The reception of the Theodicy in England

Strickland, L ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2560-6909 (2016) The reception of the Theodicy in England. In: Leibniz, Caroline und die Folgen der englischen Sukzession. Studia Leibnitiana (47). Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, pp. 69-90. ISBN 9783515113830

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Abstract

In Leibniz’s lifetime, the reception of his "Theodicy" (1710) in France, Germany and the Netherlands was generally speaking a warm one. What, though, of its reception in England? This is the question with which we shall be concerned in this paper. As we shall see, the response in England was mixed, for while the "Theodicy" received positive reports in the journals, the reaction from key individuals was more lukewarm. To show this, I shall focus first on the journal "Memoirs of Literature", edited by Michel de la Roche, and second, on the report on the "Theodicy" prepared in 1715 by the Bishop of Bristol, George Smalridge.