The next two substantial volumes currently in preparation.
These writings show Leibniz at work on the books and arguments of others: excerpting, questioning, criticising, correcting, assimilating, and developing ideas in response. They offer a different perspective from his finished essays and treatises, revealing philosophical judgement at a granular level as he worked through particular passages and problems.
The working collection includes engagements with Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Locke, Bayle, Berkeley, Sextus Empiricus, Maimonides, and many other figures from the Republic of Letters.
The material ranges across metaphysics, natural philosophy, logic, epistemology, theology, religion, jurisprudence, scepticism, toleration, and the relation between faith and reason.
The working contents include texts engaging Kabbalistic writings, Jewish philosophy, Chinese philosophy, and Indian religion and thought, alongside Leibniz’s better-known European philosophical interlocutors.
A substantial proportion of the material has never previously been available in English, and some survives in manuscripts never previously published in any language.
The precise contents remain under editorial review while the volumes are being completed. Numerical totals and detailed contents will be published only when the collection has been finalised.
The first three volumes of Leibniz’s Philosophical Papers, covering 1677–1686, were published by Oxford University Press in 2026. The present work extends the project in a complementary direction, before further planned volumes return to Leibniz’s later philosophical writings across logic and the characteristic; metaphysics and natural philosophy; ethics and jurisprudence; religion and theology; and related fields.
Published VolumesSupport the Next Stage