Die analytische Begriffs- und Urteilstheorie von G. W. Leibniz und Chr. Wolff (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 545 Die analytische Begriffs- und Urteilstheorie yon G. W. Leibniz und Chr. Wolff. By W'mfried Lenders. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1971. Pp. 12 q- 200. DM 23.80) In an appendix newly added to the second edition of his well-known book Leibniz: Logik und Metaphysik (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1967; pp. 211-231), Gotffried Martin discusses the importance of Leibniz' analytic logic in the eighteenth century. Martin's assumption is that the development of Kant's critical philosophy is influenced by his reaction to certain doctrines in Leibniz' logic, notably the theory of irreducible elements and the so-called predicate-in-notion principle. In addition to Leibuiz and Kant, Martin considers two intermediate figures: Christian Wolff, the so-called systematizer and popularizer of Leibniz, and Georg Friedrick Meier, a Wolffian whose textbooks were known to and used by Kant. Somewhat surprisingly, Martin concludes that "'the analytic logic of Leibniz was influential in the eighteenth century only in a very attenuated form, [and] especially that Wolff did not retain the real consequences of the Leibnizian logic" (p. 231). The questions raised by Martin are of some importance, both for Kant scholars and for those who are interested in the larger questions of the history of German philosophy in the eighteenth century. What was the philosophy of Leibniz that was known to this period? Did Wolff and/or his followers faithfully reproduce the thought of Leibniz or did they establish distinct positions of their own? If the latter, was the separation from true Leibnizian doctrine accomplished consciously or unconsciously? Did Kant know the thought of Leibniz, and if so, how? Did he know the work of Wolff or only that of the Wolffians? Is Kant's pre-critical philosophy in the area of logic closer to that of Leibniz than to Wolff? And is Kant's critical philosophy influenced in its development by conflict with Leibniz' doctrines? Since an English translation of the first edition of Martin's book was published in 1964, his sketch of these questions might well escape English-speaking readers who do not look at the new appendix in the second German edition or who are not familiar with some briefer remarks to the same effect in another of Martin's books, Immanuel Kant: Ontologie und Wissenscha#stheorie (4th ed.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969), esp. pp. 263 and 290-294. So fax as I know, the only English reference to Martin's work prior to Lenders is the remark by Lewis White Beck in the bibliography to his Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 523, that "the second edition [of Martin's book on Leibniz; erroneously dated as 1964] contains important new material on the relations of Wolff and Kant to Leibniz' theory of judgment." In addition, Beck argues in his text that "Wolff does not follow Leibnlz in the theory that in all true afftrmative judgments the predicates are identical with all or part of the subject-concept" (p. 264). Happily, we now have available Winfried Lenders' book which explores some of these issues in greater detail, together with an English summary by Lenders entitled, "The Analytic Logic of G. W. Leibniz and Christian Wolff: A Problem in Kant Research ," in Synthese, 23 (1971), 147-153. Lenders' book is his doctoral dissertation done under Martin's direction at the University of Bonn. It attempts to test at least one part of Martin's view by asking "whether and in what form the analytic logic of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz is continued through the logic of Christian Wolff" (p. vii). By "analytic logic" Lenders means the theory of analytic concepts and judgments which are professed in one form or another by both men. Lenders' survey of Leibniz' position is familiar ground which need not be rehearsed here, covering as it does the claim that the analysis of concepts ultimately terminates in irreducible dements and the contention that the predicate of every true affLrmative judgment is contained in and identical with its subject. Perhaps the central point to 546 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY notice, is not so much the doctrines themselves as the fact...