Related papers: Three case studies in current Leibniz scholarship
We contribute to the lively debate in current scholarship on the Leibnizian calculus. In a recent text, Arthur and Rabouin argue that non-Archimedean continua are incompatible with Leibniz's concepts of number, quantity and magnitude. They…
Leibniz scholarship is currently an area of lively debate. We respond to some recent criticisms by Archibald et al.
Recent Leibniz scholarship has sought to gauge which foundational framework provides the most successful account of the procedures of the Leibnizian calculus (LC). While many scholars (e.g., Ishiguro, Levey) opt for a default Weierstrassian…
Leibniz used the term fiction in conjunction with infinitesimals. What kind of fictions they were exactly is a subject of scholarly dispute. The position of Bos and Mancosu contrasts with that of Ishiguro and Arthur. Leibniz's own views,…
The way Leibniz applied his philosophy to mathematics has been the subject of longstanding debates. A key piece of evidence is his letter to Masson on bodies. We offer an interpretation of this often misunderstood text, dealing with the…
Many historians of the calculus deny significant continuity between infinitesimal calculus of the 17th century and 20th century developments such as Robinson's theory. Robinson's hyperreals, while providing a consistent theory of…
In this paper we offer a reconstruction of the evolution of Leibniz's thought concerning the problem of the infinite divisibility of bodies, the tension between actuality, unassignability and syncategorematicity, and the closely related…
Did Leibniz exploit infinitesimals and infinities `a la rigueur, or only as shorthand for quantified propositions that refer to ordinary Archimedean magnitudes? Chapter 5 in (Ishiguro 1990) is a defense of the latter position, which she…
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…
Leibniz described imaginary roots, negatives, and infinitesimals as useful fictions. But did he view such 'impossible' numbers as mathematical entities? Alice and Bob take on the labyrinth of the current Leibniz scholarship.
Foundations of Science recently published a rebuttal to a portion of our essay it published two years ago. The author, G. Schubring, argues that our 2013 text treated unfairly his 2005 book, Conflicts between generalization, rigor, and…
We explore the issue of providing a foundational framework for Leibnizian infinitesimals in the light of modern standard and nonstandard approaches. We outline a trichotomy of ordinals, cardinals and ringinals as a historiographic tool. A…
We examine prevailing philosophical and historical views about the origin of infinitesimal mathematics in light of modern infinitesimal theories, and show the works of Fermat, Leibniz, Euler, Cauchy and other giants of infinitesimal…
Leibniz entertained various conceptions of infinitesimals, considering them sometimes as ideal things and other times as fictions. But in both cases, he compares infinitesimals favorably to imaginary roots. We agree with the majority of…
Two models of integral theory based on the concept of a differential as a certain infinitesimal quantity are considered. One theory treats an infinitesimal quantity as a zero-tending sequence. The second is as an infinitesimal Hyper-real.
We present a characterization of the completeness of the field of real numbers in the form of a \emph{collection of ten equivalent statements} borrowed from algebra, real analysis, general topology and non-standard analysis. We also discuss…
In the history of infinitesimal calculus, we trace innovation from Leibniz to Cauchy and reaction from Berkeley to Mansion and beyond. We explore 19th century infinitesimal lores, including the approaches of Simeon-Denis Poisson,…
To explore the extent of embeddability of Leibnizian infinitesimal calculus in first-order logic (FOL) and modern frameworks, we propose to set aside ontological issues and focus on procedural questions. This would enable an account of…
We study endomorphisms and derivations of infinite dimensional cyclic Leibniz algebra.
Aristotelian assertoric syllogistic, which is currently of growing interest, has attracted the attention of the founders of modern logic, who approached it in several (semantical and syntactical) ways. Further approaches were introduced…