كرستيان فولف

الأعمال

• 1720أفكار عاقلة في الله والعالم ونفس الإنسان (الميتافيزيقا الألمانية) (Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen)

  كتاب مدرسي بالألمانية في فقرات مرقمة: من يقين المرء بوجود نفسه ومبدأي عدم التناقض والعلة الكافية إلى الأنطولوجيا والنفس والعالم والله؛ وضع إطار الميتافيزيقا المدرسية الألمانية حتى كانط.

• 1721خطاب في الفلسفة العملية للصينيين (Oratio de Sinarum philosophia practica)

  خطاب ألقاه في هالة يوم 12 يوليو 1721 عند تسليمه منصب نائب رئيس الجامعة، وطُبع مع حواشيه عام 1726: بلغ الصينيون، متبعين كونفوشيوس، أخلاقًا سليمة بالعقل وحده دون دين موحى؛ وأدت احتجاجات التقويين إلى طرده من بروسيا عام 1723.

الموقف

Wolff is on the map as the link between Leibniz and Kant. He defined philosophy as the science of the possible insofar as it can be, and built a system in which every proposition was to be demonstrated, in the manner of mathematics, from definitions and principles, above all the principles of contradiction and sufficient reason. He divided metaphysics into ontology – a title he made standard – and the special sciences of the world, the soul and God, and set an empirical psychology beside the rational one. Leibniz’s pre-established harmony he accepted only as the most probable hypothesis, and he disliked the label “Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy”. His practical philosophy derived duties from human nature, under the rule to do what makes oneself and one’s condition more perfect. In the speech of 1721 he argued, from the Confucian classics in François Noël’s Latin translation, that the Chinese had reached a sound morality by reason alone, without revelation. Through his students and textbooks his philosophy shaped teaching at German universities in the mid-eighteenth century, and he is credited with coining German philosophical terms such as “Bewusstsein” (consciousness). Kant learned his metaphysics in this school, called Wolff “the greatest of all dogmatic philosophers” and criticised him for not first examining the powers of pure reason.

الحياة والسياق

Christian Wolff was born on 24 January 1679 in Breslau, the son of a tanner. He studied theology, mathematics and philosophy in Jena and Leipzig, where he qualified to teach in 1703; his correspondence with Leibniz began in 1704, and on Leibniz’s recommendation he became professor of mathematics in Halle in 1706, soon teaching philosophy as well. From 1713 he published German textbooks on every part of philosophy, beginning with logic. His speech of 1721 on the practical philosophy of the Chinese gave his Pietist colleagues, led by Joachim Lange, an occasion to accuse him of atheism and fatalism; on 8 November 1723 King Frederick William I ordered him to leave Prussia within 48 hours on pain of the noose. He taught at Marburg until Frederick II recalled him to Halle in 1740; there he completed a Latin system meant for a European readership. He was made a baron of the Empire in 1745 and died in Halle on 9 April 1754.

أعمال رئيسة أخرى

• Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Kräfften des menschlichen Verstandes (“German Logic”, 1713)
• Vernünfftige Gedancken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen (“German Ethics”, 1720)
• Philosophia prima, sive Ontologia (1730)
• Jus naturae (8 vols., 1740–48)