Eloy Rada’s Researches on Leibniz

Abstract

This article analyzes the contributions that Eloy Rada made to Leibnizian studies through his editions of Leibniz texts (1980 and 2016) and by analyzing the confrontation between Leibniz and the Newtonians: the controversy over the origin of the Mathematical Analysis at the end of the Seventeenth Century and contrast between the theories of space and time of Newton and Leibniz. Rada showed that the Newtonian system had a theological-religious foundation, which was called into question by the Leibnizian system of pre-established harmony, making the positions of both irreconcilable. The divergences, including the discussion on the force of gravity, are the consequence of this metaphysical and theological opposition, which affected the roots of Anglican religion, as it had been interpreted by the latitudinarianism and Cambridge philosophers, together with Boyle, Newton and his system of universal gravitation.