The Idol of Absolute Space
Leibniz's Third Letter
Leibniz: "... real absolute space, the idol of some modern Englishmen"
Now Leibniz begins his assault on Newton's doctrine of space and time. But what is an idol? He refers to Francis Bacon's idols (idola): The Idols of the Tribe (prejudice due to human nature), The Idols of the Cave (prejudice due to each individual), The Idols of the Market Place (prejudice due to commerce and intercourse between people), and the Idols of the Theater (prejudice due to dogmas and philosophies). If you do not know, it should be a good occasion to study them.
However, the very first thing you shoud do is to read Newton's discussion of absolute space and time (Scholium to Definitions, Appendix B, 1). See also my commentary, A Commentary on Newton's Scholium.
Leibniz's assault on the absolute space and time is of course closely related with the principle of sufficient reason. Be sure to grasp the connection!
Leibniz: "Space is something absolutely uniform, and without the things placed in it, one point of space absolutely does not differ in any respect whatsoever from another point of space [according to Newton]. Now from this it follows ... that it is impossible there should be a reason why God, preserving the same situations of bodies among themselves, should have placed them in space after one certain particular manner and not otherwise---why everything was not placed the quite contrary way, for instance, by changing east into west."
Last modified, April 25, 2005. (c) Soshichi Uchii