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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'New Essays on Human Understanding' and 'On the Conservation of Force'

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6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 3. Axioms for Geometry

12937	We shouldn't just accept Euclid's axioms, but try to demonstrate them [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Far from approving the acceptance of doubtful principles, I want to see an attempt to demonstrate even Euclid's axioms, as some of the ancients tried to do.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 1.02)
	A reaction: This is the old idea of axioms, as a bunch of basic self-evident truths, rather than the modern idea of an economical set of propositions from which to make deductions. Demonstration has to stop somewhere.