“Metaphysik” vs. “Geschichte”: The Role of History in Heinrich Schepers’s Interpretation of Leibniz’s Philosophy

As one of the most logically and analytically oriented among European Leibniz scholars, Heinrich Schepers is a tough candidate for topicalizing the role of history in his approach to the study of Leibniz’s philosophical contributions. Yet, when Leibniz became his main and finally unique concern, Schepers understood his task as that of an editor, plainly, and on top of that, of a historian. There is, in Schepers’ works, a role for genealogy and continuity, as well as a need to delineate, together with the theoretic scaffolding, a proper story of Leibniz’s philosophy as the unfolding of a broad project with a strategic plan. This interest in Leibniz’s history – much less, as it is easy to see, in the role of history in Leibniz’s own intellectual enterprise – brings along some relation to history and historiography. Historicity requires contextualization. But it first and foremost – as Schepers himself once wrote – requires precision. How did this precise historian, then, conceive of historiography as an understanding, organizing, and telling of history?