Leibniz: Dissertation on Combinatorial Art

Massimo Mugnai is Professor Emeritus of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa. He is a member of the scientific board of the Florentine Center for History and Philosophy of Science and of the Leibniz-Gesellschaft of Hannover. Mugnai has previously worked at the University of Bari and the University of Florence. He has delivered papers at numerous universities, including Bonn, Düsseldorf, Freiburg, Hannover, Konstanz, Leipzig, Edinburgh, Madrid, MacMaster, and Ontario.Han van Ruler studied philosophy at Utrecht University and obtained his PhD at the University of Groningen in 1995. He is Professor of Intellectual History at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is also Scientific Director of the Dutch Research School of Philosophy (OZSW) and General Editor of Brill's Studies in Intellectual History. He has published a variety of modern editions in English and Dutch of seventeenth-century philosophical works by Descartes, Geulincx, and Spinoza.Martin Wilson graduated in mathematics at the University of London in 1964, after which he completed an MA at the University of Sheffield and then spent two years at Newcastle University studying Polynomial theory. His publications include an English edition of the seventeenth-century Flemish philosopher Arnold Geulincx's Metaphysics (Christoffel 1999) and, together with Han van Ruler and Anthony Uhlmann, an English edition of Geulincx's Ethics: With Samuel Beckett's Notes (Brill 2006).

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the DAC is widely recognized as the most original and most important early work by Leibniz, containing the seeds of his mature philosophy and, in particular, of his logic. Mugnai, van Ruler, and Wilson have devoted many years to this daunting task: the result is a volume of outstanding quality and exceptional importance. In brief, this is a major contribution to the history of philosophy in general and the history of logic in particular - one which will have a long shelf life. Any serious research library should have a copy on its shelves.