Both Graham Harman and Peter Gratton respond to my Leibniz posts of yesterday, and then Peter responds to Graham. They both comment on what I said about Leibniz, and also on his standing as a philosopher. Peter then rightly questions the inclusion of Popper in the BBC ‘top ten’, but that’s hardly the only strange thing about that poll. Leibniz didn’t even make the shortlist (click through to see numbers 6-20).

I’m a little reluctant (and/or unqualified) to rank philosophers across time and space – and there are lots of criteria, including ‘best’, most important, most influential, etc. – but if pushed I’d say Aristotle for the ancient world; and Kant for the moderns. I think medieval thought is hugely important, and Aquinas has to be the standout figure there. After that it’s much more open to question. But I think you could make a strong case for Leibniz being the most accomplished thinker of his time, and it was a pretty remarkable time – Descartes just before him, and Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, Pufendorf, Newton as contemporaries. I think Graham nails it with the comment that Leibniz is “quite staggering in his integration of Modern with Scholastic philosophy”; at the very least he’s a hugely important transitional figure.

I should note though that, like Peter, I didn’t dislike the Stewart book as much as Graham did. But much better is Maria Roza Antognazza, Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). I’d looked at specific passages before, and am now about about a third of the way through a more careful read – it’s a serious work of scholarship and very impressive. It will replace Aiton’s biography which was okay, but had quite a specific focus on the mathematical (There’s a good – albeit somewhat picky – review here.)