Leibniz's Laws of Continuity and Homogeneity
History and Overview
2012-12-03 v1 Classical Analysis and ODEs
Logic
Abstract
We explore Leibniz's understanding of the differential calculus, and argue that his methods were more coherent than is generally recognized. The foundations of the historical infinitesimal calculus of Newton and Leibniz have been a target of numerous criticisms. Some of the critics believed to have found logical fallacies in its foundations. We present a detailed textual analysis of Leibniz's seminal text Cum Prodiisset, and argue that Leibniz's system for differential calculus was free of contradictions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1211.7188,
title = {Leibniz's Laws of Continuity and Homogeneity},
author = {Mikhail G. Katz and David Sherry},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1211.7188},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
19 pages, 1 figure. See http://www.ams.org/notices/201211. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1205.0174