Leibniz: A Critical Exposition of With an Appendix of Leading Passages (Paperback)

Russell's famous work is of great importance historically because it set the tone for Leibniz study for a generation. Today this tone has been completely rejected by modern Leibniz scholars. Russell's work says more about Russell than Leibniz. Russell uses Leibniz as a punching bag to push his dogma. I recommend the many papers and journal entries written over the last 100 years which basically have proven almost every major attack Russell made on Leibniz to be unjustified. Still, this book is a must read for any serious Leibniz scholar for its historical importance alone and to understand why so many scholars after Russell had the narrow interpretation of Leibniz that they did.