The article aims to describe the several meanings of friendship by Leibniz;
starting from the convinction that the person is the root of friendship, Leibniz distinguishes
between person and “brutus” while laying the foundations for an interesting
philosophy of mind. Cognition (vision of universal), will and memory continuously
interact in that frame. Friendship also leads to a specific political vision of civil
society, based on relations of reciprocity (legal category of equity). The legal meaning
and moral aspects of friendship emerge from the analysis of the three types of law:
private law, public law and universal law. The universal law expresses the charity/benevolence
(also friendship and love) of the wise man, considered by Leibniz human
mirror of divine wisdom. Thus the friendship unites the natural law to the teological
horizon of divine perfection
