On Leibniz’s Historiography

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is best known as a philosopher andmathematician, and his fame in philosophy and mathematics dimmed hisachievements in history in a way. In fact, his plentiful and intense thoughts on historycould not be neglected. This essay intends to study his works in philosophy, historyand politics from the perspective of historiography, to explore into the historicalriches of his thoughts, and to achieve a better understanding and evaluation of thisgreat pioneer of the Enlightenment.The macro-environment at that time exerted an influence on Leibniz’s theory ofhistory. Economically, the German capitalistic imbalance contributed to the diversityof his thoughts and the mingling of both essence and dross. Political disintegration ofGermany after30years of war and religious conflicts between Protestantism andCatholicism bred his thoughts of reconciliation and eclecticism. Under the influenceof the Enlightenment, rationalism was evident in both natural science and humanities,and Leibniz’s theory of history was no exception. His ideas are also rooted in his earlyeducation, academic study, classical traditional culture, modern thoughts andinteraction with contemporary scholars. Cicero, Herodotus, Tacitus, Plato, Latin andGreek theologians provided methodological principles. Scholars like Descartes,Spinoza, Locke, Bayle and others inspired Leibniz greatly, who studied differentschools of thoughts, pondered deeply over them, drew essence from them, andgradually built a history system of his own.Leibniz’s theory of history is three-dimensional: rationalism of historiography,rationalism of history and historicism. Rationalism of historiography is reflected in histhoughts of the nature and functions of historiography, the attitude and purpose ofhistorical research, and application of historical methods. As a forward-lookingscholar, Leibniz gave equal weight to historiography and philosophy. In his idea,historians should be critical and truth seeking. History has a role to play in moraleducation in terms of praising the good and criticizing the evil. In his writing, Leibnizproposed research from the “origin of history” and emphasized verification ofhistorical facts in research. In terms of rationalism of history, he held the world to bethe best of all possible worlds, and believed in the perfectibility of man, namely thesocial theory of progress. Monadology of Leibniz, a pioneer of historicism, prefiguredthe historicists’ emphasis on the individual character of historical phenomena and therelationship between the particular and the whole. Leibniz’s historiography influenced later generations, such as, Leibniz’shistorical methods can be found in the historical writings by Gatterer and Schlozer,representatives of the G ttingen School of History, including historical segmentation,scope of world history, emphasis on cultural history and linguistics in historicalresearch, etc. Leibniz’s theory of history brings benefits to later generations,especially his theory of Monadology. Lessing, Herder and others applied Monadologywidely and laid down theoretical foundation for historicism. Leibniz exerted aninfluence in China, mainly in the history of culture, thoughts and philosophy.In a word, Leibniz is a brilliant historiographer that contributed profound andinsightful thoughts to the historical world. He occupied a pivotal position in thedevelopment of German historiography and his value in historiography shall never beunderestimated.