A Miracle Creed

A rival to Isaac Newton in mathematics and physics, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz believed that our world--the best of all possible worlds--must be governed by optimality principles. Jeffrey McDonough explores the pursuit of optimality through five of his most important works in natural philosophy and shows how thinking about optimality bridges his scientific and philosophical studies. Chapters include discussions of Leibniz's understanding of teleology, the nature of bodies, laws of nature, and free will. The final chapter explores the legacy of Leibniz's physics in light of his work on optimal form.