ods plan. This way of looking at things means that there is no real difference between innate and acquired characteristics. What happens to you is just as much a part of you as what you already are. The difference is in how people see things. Different things might happen to you in another possible world, but that world would not be as good as this one. Leibniz said that God chose to make the world be the way it is because this world is "the best of all possible worlds." According to Leibniz, a better world could not possibly have existed. Leibnizs ideas about what makes for the best possible world are based on mathematical ideas. As a mathematician, Leibniz looked for the simplest explanations that would account for the greatest number of numerical relationships. And as a philosopher, he believed God set up the world so that the simplest reasons would account for the most variety. Like Descartes, Leibniz didnt leave much room in his world for free will. Leibniz believed that everything that happens is a result of what already exists. In turn, what exists depends on God. Because God might have caused things to be different, there is a certain amount of free play in Leibnizs system. The facts might have been different, but logically it must make the best sense for them to be the way they are. The dualism of their rationalist philosophies made a neat separation between physical and metaphysical reality. An important result of this separation was that it allowed philosophers and scientists to study the natural world without having to worry about supernatural questions. In fact since their time, many philosophers have argued that we should stop asking metaphysical questions. While the contributions of Descartes and Leibnitz created a new path for the philosophers to come, their philosophies have not escaped the criticisms and arguments of others. The empiricists main complaint was that the rationalists had no hard evidence for their theorie...
