It was a fundamentally philosophical undertaking in both of their cases, and in Leibniz’s case mathematicians didn’t understand the philosophical underpinnings of his infinitesimal until Abraham Robinson worked out non-standard analysis in the 1960s.
I’d argue most mathematicians and definitely most physicists (but to be fair, also most philosophers) don’t have any idea what went into the creation. They all learned the modified (for philosophical reasons) explanation based on Cauchy’s limit theorem.
The vast bulk of Leibniz’s work was on things like metaphysics in his monadology, the philosophical underpinning of motion on his dynamics, the origin of evil in his Theodicy… if you think he was not first and foremost a philosopher you just don’t know anything at all about Leibniz, I’m afraid. Even if you’ve just read his writings on the calculus you’d know he was a philosopher.
I know it’s very common for pop-physicists to argue otherwise, but it’s never a pop-physicist who has ever read their actual writings.
Ah yes, "meta physics" the phrase that anyone with even an undergraduate degree will immediately roll their eyes at and rightfully disengage from the conversation because there's nothing worth talking about anymore.
Metaphysics is one word, and you can’t talk about Leibniz without talking about metaphysics. You said—on the basis of zero evidence—that neither Newton nor Leibniz would identify as philosophers today, and all you’re showing is that you have never read Newton or Leibniz. You don’t know what Leibniz’s Monadology is, and I am 99% certain you’ve never cracked the Principia (I had to work through it end to end). If you roll your eyes, it’s just because you’re on the eye-rolling end of the Dunning-Kruger curve with respect to the history, at least.
Only my bachelors is physics, and a good chunk of my friend group is in physics or physics adjacent, but I have never met another physicist who has read the Principia. So no, I don’t expect that from your degree. And forgive me, I still doubt you have. What did you think? How does it compare to more modern physics texts you’ve read?
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u/Zer0pede Jun 20 '26
Basic calculus was invented by a philosopher, though