The first three volumes of Leibniz’s Philosophical Papers were published by Oxford University Press on 30 April 2026, marking the completion of the project’s first stage.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was one of the great architects of the modern intellectual world — co-inventor of calculus, pioneer of symbolic logic, designer of early calculating machines, and a philosopher of extraordinary range. Yet much of his philosophical work remains accessible only through difficult manuscript sources or scattered scholarly publications.
The edition presented here seeks to recover those writings and make them accessible in a modern scholarly form.
The first three volumes of Leibniz’s Philosophical Papers, published by Oxford University Press on 30 April 2026, present a crucial decade in the development of Leibniz’s philosophy: the years 1677–1686, when many of his central ideas first took shape.
These writings include major projects such as the universal characteristic, the encyclopaedia and General Science, early metaphysical works, and Leibniz’s reflections on religion and church reunion.
These texts have been established directly from manuscript sources, allowing the edition to present a coherent body of Leibniz’s philosophical work from this crucial decade.
A page from one of Leibniz’s philosophical manuscripts ("The Place of Others"), showing revisions, deletions, marginalia, and binary notation as he developed his ideas.
Leibniz’s manuscripts often contain layers of revision — sentences crossed out, ideas rewritten, and arguments developed in the margins. Establishing the text requires reconstructing his thought from these complex handwritten sources.
Many of the texts in this edition were recovered from heavily revised drafts containing deletions, additions, and multiple stages of composition, allowing us to see Leibniz thinking on the page.
The edition appears in three volumes devoted to Leibniz’s philosophical writings from 1677 to 1686.
Universal Language, Characteristic, Logic,
Encyclopaedia, and General Science
Metaphysics, Natural Philosophy,
Ethics, and Jurisprudence
Religion and Theology
Leibniz continued writing philosophy for another thirty years after 1686. The continuing edition will recover this later material through coherent volumes whose precise contents and order are established by ongoing manuscript research.
Two volumes of Reading Notes and Reviews, 1675–1716 are in preparation for submission to Oxford University Press. Their precise contents remain under editorial review.
Further books are planned across universal language, characteristic, logic, encyclopaedia and general science; metaphysics, natural philosophy, ethics and jurisprudence; and religion and theology.
The immediate goal is to secure twelve months of protected full-time work from June 2027 to May 2028. Multi-year patronage would give the project still greater continuity.
A New Edition of Leibniz’s Philosophical Papers.
On dating the manuscripts used in Leibniz’s Philosophical Papers.
Reading lost passages from Leibniz’s manuscripts.
Correcting editorial slips.
Dealing with damaged manuscripts.
Seven previously unpublished texts in the new edition.
The editor’s introduction in the new edition.
The path from a proposed mathematics book to the General Science.
Discovering the little-known Apology for Catholic Truth project (1685)
Learning from what Leibniz crossed out
Leibniz’s First Mill Argument (1685)
Binary Calculating Machines, a Binary Tactile Clock, a Tank, and Bulletproof Clothing
A New Era for Leibniz in English
Choosing the texts for the new edition
Investigating Leibniz’s grand project
Two of Leibniz’s major projects
A text written in the first half of May 1681
Leibniz’s Metaphysics, 1677–1686
Leibniz’s ‘Dangerous Opinions in Descartes’ (1683 — 1685 (?)
Religion and Theology 1677–1686
The “Examination of the Christian Religion”
“On the Worship of the Saints” (1677)
The plan to automate calculation with letters
Assessing Leibniz's Relevance
Scholars, institutions, and readers interested in the edition or in its continuation are warmly invited to get in touch.
