(Portrait of Gottfried Leibniz by Christoph Bernhard Francke (1660–1729), [Public Domain] via Creative
Commons)
Education and Advancement
In 1646, one of the great
Western minds was born in the city of Leipzig, within the Electorate of Saxony,
in the Holy Roman Empire. The boy’s name was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and his
path as an intellectual and an academic was seemingly set in stone from an
early age. Leibniz’s father, Friedrich, was not only a professor of moral
philosophy at the University of Leipzig, but was also the chairman of the
university’s philosophy faculty. As a child, Gottfried Leibniz was undoubtedly
influenced by the his father’s collection of books, as well as Friedrich
Leibniz’s personal knowledge accumulated from years of academia.
In 1661, Gottfried Leibniz was
accepted into the University of Leipzig, where he studies philosophy and law. He
obtained his degree, and applied to be a doctoral candidate at Leipzig, yet the
university declined his application. Most historians and observers cite
Leibniz’s youth as a reason his application was refused. Nevertheless, he quickly
shed any resentment or bitterness caused by the rejection and gained a
doctorate elsewhere, at the University of Altdorf.
