EDITORIALE / Lucia Oliveri, Osvaldo Ottaviani /
The story concerning the edition of Leibniz’s papers and letters renders the story of its reception and the methodology used to approach his ideas worth of particular attention and study. Leibniz did not publish extensively during his life, although some of his views circulated through his extensive network of correspondents. Privately, he was an intensive writer, whose approach to knowledge corresponds to what we would today call trans- and cross-disciplinary work. He followed the development of sciences at his time – from mathematics to history, from medicine to the study of languages –, but he was not just a spectator: he engaged himself with difficult issues and eventually provided brilliant ideas to progress in any of those disciplines. Most of his writings remained unavailable until the appearances of special editions that enabled a ‘re-discovery’ of his genius and multifaceted mind. This issue offers some attempts of tracking the reception and transformation of Leibnizian ideas and concepts. Its intent is neither to provide an exhaustive picture, nor to adopt a single methodology of how to approach the story of Leibniz’s reception. We begin by explaining the different approach to Leibniz’s reception in light of the history of the edition of his writings. We therefore distinguish three different approaches that will constitute the sections of the present issues. In §1 we present the contributions, and in §2 we offer a short presentation of “lost pieces”, i.e., stories of reception of Leibniz’s ideas that remained uncovered by the present issue and that, according to us, need peculiar attention from scholars.
