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Christian Wolff's Philosophy of Contingent Reality C. A. VAN PEURSEN EVERYPHILOSOPHERKNOWSthe name of Christian Wolff (1679-1754), but few philosophers have ever read him. English publications are particularly scarce? Only recently Wolff's works are again available thanks to the important photomechanical edition, in more than 5~ volumes, with introductions by the editors? The ignorance of Wolff's philosophy is on the one hand astonishing . His philosophy dominated a whole period of European history. "Frederico regnante, Wolfio docente" wrote Voltaire. Indeed, Frederick the Great called him back to the university of Halle in 174o from the university of Marburg where he had taught since 1723 when king Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia had dismissed him from his function at Halle under pressure of the Pietists. When Wolff was 27 years old he had already been nominated at Halle thanks to the recommendation of Leibniz. Other sovereigns also appreciated his philosophy. Joseph II of Austria wrote to him that his country would get a new shape thanks to the Logic of Wolff, and Czar Peter, as well as Catherine of Russia, frequently used advice given by Wolff, whose pupil Bilfinger had been nominated as philosopher at the University of Petersburg. Wolff published more than 5~ books on philosophy, jurisprudence, ethics, economics, mathematics, mechanics, physics, architecture, fortification, and agriculture. Many books were translated; one of the Russian translations was his work on ' Gerh. Biller, "Wolff-bibliographie 08oo-a982)," Christian Wolff z679-z754, ed. W. Schneiders (Hamburg, 1983), 3~x-45. Between 19oo and 197o 2 books and 11 articles appeared in English; between 197o-198~ 1 book and 11 articles, of which 8 are by Charles A. Corr. For this and the followingpoints see also:T. Fr~ingsmyr,"Christian Wolff's Mathematical Method and its Impact on the Eighteenth Century," Journal of the History of Ideas 36 (1975): 653-668. N. Hinske, "Wolffs Stellung in der deutschen Aufkl~irung,"in W. Schneiders, 3o6x9 . H. Sch6ffler, Deutsches GeisteslebenzwischenReformation und Aufkli~rung, 2d ed. (Frankfurt a.M., 1956), 175-216. Christian Wolff, GesammelteWerke, edited by J. Ecole, H. W. Arndt, C. A. Corr, J. E. Hofmann, M. Thomann (Hildesheim: Ohlms, 196~). [69] 7~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY fortification. Later, Russian officers attended the lectures in K6nigsberg Kant gave on fortification. It is said that in the eighteenth century more than 13~ Wolffians were teaching at German universities. It may be useful to remind the reader of these facts in order to point out that it is understandable, on the other hand, that Wolff's philosophy was forgotten. In history Wolff is completely overshadowed, being located between Leibniz and Kant. It is true that during his lifetime Leibniz did not publish many works--the first important edition of his works, the opera ornnia, was published after his death by Dutens in Geneva in 1768 (6 vols.)whereas Wolff already had published his 54 volumes before that time. So the interesting discussion about the value of Chinese thought is to be found only in Leibniz's letters and papers published in the aforementioned posthumous edition, but Wolff had dealt with the same theme in his famous rectoral address at Halle in 1723, "Oratio de Sinarum Philosophia Practica," that became the occasion for his dismissal. But soon the influence of Leibniz's philosophy overshadowed Wolff's fame, although one still spoke of the Leibniz -Wolffian philosophy. And it was certainly Kant, who often mentioned the importance of that Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy, whose work eclipsed, at the same time, the Wolffian philosophy. Historical distance can, however, bring new aspects of Wolff's philosophy to the fore. The most important is that Wolff is less Leibnizian than is commonly understood. It was Wolff's disciple G. B. Bilfinger who coined the term 'Leibniz-Wolffian school'. Wolff himself did not appreciate this and stressed his relatively independent position over and against Leibniz.3 Traditional opinion considers Wolff's relative originality merely an "amputation" of the most "characteristic and profound" themes of Leibniz's philosophy: the doctrine of the monads and of the pre-established harmony. 4 But reading Wolff it becomes clear that he replaced the often penetrating but too speculative aspects of Leibniz's philosophy by greater...

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