Quote: "Leibniz lived at a time when the passion for metaphysics was deep and strong, when it was still believed possible to understand the world purely by thought."
Question: Do we not still hold that belief to an extent?
Comment: It sounds like this point of time was a very beautiful and creative one. But I think that to this day we still believe that we can understand the world--at least a large chunk of it--purely by thought. For example, we have many mathematical hypothesis that were derived purely by thought, and sometimes certain steps in these hypothesis aren't easily explained. Also, whenever I learn about Biology, most of the information I take in seems to be hypothesis, or in otherwords, derived purely by thought, because we don't necessarily have proof that a cell moves exactly in the way it does, but it makes sense. Another example might be dinosaurs. Yes, we have the proof that they existed, but we can be sure what they looked like. For now, all we have is how we think the bones connect, and that they had scales, but there are still many arguments over it. Some scientists believe that many dinosaurs actually had feathers, rather than scales--there was once an exhibit on it in the Natural History Museum.
All in all, I think a lot of our world is still purely derived by thought, and each thought, analysis, hypothesis, and discovery brings us more power and potential.
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