Nov 3, 2023 12:29 AM
(This post was last modified: Nov 3, 2023 05:28 AM by C C.)
https://aeon.co/essays/why-we-should-rec...tian-wolff
EXCERPTS: Writing primarily during the first half of the 18th century, Christian Wolff (1679-1754) and his philosophical system, ‘Wolffianism’, dominated the intellectual landscape to such an extent that during his own lifetime he became one of the most influential philosophers in all of Europe...
[...] And yet, in the present day, Wolff is not a stable figure of the Western philosophical tradition. This is a tragedy, because Wolffianism had such an impact that a large and important piece of German philosophy’s history remains obscure unless we can come to better appreciate Wolff’s philosophy and the ideas to which it gave rise.
A main reason for the success of this first series of Wolff’s writings had to do with the fact that he chose to publish them in the German vernacular rather than in Latin. In this respect, Wolff was following in the footsteps of his new colleague in Halle, Christian Thomasius, who had been the first to publicly announce that he was going to deliver his lectures in German. To be sure, philosophical treatises had been published in German before Wolff, including by Thomasius, but philosophical German was in a poor state at the end of the 17th century. Leibniz, for instance, complained in two treatises that the German language was unfit for scholarly works, in part because it incorporated so many foreign expressions.
Wolff forever changed philosophical German by being the first to employ a stable and consistent philosophical vocabulary. His efforts here were in part a result of his commitment to the mathematical method: because definition was central to his attempt to achieve certainty, he went to great lengths to define every technical term he used, as well as to use them consistently to refer to a single idea throughout his works. Wolff even attached indexes to the end of his works to make it clear to his readers which Latin terms corresponded to the German terms he was in some cases inventing. To cite just one important example, whereas the word Begriff had a variety of meanings in Middle High German, it was Wolff who fixed it as the accepted philosophical term for ‘idea’, ‘concept’, or ‘notion’.
His efforts with respect to lending the German language stability were connected to his broader Enlightenment aspirations: by improving the precision of language, Wolff believed he could improve how common people thought...
[...] Wolff’s philosophy was soon taught at every major German university ... And his attempt to appeal to laypersons in particular was such a success that Wolffianism became a topic in broader culture...
[...] An important aspect of Wolff’s impact on broader culture was the reception of his thought by female readers. In fact, his philosophy was so popular among women at the time that one of his contemporaries remarked that an ‘actual lycanthropie’ had broken out among the female sex. Numerous efforts were therefore made to popularise Wolff’s thought for a specifically female readership...
[...] By the end of the century, Wolff’s philosophy had been taught across Europe and Wolffianism was even represented in such faraway places as the Athonite Academy on Mount Athos in Greece, as well as in Turkey and South America. Both Wolff’s own writings and others written by his disciples made their way to North America too...
[...] So while the influence of Wolffianism did not end with Wolff’s death, its legacy changed dramatically by the beginning of the 19th century, and Wolff was instantly pushed into the background ... But the important question is: how could this happen? How could a philosopher who dominated the philosophical landscape just a few decades earlier come to be a mere footnote?
[...] The most important reason for Wolff’s decline, however, has to do with the fact that he was considered by many to have merely presented a version of Leibniz’s philosophy from very early on. One of Wolff’s early followers, Georg Bernhard Bilfinger, commended Wolff for founding the ‘Leibnizian-Wolffian’ school of philosophy. Intended as praise, Wolff’s critics quickly misappropriated the term and Wolff came to be seen as a mere follower and imitator of Leibniz. Voltaire accused Wolff of lacking originality and merely presenting what Leibniz had already discovered. Hegel claimed that Wolff is a mere systematiser of Leibniz’s philosophy, and Schelling accused Wolff of having ‘appropriated’ Leibnizian ideas. This opinion has persisted to the present day, with many general histories of philosophy and even more specialised histories of ethics referring to Wolff as a mere follower of Leibniz, if his name is mentioned at all.
The label ‘Leibnizian-Wolffian’ philosophy is misleading however, and the identification of their philosophies is problematic, not least because Wolff himself explicitly denied that his aim was ever to expand or explain Leibniz’s philosophy. It is also doubtful that Wolff could have known enough about Leibniz’s philosophy to have been able to appropriate it.. (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Writing primarily during the first half of the 18th century, Christian Wolff (1679-1754) and his philosophical system, ‘Wolffianism’, dominated the intellectual landscape to such an extent that during his own lifetime he became one of the most influential philosophers in all of Europe...
[...] And yet, in the present day, Wolff is not a stable figure of the Western philosophical tradition. This is a tragedy, because Wolffianism had such an impact that a large and important piece of German philosophy’s history remains obscure unless we can come to better appreciate Wolff’s philosophy and the ideas to which it gave rise.
A main reason for the success of this first series of Wolff’s writings had to do with the fact that he chose to publish them in the German vernacular rather than in Latin. In this respect, Wolff was following in the footsteps of his new colleague in Halle, Christian Thomasius, who had been the first to publicly announce that he was going to deliver his lectures in German. To be sure, philosophical treatises had been published in German before Wolff, including by Thomasius, but philosophical German was in a poor state at the end of the 17th century. Leibniz, for instance, complained in two treatises that the German language was unfit for scholarly works, in part because it incorporated so many foreign expressions.
Wolff forever changed philosophical German by being the first to employ a stable and consistent philosophical vocabulary. His efforts here were in part a result of his commitment to the mathematical method: because definition was central to his attempt to achieve certainty, he went to great lengths to define every technical term he used, as well as to use them consistently to refer to a single idea throughout his works. Wolff even attached indexes to the end of his works to make it clear to his readers which Latin terms corresponded to the German terms he was in some cases inventing. To cite just one important example, whereas the word Begriff had a variety of meanings in Middle High German, it was Wolff who fixed it as the accepted philosophical term for ‘idea’, ‘concept’, or ‘notion’.
His efforts with respect to lending the German language stability were connected to his broader Enlightenment aspirations: by improving the precision of language, Wolff believed he could improve how common people thought...
[...] Wolff’s philosophy was soon taught at every major German university ... And his attempt to appeal to laypersons in particular was such a success that Wolffianism became a topic in broader culture...
[...] An important aspect of Wolff’s impact on broader culture was the reception of his thought by female readers. In fact, his philosophy was so popular among women at the time that one of his contemporaries remarked that an ‘actual lycanthropie’ had broken out among the female sex. Numerous efforts were therefore made to popularise Wolff’s thought for a specifically female readership...
[...] By the end of the century, Wolff’s philosophy had been taught across Europe and Wolffianism was even represented in such faraway places as the Athonite Academy on Mount Athos in Greece, as well as in Turkey and South America. Both Wolff’s own writings and others written by his disciples made their way to North America too...
[...] So while the influence of Wolffianism did not end with Wolff’s death, its legacy changed dramatically by the beginning of the 19th century, and Wolff was instantly pushed into the background ... But the important question is: how could this happen? How could a philosopher who dominated the philosophical landscape just a few decades earlier come to be a mere footnote?
[...] The most important reason for Wolff’s decline, however, has to do with the fact that he was considered by many to have merely presented a version of Leibniz’s philosophy from very early on. One of Wolff’s early followers, Georg Bernhard Bilfinger, commended Wolff for founding the ‘Leibnizian-Wolffian’ school of philosophy. Intended as praise, Wolff’s critics quickly misappropriated the term and Wolff came to be seen as a mere follower and imitator of Leibniz. Voltaire accused Wolff of lacking originality and merely presenting what Leibniz had already discovered. Hegel claimed that Wolff is a mere systematiser of Leibniz’s philosophy, and Schelling accused Wolff of having ‘appropriated’ Leibnizian ideas. This opinion has persisted to the present day, with many general histories of philosophy and even more specialised histories of ethics referring to Wolff as a mere follower of Leibniz, if his name is mentioned at all.
The label ‘Leibnizian-Wolffian’ philosophy is misleading however, and the identification of their philosophies is problematic, not least because Wolff himself explicitly denied that his aim was ever to expand or explain Leibniz’s philosophy. It is also doubtful that Wolff could have known enough about Leibniz’s philosophy to have been able to appropriate it.. (MORE - missing details)