Discourse Touching the Method of Certitude and the Art of Discovery

A flattering appeal to an unnamed king to put the age's scattered knowledge in order and set inquiry to work.

by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz19 passages held

French, the original language

Original title: Discours touchant la méthode de la certitude et l'art d'inventer
First published: 1840(published posthumously)
Original language: French

Overview

For much of this short French discourse Leibniz addresses a king he does not name and expects every reader to recognise: a monarch who has triumphed on all sides, restored peace and plenty to his kingdom, and already has an academy and an observatory working for him. The portrait fits Louis XIV. The pitch is that no century has been better equipped than this one, with printing, the compass, the telescope, the microscope and chemistry, yet it leaves what it knows lying about like goods in a shop kept without order or inventory. He even credits gunpowder with having halted the Ottoman advance into Europe. One royal decision to organise inquiry, Leibniz argues, would achieve in a few years what might otherwise take centuries, and would outdo what Alexander did for knowledge through Aristotle. Behind the flattery stands his own programme: a method of certainty that would end disputes by demonstration, and an art of discovery for finding what is not yet known. The date is uncertain. The German editor J. E. Erdmann included the piece in his 1840 edition of Leibniz's philosophical works, and the American editor Philip P. Wiener put it into English in 1951.

Key concepts

What are the ‘method of certainty’ and the ‘art of discovery’?

The two halves of the programme Leibniz pursued for decades and sets out behind this appeal. The method of certainty would end disputes by demonstration. The art of discovery would be a method for finding what is not yet known. Together they would put the age’s knowledge to work.

Who is the unnamed king Leibniz addresses?

Apparently Louis XIV. Leibniz never names him, but describes a monarch who has triumphed on all sides, restored peace and plenty to his kingdom, and already has an academy and an observatory working for him, a portrait every reader would recognise. The flattery serves the pitch: one royal decision to organise inquiry could do in a few years what might otherwise take centuries.

What does the comparison with Alexander and Aristotle mean?

That a king who organised inquiry would do more for knowledge than Alexander did by supporting Aristotle. Leibniz uses the most famous case of royal patronage of philosophy as the standard to beat: the right decision, taken now, would outdo it, because this century is far better equipped than Alexander’s was.

Why does Leibniz call his century uniquely well equipped?

Because it had printing, the compass, the telescope, the microscope and chemistry, and he even credits gunpowder with having halted the Ottoman advance into Europe. No century had been better provided. Yet it left what it knew lying about like goods in a shop kept without order or inventory, and that disorder is the problem the discourse asks the king to solve.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

A Century That Cannot Find What It Knows

Why should an age with printing, the telescope and the microscope still leave so much of its knowledge unused? Leibniz’s answer is order, and he asks a king to supply it.

No century, Leibniz argues, has been better equipped, and none has left what it knows lying about more carelessly, like goods in a shop kept without order or inventory. His remedy is political. One royal decision to organise inquiry would achieve in a few years what might otherwise take centuries, and would outdo what Alexander did for knowledge through Aristotle. The flattery, aimed at a king whose portrait fits Louis XIV, carries a programme Leibniz pursued for decades: a method of certainty that would end disputes by demonstration, and an art of discovery for finding what is not yet known.

knowledge organization
scientific progress
scientific method
patronage
political power
public welfare
information retrieval
craft knowledge
practical knowledge
demonstration
certainty
discovery
invention

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 19
distinct concepts: 53
by passages held, corpus-wide: #785

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1684 Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas (Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis)
A journal article of 1684, written into the Arnauld–Malebranche quarrel over ideas; its grades of knowledge return in the Discourse on Metaphysics and the New Essays.
LA
1691 Whether the Essence of a Body Consists in Extension (Lettre sur la question si l'essence du corps consiste dans l'étendue)
Against the Cartesian view that body is nothing but extension: a letter to the Paris Journal des Sçavans in 1691, followed by a second in 1693.
FR
1695 New System of Nature (Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances)
Leibniz's first public statement of his system, printed in Paris in 1695; his replies to Foucher and Bayle kept it in the journals until 1698.
FR
1698 On Nature Itself (De ipsa natura)
An answer to Johann Christoph Sturm in the Acta Eruditorum of 1698, defending forces inside created things and tying the dynamics to the metaphysics of substance.
LA
1710 Theodicy (Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l'homme et l'origine du mal)
Published anonymously at Amsterdam in 1710, it was the book by which the eighteenth century knew Leibniz, and the one Voltaire answered with Candide.
FR
1717 The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (Recueil des lettres entre Leibniz et Clarke)
Ten papers exchanged through the Princess of Wales in 1715–16, cut off by Leibniz's death and published by Clarke in 1717.
FR
1718 Principles of Nature and Grace, Based on Reason (Principes de la nature et de la grâce fondés en raison)
A companion summary from the same Vienna months as the Monadology, long mistaken for it and printed before it, in 1718.
FR
1720 Monadology (Monadologie)
Written in French in 1714, it was known for over a century only in German and Latin translation.
FR
1765 New Essays on Human Understanding (Nouveaux Essais sur l'entendement humain)
The book-length reply to Locke, written as a dialogue in 1703–04, withheld after Locke's death and first printed in 1765.
FR
1840 Discourse Touching the Method of Certitude and the Art of Discovery (Discours touchant la méthode de la certitude et l'art d'inventer) you are here FR
1840 On the Ultimate Origination of Things (De rerum originatione radicali)
A short Latin essay of 1697 on why there is a world at all, left in manuscript until 1840.
LA
1840 Reflections on the Doctrine of a Single Universal Spirit (Considérations sur la doctrine d'un Esprit Universel Unique)
A French essay written in 1702 at the Prussian queen's palace outside Berlin, and left unprinted until 1840.
FR
1846 Discourse on Metaphysics (Discours de métaphysique)
The opening statement of Leibniz's mature metaphysics, written early in 1686 and left unprinted until 1846.
FR
1846 The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence (Correspondance de Leibniz et d'Arnauld)
The exchange of 1686 to 1690 between Leibniz and Arnauld over the Discourse on Metaphysics, every letter carried by the Landgrave of Hessen-Rheinfels.
FR
1854 Refutation of Spinoza (Animadversiones ad Joh. Georg. Wachteri librum de recondita Hebraeorum philosophia)
Private Latin notes on Wachter's book about Spinoza and the Kabbalah, given their title by the French scholar who published them in 1854.
FR
1890 Tentamen Anagogicum: An Anagogical Essay in the Investigation of Causes (Essai anagogique dans la recherche des causes)
A French essay of about 1696, from the years of Leibniz's dynamics, defending final causes against the mechanical philosophers.
FR
1903 New Openings (Nouvelles Ouvertures)
Written in French in 1686, by the Academy edition's dating, and left in manuscript until Couturat printed it in 1903.
FR
1903 Preface to the General Science (Préface de la Science générale)
Probably from 1677, an unfinished preface to the universal language of reasoning, unprinted until 1903.
FR
1915 Confessio Philosophi (Confessio philosophi)
Leibniz's first developed theodicy, a Latin dialogue from his Paris years; revised after Steno's objections, its account of sin returns much changed in the Theodicy of 1710.
LA

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