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Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was born on July 1, 1646. He was born into an academic family although he never became a scholar or teacher himself. His mother’s father was a professor, as was his own father. His father died when he was only six years old. His mother was extremely religious and this would play a key role in his philosophy. Leibniz was intellectually gifted. He taught himself Latin at an early age and learned some Greek by age 12. He also read a lot in the classics at an early age. His great interest in literature and language seemed to be his motivation to read his father’s books. In school, Leibniz was taught Aristotle’s logic and theory of categorising knowledge, which Leibniz thought to be inadequate and believed he could make it better. This added to the list of his many projects, and he was still in high school. Aside from school studies, Leibniz mainly studied metaphysics and theology books from both Catholic and Protestant writers (Magill 123). Leibniz was formally educated at the University of Leipzig at the age of 14. Although this sounds like an extremely young age to enter college, in his time it was quite extraordinary but there would still be a few his age. In Leipzig, he received his bachelors and masters degrees of law for theses on jurisprudence. For an unknown reason, Leibniz was refused his doctorate degree in law (Magill 124). Without taking any hesitation, he transferred to the University of Altdorf, where he received his doctorate in law in 1666. He declined a professorship at Altdorf. Instead, he began a life of professional service to noblemen, primarily the dukes of Hanover (O’Connor 1).
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