Translation

Scholars have long lamented the lack of a complete English translation and/or critical edition of Leibniz’s seminal Theodicy, the only book length work he published in his lifetime. The only available English edition (the so-called Huggard translation) is outmoded, translates none of the Latin or Greek texts, excludes a long and important appendix, and contains no critical apparatus at all.

The Problem of Evil in Modern and Contemporary Thought project, therefore, will fund the work of translators to produce a new English translation and edition of Leibniz’s Theodicy, whose appearance will be especially timely in light of all the other Leibniz-related activities generated by this project.

Robert Sleigh (UMass) and Sean Greenberg (UC-Irvine) have agreed to complete this new translation by the summer of 2011. Sleigh, a world-renowned expert in Leibniz studies, has previously translated and edited an excellent and important volume of Leibniz texts entitled Confessio Philosophi and Papers Concerning the Problem of Evil, 1671-1678 (Yale University Press, 2005). Greenberg, fluent in French, is a leading young scholar of early modern philosophy whose published work has centered on conceptions of the passions and the will.

Further details will be available here once a publisher has been selected and the translation is underway. But since one of the goals of the project is to increase the availability of and interest in the text of the Theodicy among university teachers and students, a version of the new translation will appear in an affordable format for classroom and personal use.