Abstract

Starting from his often neglected earliest writings, "De casis perplexis in Jure" (1666) and "Nova Methodus docendae discendaeque jurisprudentiae" (1667) (now available in an accurate and complete Italian translation), the article deals with Leibniz's doctrine of right and natural law as a continuous thread along his lifetime - up to his conception of justice as "charity of the wise". The program about a more geometric rationalization of the law was a main concern of Leibnitz's speculation. Nevertheless, his "New Method for Learning and Teaching Jurisprudence", which he wrote in order to explain the foundation of "jurisprudence" as a science, as well as to prove the demonstrative method in jurisprudence, entails unfulfilled promises. The late Leibnizian program of a probabilistic logic also remained unrealized.