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Social science
Much of Leibniz's work went on to have a great impact on the field of psychology. His theory regarding consciousness in relation to the principle of continuity can be seen as an early theory regarding the stages of sleep. He believed that by the principle that phenomena found in nature were continuous be default, it was likely that the transition between consciousness and unconscious states had intermediary steps. Though Leibniz's ideas regarding pre-established harmony were rejected by many, psychologists embraced his ideas of psychophysical parallelism. This idea refers to the mind-body problem, stating that though the mind and brain do not act upon each other, but act alongside one another separately but in harmony.

Leibniz believed that the mind had a very active role in perception, and plays much a larger role in sensory input. He focused heavily on perception, distinguishing between the type of perception where we are conscious of a stimulus, and the other which is being aware of a distinct perception. He believed that there are many petites perceptions, or small perceptions of which we perceive but are unaware of. For example, when a bag of rice is spilled, we see the rice but are not necessarily aware of how many grains are in the pile. Under this principle, there are an infinite number of perceptions within us at any given time that we are unaware of. For this to be true there must also be a portion of the mind that we are unaware of at any given time. In this respect, Leibniz's theory of perception can be viewed as one of many theories leading up to the idea of the subconscious. Additionally, the idea of subliminal stimuli can be traced back to this theory.

The impact of Leibniz's work in psychology was very widespread within the field. He was a direct influence on Christian Wolff and Ernst Platner, who is credited with originally coining the term Unbewußtseyn (unconscious). Leibniz's idease regarding music and tonal perception went on the influence the laboratory studies of Wilhelm Wundt.


 * 1) (Consider Freud and Monadology and Titchner and Psychophysical Parallelism)

In public health, he advocated establishing a medical administrative authority, with powers over epidemiology and veterinary medicine. He worked to set up a coherent medical training programme, oriented towards public health and preventive measures. In economic policy, he proposed tax reforms and a national insurance program, and discussed the balance of trade. He even proposed something akin to what much later emerged as game theory. In sociology he laid the ground for communication theory.