G.W. Leibniz and Scientific Societies

The famous philosopher Leibniz (1646-1716) was also active in the (cultural) politics of his time. His interest in forming scientific societies never waned and his efforts led to the founding of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He also played a part in the founding of the Dresden Academy of Science and the St. Petersburg Academy of Science. Though Leibniz's models for the scientific society were the Royal Society and the Royal Science Academy of France, his pansophistic vision of scientific cooperation sometimes took on utopian dimensions. In this paper, I will present Leibniz's ideas of scientific cooperation as a kind of religious activity and discuss his various schemes for the founding of such scientific societies.

Cooperative Replies to Unbelievable Assertions

We propose a dialogue protocol for situations in which an agent makes to another agent an assertion that the other agent finds impossible to believe. In this interaction, unbelievable assertions are rejected using explanations formed by logical interpolation and new assertions are being made such that all previous rebuttals are taken into account.