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Wolff and the Birth of Aesthetic Rationalism

Frederick C. Beiser

in Diotima's Children: German Aesthetic Rationalism from Leibniz to Lessing

This chapter focuses on Christian Wolff's contributions to the German aesthetic tradition. Virtually every aspect of Wolff's system — his metaphysics, ethics, psychology, and logic — were ... More

This chapter focuses on Christian Wolff's contributions to the German aesthetic tradition. Virtually every aspect of Wolff's system — his metaphysics, ethics, psychology, and logic — were foundational for aesthetic rationalism. Wolff was among the first to conceive and advocate a philosophy of the arts. He bases his theory of the arts and beauty upon his psychology, which he first sketches in his Metaphysik (1719) and then elaborates in his Psychologia empirica (1732) and Psychologia rationalis (1734). The core of Wolff 's theory of beauty consists in a few short paragraphs of his Psychologia empirica. Though his discussion is brief, its influence was great. Gottsched, Baumgarten, Meier, Sulzer, and Mendelssohn made Wolff's discussion the starting point for their own aesthetics.Less

Symbolic Cognition from Leibniz to the 1760s: Theology, Aesthetics, and History

Avi Lifschitz

in Language and Enlightenment: The Berlin Debates of the Eighteenth Century

This chapter explores a synchronic approach to the interrelations between language and mind, as expressed mainly by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff. Leibniz's attempt to rehabilitate ... More

This chapter explores a synchronic approach to the interrelations between language and mind, as expressed mainly by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Christian Wolff. Leibniz's attempt to rehabilitate the Christian mysteries incorporated an influential distinction: clear and distinct ideas corresponded to intuitive perception, whereas most of the ideas accessible to the human mind were clear but indistinct (or confused). Such ideas could be processed only by means of signs, resulting in symbolic knowledge. From the 1730s to the 1750s, prompted by fears of radical rationalism, Pietists and orthodox authors adopted this rehabilitation of symbolic thinking by means of clear but indistinct ideas. This synthesis was elaborated in contemporary aesthetics, historical studies, and biblical criticism, particularly in Halle and Göttingen.Less

The ‘Iura Connata’ in the Natural Law of Christian Wolff

Frank Grunert

in Philosophy, Rights and Natural Law: Essays in Honour of Knud Haakonssen

Whether Christian Wolff’s concept of innate rights is a substantial contribution to the development of the concept of human rights or not has been a major concern of recent literature. This chapter ... More

Whether Christian Wolff’s concept of innate rights is a substantial contribution to the development of the concept of human rights or not has been a major concern of recent literature. This chapter explores the role of Christian Wolff’s conception of iuraconnata or innate rights as possible foundations for the modern doctrine of human rights, imbuing natural law with a degree of transhistoricality and engaging with Knud Haakonssen’s rather different treatment of Wolff’s natural rights as alienable.Less

Christian Wolff: System as an Episode?

Thomas Kleinlein

in System, Order, and International Law: The Early History of International Legal Thought from Machiavelli to Hegel

This chapter explores Christian Wolff’s systematic method and how it resonated in later scholarship. Wolff considered his systematic method to be his original contribution to the study of ... More

This chapter explores Christian Wolff’s systematic method and how it resonated in later scholarship. Wolff considered his systematic method to be his original contribution to the study of international law. Yet, despite the fact that he was a very renowned scholar in his time, this systematic method apparently remained an episode in international legal thought. Three transitions in international legal thought are already discernible, but not explicit, in Wolff’s writings: a process of an autonomization of international law, a shift from natural law to positivism, and a shifting focus from law to political economy. In a paradoxical manner, Wolff’s specific approach to the study of international law and his scientific method contributed to these transitions in international legal thought and, at the same time, hid them behind ambiguity. Arguably, this ambiguity contributes to explaining limited resonance of Wolff’s writings on international law.Less

Four intelligent reductionists: Looking down on human intelligence from Socrates to Spearman

Ian J. Deary

in Looking Down on Human Intelligence: From Psychometrics to the Brain

This chapter covers the historical contributions made to understanding intelligence differences by theorists such as Huarte, Thomas Hobbes, Christian Wolff, and Charles Spearman.

Limiting Sovereignty

Henry Shue

in Humanitarian Intervention and International Relations

Employs historical analysis and philosophical reasoning to argue that sovereignty is inherently limited. The writings of classical theorists such as Grotius and Vattel indicate that aspirations to ... More

Employs historical analysis and philosophical reasoning to argue that sovereignty is inherently limited. The writings of classical theorists such as Grotius and Vattel indicate that aspirations to sovereignty and non-intervention have always been tempered by considerations above and beyond the state. Philosophically, it must be remembered that sovereignty is a right, and the concept of a right makes no sense in the absence of a corresponding duty. The duties that are constitutive of the rights of sovereignty constrain the behaviour of every sovereign belonging to international society. Two conclusions follow. First, there are limits on how states may treat their own citizens within their own territory. Second, other states face specific limits concerning the ill-treatment of residents within the territory of other states that they are free to ignore. In particular, genocide and massive violations of human rights are a matter of concern for all states in contemporary international society.Less

Introduction

Michael Hicks and Christian Asplund

in Christian Wolff

This introductory chapter is an overview of Christian Wolff's music and how it tends to defy academic analysis. In an academic musical culture such things must be easily systematized and categorized, ... More

This introductory chapter is an overview of Christian Wolff's music and how it tends to defy academic analysis. In an academic musical culture such things must be easily systematized and categorized, Wolff's music constantly defies attempts at arriving at neat analyses of his work. If Wolff has a method of composing it is to overturn methods from piece to piece. The constancy is change—often radical change even in the vocabulary of a single work. The restlessness of his imagination prevents him from settling into a Wolff “style,” or clearly recognizable idiom—except that he favors epigrammatic utterances, even blunt statements, though often as gentle as spare. The chapter also delves briefly into Wolff's life and career, highlighting and debunking the perceived contrasts between Wolff the man and his artistry.Less

God is Good: The Harmony between Judaism and Enlightenment Philosophy

Michah Gottlieb

in Faith and Freedom: Moses Mendelssohn's Theological-Political Thought

This chapter explores Mendelssohn's early thought. While Frederick the Great's enlightened absolutism should have presented Jews with greater opportunities for social advancement and equal rights, ... More

This chapter explores Mendelssohn's early thought. While Frederick the Great's enlightened absolutism should have presented Jews with greater opportunities for social advancement and equal rights, this was stymied by Frederick's adherence to medieval stereotypes of Jews as superstitious and unethical. Addressing Jewish contemporaries, Mendelssohn uses Maimonides' authority to legitimate cultural pursuits outside of Judaism. But Mendelssohn is disturbed by Maimonides' ambivalent attitude towards central theistic concepts such as divine providence and the immortality of the soul. While Maimonides is the greatest medieval Jewish philosopher, Spinoza is the greatest modern Jewish philosopher. Addressing his Christian contemporaries, Mendelssohn defends Spinoza as a model of Jewish cultural attainment. While Mendelssohn rejects Spinoza's atheism, he claims that Spinoza made crucial contributions to the enlightened theism of the German philosophers Leibniz and Wolff who advanced religious philosophy beyond its medieval forms by philosophically grounding Judaism's fundamental insight into God's providential goodness.Less

: Kant on Freedom of the Will

Henry E. Allison

in Essays on Kant

This essay discusses the various conceptions of freedom to be found in Kant's texts, analyzes the connection between them and Kant's moral theory and epistemology, explores the contrast between the ... More

This essay discusses the various conceptions of freedom to be found in Kant's texts, analyzes the connection between them and Kant's moral theory and epistemology, explores the contrast between the empirical and the intelligible character of the will, and examines Kant's controversial views on the relation between freedom and causal determinism. In addition, it frames Kant's account of free will historically in relation to the views of his immediate predecessors, who exerted the most influence on him, and his idealistic successors, who strongly criticized him but were greatly influenced by his views. The former group includes Leibniz, Wolff and Crusius, and the latter Fichte, Hegel, and Schopenhauer.Less

Christian Wolff and Experimental Philosophy

Alberto Vanzo

in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume VII

This chapter argues for three claims concerning the relation between Christian Wolff’s philosophy and the methodological views of early modern experimental philosophers. First, Wolff’s system relies ... More

This chapter argues for three claims concerning the relation between Christian Wolff’s philosophy and the methodological views of early modern experimental philosophers. First, Wolff’s system relies on experience at every step and his views on experiments, observations, hypotheses, and the a priori are in line with those of experimental philosophers. Second, the study of Wolff’s views demonstrates the influence of experimental philosophy in early eighteenth-century Germany, well before Tetens and Feder endorsed the experimental method in the last three decades of the century. Third, Wolff’s thought is shaped by two distinct, but compatible, methodological commitments: to develop a thoroughly experimental philosophy and to build a system according to a mathematical demonstrative method. References to Wolff’s alleged empiricism and rationalism are best identified with references to his endorsement of the tenets of experimental philosophy and of a mathematical demonstrative method.Less

Vast, Sparse Areas of Possibility: 1960–1969

Michael Hicks and Christian Asplund

in Christian Wolff

This chapter documents more experimental changes in Wolff's compositional oeuvre, as well as certain new milestones in his life. While working in the army, Wolff continued to develop his musicianship ... More

This chapter documents more experimental changes in Wolff's compositional oeuvre, as well as certain new milestones in his life. While working in the army, Wolff continued to develop his musicianship through prose polemics and new compositional strategies. In 1962, he reached a new threshold in his experimental evolution, as he began a two-year span of writing only pieces with unspecified instrumentation. In addition, Wolff's academic and family moorings had begun to shift. Family-wise, he would marry Hope (“Holly”) Nash at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Royalton in 1965, develop an interest in electric guitar, and witness the birth of his firstborn, Christian Mayhew (“Hew”). Career-wise, Wolff's teaching contract with Harvard would not be renewed, which later provided him with the opportunity to apply for a position teaching classics and music at Dartmouth.Less

Among Friends, in a Private World

Michael Hicks and Christian Asplund

in Christian Wolff

This chapter contains some final reflections on Wolff. At present Wolff is the last surviving member of the so-called New York School of composers, and how he contends with this “survival” even as he ... More

This chapter contains some final reflections on Wolff. At present Wolff is the last surviving member of the so-called New York School of composers, and how he contends with this “survival” even as he continues to defy easy definitions of his musical oeuvre. The chapter also discusses the numerous challenges and accolades he received during this period, as well as his continued efforts to compose and to improvise. Yet it also considers a strain of organicism in Wolff's later works—however tenuous—and there are certain themes that also emerge during this latter period which this chapter briefly dwells on. The chapter concludes with further remarks on Wolff's survival and preoccupations as a musician.Less

Kant, Wolff, and the Method of Philosophy

Gabriele Gava

in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, Volume VIII

Both in his pre-critical writings and in his critical works, Kant criticizes the Wolffian tradition for its use of the mathematical method in philosophy. The chapter argues that the apparent ... More

Both in his pre-critical writings and in his critical works, Kant criticizes the Wolffian tradition for its use of the mathematical method in philosophy. The chapter argues that the apparent unambiguousness of this opposition between Kant and Wolff notwithstanding, the problem of ascertaining the relationship between Kant’s and Wolff’s methods in philosophy cannot be dismissed so quickly. Only a close consideration of Kant’s different remarks on Wolff’s approach and a comparison of the methods that Wolff and Kant actually used in philosophy can allow us to determine when Kant’s criticisms are justified and where the differences in their methodological proposals for philosophy actually lie. We see that Kant’s account of philosophical method in fact has some elements in common with the Wolffian paradigm, even though there are also relevant differences.Less

Introduction

Henry E. Allison

in Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary

The Introduction emphasizes the importance of the principle of autonomy and describes the structure of both Kant’s work and the commentary on it. It notes that the Groundwork has two tasks: to search ... More

The Introduction emphasizes the importance of the principle of autonomy and describes the structure of both Kant’s work and the commentary on it. It notes that the Groundwork has two tasks: to search for and to establish the supreme principle of morality. Its first two parts are devoted to the first task and use an “analytic” method, which begins with the premise that this principle is implicit in the common understanding of morality and culminates in various formulations of the categorical imperative. The third is concerned with the second task. It uses a “synthetic” method, which eventuates in a “deduction” of this imperative. The commentary consists of four parts; since, in addition to devoting a part to each part of the Groundwork, it contains an analysis of Kant’s Preface and a contrast of Kant’s views with the Wolffian universal practical philosophy and the popular moral philosophy associated with Christian Garve.Less

(IN PLACE OF AN) Introduction: A Picture of Modern Disenchantment

Jeffrey L. Kosky

in Arts of Wonder: Enchanting Secularity - Walter De Maria, Diller + Scofidio, James Turrell, Andy Goldsworthy

This book starts with a picture that serves as a depiction of modern disenchantment. What it shows has become almost commonplace, hardly worth remark, much less, years of obsession. The book presents ... More

This book starts with a picture that serves as a depiction of modern disenchantment. What it shows has become almost commonplace, hardly worth remark, much less, years of obsession. The book presents here the frontispiece to Christian Wolff’s emblematic work of the European Enlightenment, Reasonable Thoughts on God, the World and the human Soul, and All things in General. Communicated to the Lovers of Truth by Christian Wolff. It is an image of enlightenment and of revelation—of seeing the light and seeing it according to the format of light as a cone of illuminating rays streaming from a point source. This gives voice to a certain dualism: light and dark are opposed and irreconcilable, the light coming only after the darkness. It also gives voice to a sense of novelty or uniqueness, a break with how things have been in that dark past. Finally, it implies that light, at some time, departed, if it now returns or is brought back.Less

Negotiating the Irenical Turn

Kelly Joan Whitmer

in The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment

Chapter Two considers how and why the Halle Orphanage and its educational programming were implicated in the politics of confessional reconciliation that in many ways defined Brandenburg-Prussia ... More

Chapter Two considers how and why the Halle Orphanage and its educational programming were implicated in the politics of confessional reconciliation that in many ways defined Brandenburg-Prussia after the Thirty Years War. Efforts to devise institutional strategies for eliminating confessional difference and, more generally, reconciling competing points of view led to a series of sustained efforts here to turn eclecticism into a kind of scientific methodology—a method that might involve Anschauung, or efforts to teach young people how to observe with the inner eye. Administrators also increasingly consulted the writings of the Czech educational reformer Johann Amos Comenius and endeavoured to apply his system of “mosaic physics.” The chapter concludes with a discussion of how these efforts impacted the curriculum of the Orphanage schools, including the debates surrounding the practice of eclecticism that had emerged in Halle on the eve of Christian Wolff’s expulsion.Less

The Challenge of New Philosophies

Ulrich L. Lehner

in Enlightened Monks: The German Benedictines 1740-1803

This chapter examines how the German Benedictines actively engaged in dialogue with modern philosophy. At the center of this dialogue was the University of Salzburg, a Benedictine institution, where ... More

This chapter examines how the German Benedictines actively engaged in dialogue with modern philosophy. At the center of this dialogue was the University of Salzburg, a Benedictine institution, where monks from throughout Southern Germany and Austria taught until the school's closing in 1810. A positive opinion of the Enlightenment was prevalent there, especially under the protection of Archbishop Colloredo. Among the new themes the enlightened Monks proposed were a more optimist anthropology, a positive view of Leibniz and Locke, a focus on experimental physics, as well as a clear preference for the vernacular as the new language of academia. During the last quarter of the 18th century, the Benedictines also welcomed many of the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, while trying to integrate them into their philosophical systems.Less

Introducing the Orphanage

Kelly Joan Whitmer

in The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism, and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment

The Introduction offers a virtual tour of the Halle Orphanage using an account of King Friedrich I’s visit to the ensemble on October 4th, 1720. It provides readers with an accessible way into to the ... More

The Introduction offers a virtual tour of the Halle Orphanage using an account of King Friedrich I’s visit to the ensemble on October 4th, 1720. It provides readers with an accessible way into to the historiographies of Pietism and Enlightenment, including a discussion of Halle Pietists’ interest in philanthropîa and a brief account of the banishment of Christian Wolff from the city in 1723. This event became a major public controversy that led to a widespread tendency to view Pietist theologians as “anti-reason” or “anti-Enlightenment” by the 1730s and 40s. Over the years, it has tended to draw attention away from what was actually going on inside of the Orphanage, including administrators’ early efforts to collaborate with the period’s leading public intellectuals in the interest of constructing a scientific community. The introduction concludes with a discussion of the book’s central contribution to the history of science, including an emerging “history of scientific observation.”Less