Monadologies: An Historical Overview

Abstract

This introductory overview comprises (i) a brief account of Leibniz's own monadology; (ii) a discussion of the reception of his philosophy up to Kant; and (iii) a short overview of the monadologies developed after Kant's first Critique, made via a summary of key points raised in this guest issue, highlighting recurrent themes, which include questions of historiography.

Keywords:

• Leibniz
• Monadologies
• Introduction
• pluralism
• metaphysics

Notes

1 On the relationship between Wolff and Leibniz's philosophy see Wilson, ‘The Reception of Leibniz’; École, ‘Wolff était-il leibnizien?’; Lamarra, ‘Contexte Génétique et Première Réception de la Monadologie’; Park, ‘Le Débat Wolffien Sur L'Idéalisme de Leibniz Lors de la Première Diffusion de la Monadologie Latine’.

2 We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Leverhulme Trust, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and the British Society for the History of Philosophy. We would also like to thank the Editor of this Journal, Mike Beaney, for his support and advice and Jessica Leech for commenting on a draft of this introduction. We extend our thanks also to each of the contributors.