Leibniz's Monadology and the Universal Characteristic

Reading order

1. 1
   Drôle de Pensée, touchant une nouvelle sorte de représentationsPaper

   Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, September 1675 (LH XLII Bl. 22-23)

   Begin where the Academy begins. Three pages, written to himself, in which Leibniz imagined what we are now trying to build.

2. 2
   Discourse on MetaphysicsPaper

   Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1686 (trans. Jonathan Bennett)

   Then the early system. Read paragraphs 8–14 for the doctrine of complete individual concepts — the seed of what will later be the monad.

3. 3
   On the General CharacteristicArticle

   Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, c. 1679 (in Loemker, ed.)

   The programmatic essay. Read alongside Rescher's commentary if you want the formal scaffolding.

4. 4
   Leibniz: An Introduction to His Philosophy — chapter on the CharacteristicaBook

   Nicholas Rescher, 1979

   Rescher's careful pass through what the characteristica was meant to do, and what it could not.

5. 5
   MonadologyPaper

   Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1714

   Now the late summa. Ninety paragraphs. Read it twice: once for the architecture, once for the rhythm.

6. 6
   Leibniz's Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative StudyBook

   Catherine Wilson, Princeton University Press, 1989

   Wilson places the Monadology in its century. Especially helpful on perception and expression — the bridges between metaphysics and language.

7. 7
   The Philosophy of Leibniz: Metaphysics and LanguageBook

   Benson Mates, Oxford University Press, 1986

   Mates is the analytic anchor. Read chapter 7 for a contemporary formalisation of what Leibniz could only sketch.