Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: You are listening to Right on Radio on KFAI 90.3 FM and streaming live on the web at KFAI.org I'm Josh Weber. On tonight's program, I will be talking with Audrey Borowski about her biography on the German polymath Wilhelm Gottfried Leibniz. Titled Leibniz in his the Making of a Savant. An exhilarating work of scholarship, Leibniz in His World demonstrates how this uncommon intellect, torn between his ideals and the necessity to work for absolutist states, struggled to make a name for himself during his formative years. Then the last part of the hour, we dive into the archives to play an interview from the past. All this and more. So stay tuned to Write on Radio this episode. I'm joined by Audrey Borowski to talk about her monograph published by Princeton University Press on Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, titled Leibniz in His World, the Making of a Savant, a fascinating exploration of a complex thinker with a prodigious intellect. Far from the image of an isolated genius, Borowski brings to life a young Leibniz navigating the intricate worlds of early modern science, diplomacy and core politics. Set against the vibrant backdrop of 17th century Europe, the book delves into his transformative Paris sojourn and his tenure at the court of Duke Johann Friedrich of Hanover. Perovsky reveals a man deeply shaped by the social and intellectual currents of his age. This nuanced portrait not only illuminates Leibniz intellectual struggles and ambitions, but also presents him as a multifaceted and deeply human figure. Borowski is a distinguished scholar whose interdisciplinary expertise bridges history, philosophy and technology. She is a research fellow with the desirable Digitalization Project collaboration between the universities of Bonn and Cambridge. Arofsky explores the ethical design of AI and digital technologies in our rapidly evolving world. Audrey, welcome to Write on Radio.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. It's a blast. Thank you.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: I'm always curious about the epigraphs people place in their works because I think it offers a window into the author's psyche while writing. There's two quotations that kick off this biography that are both from Albert Camus. I was wondering if you could talk about them in relation to your work on Leibniz.
[00:02:46] Speaker B: There is no real connection between the epigraphs and Leibniz. I have to say.
They're personal choices. I've had a long relationship, quote, unquote, with Albert Camille since I'm a teenager. He's always been in my life. And actually every summer as I've been able to do. I visit his grave in North Mary, in Provence, France, south of France, where I encourage many people to go. In fact, he's played a big role in my life and he is one of the few scholar, few writers who is able to discern the ambiguities, the fragilities and some of the essential traits of our human essences. And I, I've always been very close to him.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: So I watched your discussion with Ann Catherine Hales on her book Bacteria to AI, and you jokingly suggested using a Leibniz AI chatbot to simulate a conversation for gathering research material. I was wondering if you made any playful attempts at speaking with Leibniz.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: No, not yet. I think that would probably be aghast or frightened or disconcerted. I think that, yes, I mean, it's a, it's a very. We live in a strange, strange world at the point, at this point, in a way that, you know, if I were to, to insert all of Leibniz's correspondence as we have it now into a, into A, into ChatGPT, for example, I could have a pseudo virtual Leibniz come alive. But in a way I, I've refrained from doing that. I think everything has its time and place and I mean, in a way it's a bit similar to these grief bots, you know, do we really want to bring back people who are dead and who, you know, to, to, to, to live next to us, to interact with them and so on? You know, I'm not sure we're quite, we, we quite grasp the various ethical and philosophical ramifications of that yet. So I'm going to give it a while.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Fortunately for us, Leibniz managed to share with us some reflections about ordinary young people. Can you tell us about Leibniz personality or what was his personality like? What would be our first impressions of him?
[00:05:02] Speaker B: That's a very good question.
Well, I'm trying, in a way, not going to try, not comment too much on that from a personal perspective, but he was what we'd call a spunky character in a way.
He was ambitious, he was a go getter, he was a man on a mission.
He, he encountered many obstacles, something that's not necessarily very well known, but he used them in a way. He either went around them, circumvented them, or that in a way opened other opportunities. So in a way Leibniz would offer us a perfect guide to resilience. You know, move over. Angela Duckworthy with grit.
He was a spunky character. He was Ambitious.
He was quite mischievous in a strange sort of way. And it makes him very endearing. I mean, he doesn't have any problems. It's very endearing and charming in a way, seeing him write in his letters where most of his personality is revealed that, you know, telling off people he didn't think were quite up to scratch or people he felt, aristocrats, you know, potential patrons he felt had not given accorded him the honor, sufficient honor, you know, and then having that blow up in his face dramatically.
So sometimes, yeah, and then he would be put back in his place, but it would be. We could see how people who are, you know, younger, in their younger years and who are ambitious and who believe, you know, rightly or wrongly, that they have something exceptional to share would share some of those traits with Leibniz.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Well, I think you also write in the book a line where he says he doesn't indulge in the ordinary entertainments of the youth of his time. He doesn't drink. I think to show off as well was one thing that I think he mentions.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: But, you know, what's really, what's really sweet and very endearing in a naughty kind of way about him is that, you know, he says, oh, oh, I am so modest and I do not drink. And. And then obviously, you know, he uses that to try and portray himself. There's always some kind of afterthought. So, yes, you know, he is, he is very much determined and a man on a mission and, you know, for some real great things, some real great projects. But he wasn't averse to then, you know, using all of his quote unquote, defaults as ways to valorize himself and as a way to denigrate others if necessary, if that could advance him in his cause.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: But you talk a bit about. He also does this in a way where he uses modesty as a tool, I think, to try to put up this level of sincerity that, oh, look at me, I'm this poor character. There's a line of artifice and sincerity. You have this section where you talk a bit about that. He uses the rhetorical tool of preturition, I believe.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Well, it's, you know, it's like someone saying, and I won't mention that X is a drunk, you know, to get his job, whilst mentioning that Leibniz likes to do that. And it's one of his little, one of his little tools. And sometimes the strings are quite big. And so it depends then on his recipient. Is the recipient going to see the strings? Is the recipient going to react? Is the recipient going to put back Leibniz in his place? But he's always trying. At least I think that this, then his little, this kind of, this, this gets refined over, over, over time.
But yes, he's, he's not at all averse to writing. For example, as soon as someone has passed on, has, has died. I wouldn't dream of asking you for the job. But obviously he does. You know, it's this kind of, it's, it's this, it's this terror. It's terribly gauche acknowledgement to the social mores and conventions of his times, in a way.
I don't, I mean, I don't know to what extent this would be accurate, but Leibniz has a bit of a Larry David in him.
What is this? What are you doing?
And in a, in a, you know, obviously contextualized and always. But, you know, unlike beloved Larry, he is not selfish. And he does all of this because he is a man on a mission and he really wants to improve the lot of mankind. And so he's impatient. You know, he has a finite life. He has a huge amount of work to do. He knows that there are great challenges ahead of him. So he doesn't have time for this nonsense quote unquote. You know, he, and he, you know, he often, he sometimes even nearly rights to that effect. And the irony here is because he doesn't have time for these conventions and for these hierarchies and for all of these, you know, all of this performance that.
But he still has to acknowledge it. So he acknowledges, but in a terribly gauche way, which ironically makes him look insincere when he's all doing this because precisely he is moved by a thoroughly sincere and profoundly good and positive vision of things.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I was pleased to read that Leibniz was something of a bibliophile starting at the age of 6. How did Leibniz conceive of the ideal library? What books to him were vital for his repository of knowledge? What do you regard as of little use?
[00:10:32] Speaker B: He's not so interested in ornamental books. I mean, and pretty books, beautiful books with beautiful colors. He believes in the virtue of utility, you know, and this in a way makes him a great character for his age and a man, a thoroughly modern man, a man of the moment and going forward because he believes in reform. We're at a time, we've just had the 30 years war, you know, we are no longer. We don't have states and governments and princes don't have Much money. We need to know what's useful and what is not to distinguish between the chaff and, and the rest. And so he suggests that libraries buy useful books and that we'll be able to bring about the promotion of the good and education, philosophy, mathematics, theology.
And he was a librarian all of his life, in fact, first in Hanover, then in Wolfenburg, and then some of the way he offers, he suggests, to redesign libraries are then passed on to various different characters.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: One of the most appealing parts of reading Leibniz in his world was to discover that Leibniz had this interest in establishing intellectual networks within the 17th century. A republic of letters or citizenship of the mind. Could you talk about Leibniz's preoccupation with organizing learned societies and his role in building a network for philosophers and scientists?
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Well, that's a, that's a, that's a big question. The thing with Leibniz is that from early, from early on, well, there is a continuity throughout his life in many respects, and he comes up with many plans when he's, I want to say, when he's a child, really, and at least when he's a teenager. And he has these ideas, and many of the ideas he has are these, these, these societies for learning and for quote, unquote, what we would call research institutes today. But they are quite, still quite utopian in nature, I mean, and quite, in a way, quite subversive, too. Some of them are clearly inspired by Plato.
And in one, for example, his Philadelphia Society, Society for Peace, he suggests that forms of philosopher's king would basically infiltrate that society and take over the key roles and the key posts in that society and in government. And thus. And these people would be wise and that would help spread rationality and promote irrational form of government in a way that is actually quite, quite subversive and it might be construed as a bit insidious. And in fact, that very same society would also, you know, promote the colonization in various parts of the countries where we could then, you know, use resources. So there is, there is always a bit of ambiguity with Leibniz.
I mean, another, he has many other plans. Plan for a universal characteristic, an ideal language, an artificial universal language that would not only help us communicate between each other, but which, which would, you know, from the combination, the logical combination of simple elements, an Alphabet of human thought would help us reason perfectly altogether in a way that there would be no longer any disagreements, and so we would no longer fight. I mean, and we have to recontextualize that Leibniz is coming out. You know, we've just had the 30 year war occurring between the Catholics and the Protestants. And Leibniz is very, very much concerned about more bloodshed, more destruction.
And he wants to labor actively via, in a cognitive manner towards the reconciliation of people, of peoples throughout Europe, which is a very, very noble cause indeed.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: By my understanding of it, is this attempt to reduce all human thoughts to symbols of knowledge, representation. What Leibniz referred to as, what you just said, the Alphabet of human thought. How did Leibniz imagine this ideographic language?
[00:14:58] Speaker B: Oh, well, it is all part, in a way.
It's all part and parcel of what Leibniz envisions as a combinatorial art which derives from mathematics and, well, which derives from logic. He sees that mathematics would be a branch of that. So when he composes the calculus, calculus, all of these problems come stem from, you know, tangible, concrete problems. Calculus. How do we deal with movement, how do we deal with the infinite? You know, how do we effectively, ultimately, how do we navigate an infinite universe? Right. Leibniz, unlike many of his, of his fellow philosophers, you know, celebrates the infinite. You know, Pascal had a horror of the infinite. Leibniz says, you know, this is, this is the, this is the manifestation of the divine, this is manifestation of God in his diversity and wonder. And so, but we do need tools, we do need fictions to navigate all of this. And one of them, one of these manifestations is going to be the calculus with the help of the infinitesimals. Another, you know, part of that combinatorial art, or what he'll eventually call, you know, what would eventually culminate with him into a general science with different branches, you know, using the tool of logic that we human beings have.
So we would have these various branches and the universal language would just be one facet of that.
And it's very typically Leibnizian, because Leibniz, you know, it's all about perspectives. You generally have one core idea. It's like the monad. You have the monad and then you have, which is a perspective which is a reflection of everything else. So, you know, a lot of what Leibniz had, or Leibniz puts forward is, you know, parallel systems effectively expressing the same thing, but from different perspectives or in different ways. And so the universal language is that. And so there have been, you know, comparisons drawn with the Chinese hexagrams, but actually more directly related to AI, for example, which is the topic I work on these days, is his binary calculus. The idea of being able to break down Everything into either zeros or ones, and which has led actually to computational language. So, you know, and that would lead us to this wonderful, perfect language which would, you know, help us all come together and which has been, you know, which offers this kind of totalizing and analytical view of knowledge and which obviously was not feasible. Like many of Leibniz's plans, the idea is brilliant, but the delivery is not necessarily so perfect. And many of his projects, whether universal language or societies or a calculating machine or phosphorus or many other, Many other projects that he, that he tries to advance or promotes don't work because he fails to appreciate, we'll put it that way, that, you know, the translation between something on paper and in concrete in the real world can be complicated, complex, and often at the mercy of various, you know, conjectures, and not, you know, not necessarily so straight, as straightforward as he envisages it.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: This book chronicles Leibniz's formative years in Paris. Before traveling to France, he had mostly focused his studies related to philosophy and jurisprudence. What fields of study did Leibniz pursue once in Paris?
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Well, he works quite a bit on his mathematics. He uses libraries extensively and engages in historical work. But crucially, what really springs to my mind right now is, you know, this is where he really starts communicating and exchanging letters extensively with many, many other of his correspondents throughout Europe on many many different topics. Physics, mathematics, theology, law, politics. I mean, as you've mentioned, he's a. He's originally basically a theologian and primarily a lawyer, something that we don't necessarily know and appreciate and which may account for some of the twists and turns in his thinking and his way of proceeding later. And he also continues that work. Leibniz basically mixes his own personal interests and his. More his job. The tasks that come with his job, whether it's writing memos, whether it's writing briefs for various rulers, or trying to promote his plan for legal reform or achieving some kind of universal legal reform throughout Europe.
And so he manages somewhat quite successfully to mix those various activities and those various disciplines. Obviously this is something that, from our very modern perspective is very strange because now we're so specialized. But back then, you know, people could be, you know, polymaths and could evolve as polymaths with multiple identities, you know, to a certain extent, as he does.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: You know, that Leibniz was an aspiring capitalist and projector. Could you explain for the audience what a projector was in Leibniz's time and why he was so anxious to acquire the reputation as a projector?
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Well, thank you for Asking that because it's actually quite fun. And it's one of the, you know, the real fun parts maybe of this project. Leibniz is a projector, and this is something that's not very well known.
It also comes in, within the context, you know, we're, we're in a context of, you know, post 30 year, 30 years war and states needing money, states needing money and technical expertise, and technical expertise not for the sake necessarily of just technical expertise, but technical expertise that will, may be made productive, that will help states become more prosperous, to put things simply. And so you have this whole breed of people, including Leibniz, who go to various rulers and promote various technical projects that can be in banking, that can be essentially in engineering, or even in a philosophical, as we've seen with Leibniz.
And one project, for example, is trying to create phosphorus from urine or to transmute silver or metal into gold. And that would be very useful. So Leibniz has pitches, and I think is the correct word in a way, he pitches these various projects, whether in Paris with his calculating machine or in Hanover. And, you know, these projects generally, you know, don't necessarily work out so well with the result that he is, he can, he, he is often discredited and he is very wary of then becoming associated, as we're being treated, as a form of charlatan because, you know, there were many projectors at that time. Daniel Defoe, in fact, calls it the projecting age. The projector, the term projector, as it would later, as this kind of personality would later be called, is seen increasingly as a charlatan, as someone who pretends to want to promote a technical project in the public interest, but actually is only interested in accumulating money.
One famous projector, more famous projector at the time with whom Leibniz interacts is a chemist called Johann Joachim Becher, whom he tracks meticulously throughout Europe, you know, in France and in Germany.
And it's very interesting to see the double standards Leibniz applies in that case. You know, in his case, especially in the earlier periods, Leibniz desperately wants, you know, asks rulers and so on to believe, to take his word for granted and not require any proof of the project he is pitching. However, when he himself, when he's working for Duke Johann Friedrich, when he's working as a gatekeeper, effectively being approached himself by all his projectors, he applies rather different standards, much harsher, requesting various forms of proof and so on. So that's quite funny. That's quite amusing to watch too.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: I was Surprised while reading that despite being labeled as one of the great rationalists next to Descartes and Spinoza, Leibniz stresses multiple times knowledge that promoted the practicalities of life and contraptions that serve the public good. Is it fair to say the rationalist label is somewhat of a distortion for Leibniz?
[00:24:37] Speaker B: I think it's a reduction in the case of Leibniz, and I've always been struck by that, because actually we tend to reduce Leibniz to calculus, binary, universal characteristic, when actually much of his work and much of his philosophy more generally hinges on a much broader, much more fluid, dynamic, cybernetic way form of rationality in an infinite form of rationality. Just thinking of his metaphysics here. And Leibniz was very much interested and he collects all what we would consider crazy information about apples that ripen at Christmas or men who can produce diamonds or sightings of unicorns. You know, even he is open, he is skeptical and, you know, but he's always open. And that is testament to the kind of period he's evolving in a period in which, you know, any, anything is perceived as possible, you know, to the extent that then it can be disproven or refuted. And so it must have been in some respects quite frightening time to live, but also an incredibly wonderful full of wonder and exciting and new time to live, you know, age in which to evolve and to encounter the world in this manner.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I wasn't aware until reading this that Leibniz had visited Spinoza. At one point in Leibniz letters, he described their meaning having no value and they only had an interchange of anecdotes. In your research, was this meaning as inconsequential as Leibniz made, do you think?
[00:26:28] Speaker B: Well, no, not really. Because there's a difference also between what Leibniz writes. You know, there's a different. And this is where the study of the letters. Well, I mean, if I may make a comment about the letters themselves, you know, I based my research mainly on the letters. And what I noticed over time was that Leibniz writes huge amounts. But most, most people, most scholars, for, you know, you know, freely only decided to look at the juicy quote, unquote, the juicy parts, leaving out sometimes 90% of the letter because it's just considered as chaff. But actually the letters in themselves, not only are they, you know, do they become goods in an information economy, there are ways for Leibniz to position himself to, you know, perform himself, to present himself in a certain way. And we know for a fact that Leibniz, even when he writes, when he disparages and discards Spinoza's letters. Well, actually, he values Spinoza much more. In fact, talking about, I was referring to the infinite earlier. We know that Leibniz draws directly for his concept of the infinite, or rather three infinites. He takes that directly from Spinoza. So he wasn't as dismissive as he may have written for the benefit of one particular recipient.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: And I. My last question. What is your hope that readers will take away from reading Leibniz in his world?
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Well, I hope that people will have a good giggle first and that, you know, people will rediscover Leibniz and rediscover, perhaps, well, help, you know, have a wonderful time rediscovering the kind of period this was where things were shifting, where things were a bit more ambiguous and where anything, in a way, things seemed more possible and open than they seem now. And maybe, and you know, but still, you know, keeping some skepticism and some, you know, some. Keeping some skepticism, maintaining some skepticism. And maybe we have, you know, we have something to learn from Leibniz and the time, you know, the time he evolved, he lived in and how he approached things.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: I would say, lastly, congratulations on the publication of the seminal work on Leibniz. What are you working on next?
Is there an estimated publication date for philosophers of the digital age?
[00:29:10] Speaker B: No, not yet. I'm working hard on it. My current projects is.
I'm working on several projects. One is about the algorithmization of ideology.
And I think that you asked me about what can Leibniz bring to the table? Well, Leibniz can bring nuance and multi perspectivism because Leibniz was a major thinker of multi perspectivism, acknowledging one's own perspective, but also one's neighbor's perspective and the various perspectives. Looking through everything and acknowledging that there is always a bit of truth everywhere. Because for him, living together, being able to live together, being able to draw from the past and the present without being dogmatic is something he very much promoted and subscribed to. And I think that may be actually how he can be very much of help to us today.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: Well said.
This has been my time talking to Audrey Borowski about her new work, Leibniz in His World, the Making of Savant. Audrey, thank you so much for your time.
[00:30:24] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: And now this.
