Leibniz

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz - one of the most brilliant minds of all time - a true polymath...contributor to logic, mathematics, history, linguistics, ethics, politics, law, philosophy, theology and natural

science...

Leibniz gave us the following philosophical gems:  

the principle of sufficient reason - everything that exists must have a reason for existing or a cause for its being ... 

plenitude - that the existing universe must necessarily actualize all possible (i.e. viable) forms of existence...

monads - simple substances, immaterial and indivisible, without parts, akin to spiritualized atoms or atomic "souls"...

pre-established harmony - the harmony or pre-established order that regulates causal interactions between substances within Nature...

identity of indiscernibles - the principle that no two numerically distinct entities can possess absolutely identical properties - which perhaps means that there are no absolute clones or doppelgangers... 

middle knowledge - the idea that God has foreknowledge of everything in the sense of having knowledge of all contingent possibilities of what can and will occur...i.e. knowing everything that can happen without compelling everything to happen in a particular manner...

necessary being -  a.k.a.  the complete notion or the complete concept of individuals - the idea that for any given entity, all possible predicates that pertain to individual X are included in the subject, "X" - i.e. all actions, relations or events involving individual X are contained within the ontological concept of X...

intelligent souls - minds, unlike other substances in nature, are self-aware, able to reflect on themselves in relation to other entities...

the republic of minds - minds are created to be in communion with other intelligences...

the principle of continuity - the idea that "nothing [ever] happens suddenly"...or that "Nature never takes leaps"...the process of change always includes an infinity of intermediary steps....
...As Leibniz writes: "the rules of the finite also succeed for the infinite..."

little perceptions - infinite, composite, unconscious perceptions that help to "mirror" or "instantiate" the reality of the [surrounding] world within our own minds...

possible worlds or the principle of the best - the notion God is compelled by reason to choose the optimum scenario out of a set of lesser alternatives - thus making 'this' (i.e. the cosmos in aggregate) the "best of all possible worlds"...

The Debate about God and the Best of All Possible Worlds (featuring Leibniz, Malebranche, and Arnauld)

Professor Stephen Nadler (University of Wisconsin-Madison) has written a very wonderful, engaging, accessible account of the debate about God and the creation of the universe - by three of the 17th century's most prescient minds of the era, namely Leibniz, Malebranche and Arnauld...Professor Nadler also includes very helpful discussions about Descartes and Spinoza....

...On Acknowledging the Shadow Within...

"We are still almost certain we know what other people think or what their true character is. We are convinced that certain people have all the bad qualities we do not know in ourselves or that they live all those vices which could, of course, never be our own. We must still be exceedingly careful in order not to project our own shadows too shamelessly; we are still swamped with projected illusions. If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw these projections, all and sundry, then you get an individual conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a man has saddled himself with new problems and conflicts. He has become a serious problem to himself, as he is now unable to say that they do this or that, they are wrong and they must be fought against. He lives in the "house of self-collection." Such a man knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in himself, and if he only learns to deal with his own shadow then he has done something real for the world. He has succeeded in removing an infinitesimal part at least of the unsolved gigantic, social problems of our day. These problems are unwieldy and poisoned by mutual projections. How can anyone see straight when he does not even see himself and that darkness which he himself carries unconsciously into all his dealings?" - Carl Jung, from Psychology and Religion

Civil Rights and the Justice System / Essential Reading

Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America by Patrick Phillips

Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King

Anatomy of a Lynching: The Kill of Claude Neal by James R. McGovern

Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race and Justice Lost and Found by Gilbert King

The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder and the Search for Justice in the American South by Gilbert King

Emmett Till: The Murder that Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement by Devery S. Anderson

He Calls Me by Lightning: The Life of Caliph Washington and the Forgotten Saga of Jim Crow, Southern Justice and the Death Penalty  by S. Jonathan Bass

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising by Heather Ann Thompson

Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination that Changed America by Wil Haywood

The Lynching: the Epic Courtroom Battle that Brought down the Klan by Laurence Leamer

Black Dahlia, Red Rose by Piu Eatwell

A highly-recommended true-crime saga of L.A.'s most notorious unsolved murder - with lots of great background info on the noir-like atmosphere of old Los Angeles, the corruption within the LAPD,  the sketchy suspects taken right out of central casting, including the haunting auras of Elizabeth Short, Dr. J. Paul De River, Aggie Underwood and Leslie Dillon. If you have an interest in criminal psychology - this might be the book for you...

A True-Crime Chronology

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966)

Honor Thy Father by Gay Tales (1971)

The Onion Field by Joseph Wambaugh (1973)

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi (1974)

The Michigan Murders by Edward Keyes (1976)

Blood and Money by Thomas Thompson (1976)

A Death in Canaan by Joan Barthel (1978)

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (1979)

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule (1980)

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (1981)

The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes (1981)

Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss (1983)

Missing Beauty by Teresa Carpenter (1987)

The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm (1990)

Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore (1994)

The Run of His Life: The People vs. O.J. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin (1996)

The Mad, the Bad and the Innocent: The Criminal Mind on Trial  by Barbara Kirwin (1997)

Cries Unheard (The Story of Mary Bell) by Gitta Sereny (1998)

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham (2006)

Through the Window by Diane Fanning (2007)

People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry (2011)

The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness and Murder by Charles Graeber (2013)

Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker (2013)

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (2017)

The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (2017)

Black Dahlia, Red Rose: The Crime, Corruption and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder by Piu Eatwell

I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (2018)

Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race and Justice Lost and Found by Gilbert King (2018)

My Haphazard Spring Reading List

Fear City: New York's Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of  Austerity Politics by Kim Phillips-Fein
(the story of how New York City went broke in 1975 and the fallout that ensued...)

The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh
(Hersh's controversial and eyebrow-raising expose of the sordid underbelly of the Kennedy presidency....JFK's private persona does not at all match his public image...Ugh...)

Havana Nocturne by T. J. English
(Interesting fast-paced narrative about the Mob's control of Havana - focusing on Meyer Lansky, Santo Traficante, Fulgencio Batista, and Fidel Castro)

The Age of Eisenhower by William Hitchcock

(a well-written, generally positive reappraisal of the Eisenhower years...)

Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot

(A grand tour of San Francisco history - episodically focusing on various decades and colorful personalities - with emphasis on the 60's and 70's)

Typhoon by Joseph Conrad

(Ordinary guy, not one for introspection, heads straight into the storm, leaving his boat mates mystified...)

Double Play: The San Francisco City Hall Killings by Mike Weiss
[A gripping, character-driven account of the 1978 murders of City Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone... ]