Legendary in his own time and since as a universal genius, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) contributed significantly to almost every branch of learning. One of the creators of modern mathematics, and probably the most sophisticated logician between the Middle Ages and Frege, as well as a pioneer of ecumenical theology, he also wrote extensively on such diverse subjects as history, geology, and physics. But the part of his work that is most studied today is probably his writings in metaphysics, which have been the focus of particularly lively philosophical discussion in the last twenty years or so.

These writings contain one of the great classic systems of modern philosophy, but the system must be pieced together from a vast and miscellaneous array of manuscripts, letters, articles, and books, in a way that makes especially strenuous demands of scholarship. Leibniz: Determinist, Theist, Idealist presents an interpretation in depth of three important parts of Leibniz's metaphysics, thoroughly grounded in the texts as well as in philosophical analysis and critique. The three areas discussed are the metaphysical part of Leibniz's philosophy of logic (a particularly popular topic in recent discussion of his work); his essentially theological treatment of the central issues of ontology; and his theory of substance (the famous theory of monads).