OUR beloved philosophy professor, a strong reminder of Kant in size and punctuality, was the late Fr. Alois Lehberger SVD. While lecturing on the intricacies of Leibniz’s philosophical contribution, to wit monadology (i.e. the doctrine on reality’s simple, indivisible units of perfection, namely “monads”) and noticing the students slowly drifting into dreamland as they listened to a super-heavy philosophical doctrine, Fr. Lehberger would woefully shake his head and say, “O, you bunch of sleepy monads!”
Leibniz was born in Leipzig, Germany on July 1, 1646 and baptized as Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. It was widely rumored that at the young age of 15 Leibniz had already presented a philosophical paper which amazed even much older philosophers.
This very well read student blessed with many talents besides philosophizing turned out to be highly skilled as diplomat, lawyer, librarian, scientist and mathematician. The scientific world attributed to him the invention of the Leibniz’ wheel: an early mechanical stepped drum prototype of the modern purely electronic calculator.
In mathematics Leibniz gained fame for having originated the differential and integral calculus. Unfortunately, Sir Isaac Newton accused him of plagiarism although the two met only twice in academic gatherings. Leibniz suffered greatly from his former friend’s allegation. Happily, independent investigators pointed out that in reality the two, one in England, the other in faraway Germany, worked out their mathematical contributions independently. Moreover, it was Newton’s fault to have delayed publishing his findings.
In philosophy, other than affirming that the whole of reality, including God, consists of monads, Leibniz contributed his Principle of Sufficient Reason, that is, everything that is, must have a sufficient reason for its existence. Besides, Leibniz baffled the philosophical world with the question, “Why is there something instead of nothing?”
To this day, the question remains valid.