Leibniz's science of forms as a structural science and similarity as its central concept

Abstract

This paper is concerned with an aspect of combinatory science or art ² that, in our opinion, has so far been relatively neglected in the attempts to clarify the nature and goals of this science. This aspect is the presentation of combinatory science as the science of the similar and dissimilar, which nevertheless plays a central role in the determination of its function and scope, particularly in its connection with the other sciences and with the leibnizian program of a new kind of ars inveniendi.