Lange: Short demolition of those theories, which in Wolffian philosophy are adverse to natural and revealed religion, indeed even destroy them, and straight away, while in deception, sought by many, lead to atheism and Wolff: Detailed answer to D. Lange's short demolition next to its meager content (1737?)

I mentioned couple of posts ago the so-called Wertheim translation of Bible, which went quite far in pushing time-honoured revelation to a form more suitable to current advances in science – the translation was apparently even filled with remarks explaining e.g. what actually happened from a physical point of view in all six days of creation. I've already described the attempt of pietists to connect the publication of this translation with their pet peeve, the Wolffian philosophy. As a part of this attempt, Lange started to circulate a short work called Kurtzer Abriß derjenigen Lehr-Sätze, welche in der Wolffischen Philosophie der natürlichen und geoffenbahrten Religion nachtheilig sind, ja sie gar aufheben, und gerades Weges, ob wohl bey vieler gesuchter Verdeckung, zur Atheisterey verleiten, which is essentially just a summary of all the criticism Lange had targeted against Wolff throughout the years – no consideration of Wolff's new writings, no attempt at any dialogue, just condemnation and accusation.

Wolff answered Lange with his own text, Ausführliche Antwort auf D. Langens kurzen Abriß nebst einem kurzen Inhalt derselben. I have not found an accurate dating for Wolff's text, but since I have read the text from a collection of texts including also Lange's original and various defences of Wolff's doctrines, from 1737, we may assume that Wolff published it either this or the previous year. We need not go in great detail to this work, since most of it is rather familiar from Wolff's previous books: Wolff, for instance, notes that he does not think soul is deterministic, because it is completely outside the machinery of the world, and remarks that the doctrine of pre-established harmony merely denies immediate causal influence of soul to body, but accepts that soul can affect body indirectly through God.

The existence of the collection, the clear purpose of which was to defend Wolff against slanderous accusations, speaks of a turn in the tide of German philosophy. This turn would be concluded in 1740 by the assumption of the Prussian throne by Fredrick II, who would recall Wolff back to Halle from his involuntary exile to Marburg. Lange himself died in 1744, so this a fitting place to consider his overall importance to the development of German philosophy.

Johann Joachim Lange (1670-1744)

The main influence of Lange was one of criticism – starting from 1720s Lange wrote a number of critical treatises of Wolffian philosophy. Sometimes his criticism hit a crucial spot, especially when it came to the issues of necessity and human freedom, which Wolff had at first not explained adequately. Often Lange's attack was quite unjustified, like when he accused Wolff of teaching the eternity of the universe. Unfortunately, the discussion became quite heated, and Lange never bothered to change his convictions about Wolff's intentions, which is quite evident in his final treatises.

When it comes to Lange's own positive doctrines, there is very little to say, mostly because his main academic works belonged not to philosophy, but to theology, and even more, to Bible exegesis. There was a clear Cartesian streak in his early writings and especially in his endorsement of a true causal influence between soul and body. Lange, like all pietists, is also an important precursor of later anti-Enlightenment writers, like Jacobi and Hamann.

Next time it is time to say farewell to another opponent of Wolff, the much more talented Hoffmann.

Christian Wolff: Natural theology, posterior part – The enemies of faith

Included with the second book of Natural theology is also Wolff's first complete take on worldviews that rivaled Christianity – one might suppose that it was especially atheism controversy that generated his interest in the topic. It is no wonder that Wolff rejects all these theories, but what is interesting is how he groups these various viewpoints into distinct sets.

The most important of the wrong theories is obviously atheism, which Wolff thinks is so important that it deserves a chapter of its own. We all know atheists are of the opinion that God does not exist. What is more, a consistent atheist must even deny the possibility of God, because by Wolff's a priori proof, God would exist, if he just were possible. Because God does not exist, there is no final explanation of the world, but instead, the world must be an independent entity requiring no explanation – a strange conclusion in Wolffian eyes, because nothing extended could be really independent for Wolff. The worldly events must either go on forever or form a loop in which things repeat one another. In any case, they must follow an iron necessity, since nothing outside the universe could come and change anything. This doesn't mean that there would be no freedom, since human souls might still have the freedom to do things – this freedom just probably would have no consequences on the level of material world. Still, it means that morality is difficult to combine with atheism, because the necessity of the world makes it impossible to apply values like good or bad to it.

After atheism, Wolff groups together fatalism, deism and naturalism, probably because his pietist opponents had often grouped these three together. Fatalism, or the idea that everything in the world happens necessarily, is evidently the one Wolff likes least. Wolff clearly states that atheists must inevitably be fatalists, at least if they want to accept the laws of physics. Still, all fatalists need not be atheists, but they may well be deists, that is, they may believe that God has just created the world, but does not afterwards interfere with it in any manner. Wolff also points out that deist, like atheist, cannot use the idea of divine providence as a way to booster people's behaviour, yet, deist can be more consistent with morality, because he can accept that God might have chosen another world, which might have been better or worse.

Still, it is the third idea or naturalism that is the most interesting of the three theories. By naturalism Wolff does not mean belief in natural sciences, but the idea of natural theology as the only true source of religion. Wolff might have sympathised with the view, but he clearly wanted to show also that natural theology and revealed religion need not be rivals, but could in many cases meet one another.

It is not so strange to see materialism and idealism in the same chapter, but anthropomorphism seems a stranger bedfellow. Yet, Wolff obviously has a point – if God is thought to be shaped like a human, he is obviously material or at least has a material constituent. This also shows that materialist need not necessarily be atheist, since she can just assume that God is some material things (perhaps even the world itself).

Wolff criticizes both anthropomorphists and materialists, because they make God into something very ungodlike – a material object that could be cut to pieces. Interestingly Wolff is less critical of idealism and even says that idealist need not deny physics, because she can just think it concerns an apparent world. Still, Wolff finally denies idealism, because it takes away from the glory of God, who then wouldn't have created an independent world.

The final chapter of the book gathers together various philosophical theories, but also paganism or belief in the existence of several gods, which is perhaps highlihted, because it shares similarities with Manicheanism: both theories suggest that there are several principles guiding world and thus they essentially lower the status of God. The final two systems, Spinozism and Epicureanism, are quickly dealt with. Spinoza has the disadvantage, because it clearly confuses the notion of independency and substance – God is the only independent thing and others are God's creations, but these creations surely are not parts of God. Epicureanism, on the other hand, falls from traditional reasons – emphasising mere sensual pleasure destroys values in themselves.

Finally a last page on Wolff's natural theology. Next time I'll turn to a new philosopher.

Speech about Chinese practical philosophy, recited in solemn panegyric (1726) and New anatomy or analytical idea of Wolffian metaphysical system (1726)

I have already mentioned the lecture ofChinese philosophy held by Christian Wolff and explained the rather drastic consequences of this lecture, namely, the accusations of atheism and the expulsion from hisposition. What is still left is to actually describe the lecture itself. While it was held in 1721, written versions of it appeared only few years afterwards. I am especially interested of a version that was published in 1726, called simply Oratio de sinarum philosophia practica, in solemni panegyri recitata, because in this version Wolff had annotated his original speech and thus explained his ideas further.

The lecture itself holds no surprises after reading Bilfinger's more detailed presentation of the topic. Wolff notes that while form of the Confucianism differs from modern moral philosophy – Confucius uses examples, where Europeans would have preferred deductions, and rituals form a large part of moral education – but essentially emphasizes the commonalities. For instance, Confucius divided human being into two parts – sensuousness and reason – and advised one to subjugate senses to guidance of reason, because this is what made human beings perfect and led to tranquility, just like states were happier if governed by wise men. Furthermore, Confucius suggested we should use external glory as an incentive for moral progression: one had more motive to be e.g. kind to other people, if kindness was something that the community thought worthwhile and commendable.

What especially the annotations show is Wolff's wish to downplay the possible atheist leanings in Chinese philosophy. As I have already mentioned in a previous post, it is rather difficult to say whether Confucianism endorsed the idea of a personal god or merely just the existence of an impersonal force. Wolff appears to speak for the more theist interpretation of Confucius or at least he attempts to argue for its plausibility.

A completely opposite view of Confucianism is suggested in Lange's Nova anatome, seu idea analytica systematis metaphysici Wolfiani. The work is actually a collection of Lange's texts, and a large part of it contains a more summarized version of Lange's earlier works attacking Wolffianism. Thus, we see Lange again criticizing Wolff for combining ridiculous idealism with at least equally ridiculous materialism through the Leibnizian notion of pre-established harmony. Lange has clearly just ignored Wolff's many explanations of these questions, so the result is a somewhat skewed view of them. Lange has still read at least Bilfinger's summary of Wolffian metaphysics: for instance, he dismisses Bilfinger's notion of hypothetical necessity, as far too deterministic to form any getaway road.

While these parts of the work feel hence fairly repetitive, Lange also takes some time to attack Wolff's lecture with its annotations. Some of the criticism is rather amusing, for instance, Lange attacks the legends meant to justify the longevity of Chinese wisdom by noting that some of the people involved apparently lived, when the world and China with it was covered by deluge according to the biblical story.

Lange's main complaint about Confucianism is rather predictable. He is convinced that Chinese have no divinity and at times appears to identify Confucianism even with the dreaded Spinozism. No wonder he is outraged when Wolff casually compares Confucius and Mohammed with Moses and even Jesus – a known atheist and a heretic put on the same level with a holy prophet, and even worse, with the son of God.

All in all, there's only one serious piece of criticism against the ethical theories of Confucius and Wolff, namely, that both use glory and ambition as an incentive for moral behaviour. Even here, Lange's argument misses the point. True, it is not truly ethical to do good deeds only because you desire the fame and reputation of a benevolent person – after all, this would leave the possibility that you acted mischievously in cases where no one could ever know. Still, glory and ambition might well be used as tools for educating moral behaviour, and indeed, this is what we do when we thank and praise children for their good behaviour.

So much for Confucius, next time we shall see how Wolff's metaphysics resembles the tale of Robinson Crusoe.

Christian Wolff: Example of the doctrines of true Chinese moral and politics; and also example of gentile philosophy applied to public matters: excerpted writings of Chinese classical person, Confucius, both told and written (1724)

I left out a crucial detail in the story of Wolff being fired due to his supposedatheism – the accusation was not made in a vacuum, but it had an incentive. Wolff had promised to lecture on Chinese philosophy. Apparently Wolff thought that Chinese moral philosophy was commendable, and even more remarkable was that Chinese managed to live morally without any explicit devotion of God – this opinion was the primary reason for suspecting Wolff of atheism.

Interest in oriental thought began already with Leibniz, who was especially intrigued by I Ching, a book on divination. What interested Leibniz was not so much the supposed window into future events, but the manner in which complex concepts were represented as combinations of two signs, a broken and an unbroken line. In this I Ching resembles binary arithmetic, which expresses all numbers as combinations of zero and one.

Wolff's lecture, on the other hand, concentrated on Confucian philosophy, which we have already seen mentioned by Bilfinger in his dissertation. It appears reasonable to suppose that Bilfinger actually introduced Wolff to Chinese philosophy, because he published soon after Wolff's lecture a book on the topic, Specimen doctrinae veterum Sinarum moralis et politicae; tanquam exemplum philosophiae gentius ad rempublicam applicatae; exceptum libellis Sinicae genti classicis, Confucii,sive dicta, sive facta complexis.

What I am interested here is not so much Confucian philosophy or whether Bilfinger interpreted it faithfully, but the question what intrigued Wolffians in it. We may begin from what he clearly was not interested of. There is very little mention of any metaphysical theories of Confucians, and indeed, Bilfinger explicitly suggests that it is ethics and politics in which Confucius excelled. This lack of metaphysics had actually grave consequences.

As Wolff's fate shows, Confucianism was supposed to be an atheist philosophy. Indeed, it is rather unclear what Confucius and his followers actually thought of gods. The closest they come to religious issues are references to Heavens, which in a sense take the place of God. Yet, because Confucians are very quiet of such metaphysical questions, it remains unclear whether Heavens is meant to be a conscious person or an impersonal force. Thus, even if Confucianism were not atheistic in the usual sense of the word, it still managed to create morals without any relation to God.

A more important difference in Bilfinger's eyes concerned the styles of Confucianism and western philosophy. Teachings of Confucius are full of rich illustrations and parables whereby the moral teachers can make the basic ideas instantly concrete and easy to grasp. This liveliness in preaching is amplified by attempts to truly live the life by the tenets of Confucianism and thus exemplify its principles in one's own life. Indeed, even the emperor of China was meant to be a moral inspiration for all his subjects.

Compared with Confucianism, western and especially Wolffian philosophy seems rather dry and academic, and one might suspect that Bilfinger wanted to uphold the idea of philosophizing in concrete life through morally educational tales. Still, Bilfinger is not completely against the peculiar dryness of Wolffian philosophy. Indeed, he notes that Confucianism cannot surpass western philosophy when it comes to precision and care for arguments.

Next time, we shall see once again how Wolff fares against a ferocious attack.

Johann Joachim Lange: Humble and detailed research of the false and corruptive philosophy in Wolffian metaphysical system on God, the world, and the men; and particularly of the so-called pre-established harmony of interaction between soul and body: as also in the morals based on such system: together with a historical preface on that what happened with its author in Halle: among treatises of many important matters, and with short check on remarks concerning duplicated doubts on Wolffian philosophy - Infinite computer

We might state Lange's main criticism of Wolffian theology quite simply: God has very little to do in Wolff's system. True, Wolff does admit that God exists and even proves his existence, but Lange cannot even commend Wolff's proof, which he deems to be faulty. Indeed, Lange hits on a crucial defect. Wolff's principle of sufficient reason or ground states that all things should have some ground, that is, all physical things should derive from a previous cause and all conscious actions should be somehow motivated. From this principle Wolff suddenly moves to a stronger principle that all things should have a full ground, that is, they should be based on an ultimate ground that requires no further ground for its existence. Lange notes that Wolff's original principle of sufficient ground is consistent with an infinite causal series bringing about the current event, thus, making the leap to the stronger principle unjustified.

Even if Wolff does accept God, Lange continues, Wolff's deterministic world system leaves almost no room for divine push on events. Wolff does make a halfhearted attempt to explain the possibility of miracles: God can supernaturally affect world, if he then makes another miracle that corrects the world so that it will once again return to its deterministic course. In effect, miracles of Wolffian God can make nothing new happen, because their results are erased by the second miracle of restitution.

Lange is especially opposed to Wolff's notion of what God is like. Wolff defines God as an entity that can think of all infinitely multiple possible worlds. God is then meant to choose one of these possible worlds for actualization – thus, he does not truly create the world, Lange says, meaning perhaps that God does not design the world from scratch, but accepts the world from a ready-made brochure of possible worlds. Even this choice is less of an achievement than it seems, because God is essentially a passively cognizing entity without any spontaneous volitions. God is like a computer that has been programmed to choose the best possible world – God as perfectly good cannot really choose any other option. Hence, the supposed choice becomes a mere justification of the goodness of the actual world – creation is as deterministic as the world created.

An atheist would then have no difficulties in accepting Wolffian philosophy, Lange concludes, for the assumption of God is mere play of words. Indeed, Lange thinks, Wolff even defends atheists by saying that atheism is compatible with morality. We shall see next time in more detail what Lange has to say about Wolffian ethics.

Johann Joachim Lange: Humble and detailed research of the false and corruptive philosophy in Wolffian metaphysical system on God, the world, and the men; and particularly of the so-called pre-established harmony of interaction between soul and body: as also in the morals based on such system: together with a historical preface on that what happened with its author in Halle: among treatises of many important matters, and with short check on remarks concerning duplicated doubts on Wolffian philosophy (1724)

C. D. Broad's Examination of McTaggart's philosophy is an example of how commentaries should be made. Broad goes painstakingly through all the details and intricacies of McTaggart's Nature of existence, notes all the different variations that e.g. a theory of time might have, considers fairly how McTaggart's own theory fairs and then suggests the alternative he favours. Broad attempts to read McTaggart's sometimes convoluted ideas in as clear and believable manner as possible, sometimes agreeing with him, other times not. Never is any statement of McTaggart discarded before an honest consideration of what he attempts to say.

Then there is the other type of commentary, where the opinions of the commented author are assumed beforehand, ambiguous phrases and passages are interpreted in the worst possible manner and generally the author is treated like a customer of Spanish inquisition. Lange's Bescheidene und ausführliche Entdeckung der falschen und schädlichen Philosophie in dem Wolffianischen Systemate Metaphysico von GOtt, der Welt, und dem Menschen; und insonderheit von der sogenannten harmonia praestabilita des commercii zwischen Seel und Leib: Wie auch in der auf solches Systema gegründeten Sitten-Lehre: Nebst einem historischen Vorbericht, von dem, was mit dem Herrn Auctore desselben in Halle vorgegangen: Unter Abhandelung vieler wichtigen Materien, und mit kurzer Abfertigung der Anmerckungen über ein gedoppeltes Bedencken von der Wolffianischen Philosophie: Nach den principiis der gesunden Vernunft falls into the latter category.

I cannot blame Lange for a lack of thoroughness. On the contrary, he has read through all of Wolff's major works published thus far and apparently even some not as significant publications, and has left only his logical work uncommented, because it doesn't significantly differ from other contemporary books of logic. Lange has even found time to read books of Wolff published in the same year as Lange's own title, such as the book on teleology, I've just dealt with. It is not even pretense of assuming axioms, which are far from evident that I find fault with. This is just Lange playing with Spinoza's geometric style, which is already familiar from an earlier work (Lange even makes fun of Wolff, because he fails to present his theories in such a format). What I found fault with was Lange's reading of Wolffian philosophy,

The very first ”theorem” of Lange suggests that Wolff held onto the eternity of the world. I found this rather surprising, because in reading Wolff I had received the diametrically opposed impression that Wolff thought world was not eternal. Problem lies with Wolff's ambiguity. On the one hand, Wolff makes some remarks that appear to suggest that all things are infinitely grounded on other things, that is, that there has been an infinite series of events leading to this particular moment of time. On the other hand, he also clearly states that world is contingent and contingency is equivalent with non-eternity of the world. We have then stumbled on a seeming contradiction in the Wolffian system.

Lange's strategy in avoiding the contradiction is to assume that Wolff is just trying to sneak in the assumption of the eternity of the world and only pay lip service to the idea of creation, thus making the hypothesis of a creator superfluous. I, on the contrary, try to take seriously Wolff's explicit commitment to the non-eternity of the world. True, the references to infinite grounding remain problematic, but I consider the meaning of these passages to be more uncertain. I can accept the idea that Wolff might have toyed with the idea of an eternal world, but left the question purposefully ambiguous. Furthermore, I might also assume that the infinite grounding means just the fact that any thing in Wolffian world is supposed to be in a necessary relation with all the other denizens of a spatially infinite world.

In addition to finding fault in Lange's interpretation of Wolff, I also question his assumption that the acceptance of an eternally existing world would necessarily lead to atheism. This conclusion holds only if the creation is supposed to happen with time, as the first event of the world. The assumption completely ignores the possibility that the creation happened outside time, which would still allow the eternity of the world. Lange's assumption makes God not just personal, but almost a worldly thing – God is like a lead programmer of an interactive netgaming world, who actively takes part in the events by using the powers of moderator. The supposedly Wolffian God, on the other hand, is like a programmer who knows he has done so good work that he never needs to do anything to improve it. This doesn't mean that this second type of God would be e.g. incapable of miracles – they would just be like preprogammed Easter eggs that bend the rules of the game when players stumbled onto right coordinates.

We'll continue with Lange's criticism on Wolffian cosmology with the notion of determinism.

Johann Joachim Lange: Reasons for God and natural religion against atheism, and, all those who produce, or promote, ancient or recent pseudophilosophy, especially Stoicism and Spinozism, and principles of genuine true philosophy entwined with demonstrative method (1723)

1723 was a turning point in Christian Wolff's career. Until then, he had spent relatively uneventful life as a professor in the university of Halle, writing immensely popular text books on nearly everything. In the conservative atmosphere of German philosophy, Wolff's philosophy was not universally appreciated, and accusations of atheist tendencies were made by his pietist competitors – rather unexpected of a philosopher who had dedicated a significant portion of his major work to God.

Slander is one thing, but the rumours were starting to worry Friedrich Wilhelm I, the king of Prussia. King was a collector, not of stamps or coins, but of big men, which were conscripted by king's officers, by hook or by crook. Story goes that king Friedrich Wilhem was rather worried about the supposed fatalism of Wolff's philosophy. If all events followed strict necessity, the men in king's collection would not be accountable for what they did – especially if they happened to desert the army. Fearing of the fate of his personal toys, if such terrible ideas would spread, king promptly decided to dismantle Wolff's professorship. Fortunately Wolff quickly landed on a new position at the university of Marburg.

The controversy around Wolff's philosophy continued for a while, and it is on this context that we have to evaluate Johann Joachim Lange's breathtakingly titled Caussa Dei et religionis naturalis adversus atheismum, et, quae eum gignit, aut promovet, pseudophilosophiam veterum et recentiorum, praesertim Stoicam et Spinozianam, e genuinis verae philosophia principiis methodo demonstrativa adserta. We have already met Lange's pietistically oriented philosophy and his attitudes towards atheism should come as no surprise – atheism is wrong, contradictory and against morality.

The dislike of Spinoza and his geometrical method was a common theme for more religious thinkers. Indeed, Lange begins by explicitly noting that the use of mathematical method without any guidance might lead one to atheism – if one did not listen to the warnings of common sense, one could stubbornly follow a train of thought leading to absurd conclusions. One can detect a clear sarcasm in Lange's choice of presenting the book in the very same geometrical style of definitions, axioms and propositions to be proved – particularly as some of the axioms and postulates he chooses are later proven as propositions. This is not a foundationalist attempt of building the whole edifice on an unshakable basis, but a coherentist attempt to show how all the jigsaw pieces fit in to form a larger picture.

The structure of the book is thus twofold. First, Lange moves from certain common sense assumptions to the existence of God. Here the mediating link is provided by the notorious cosmological proof. But Lange is not satisfied to use it once, but repeats the same form over and over again with different topics. A soul of the human being cannot be material, thus, it must have been fashioned by God, but the same goes for human body and the whole human race, and indeed, the whole material universe, which just cannot be grounded in nothing.

The pivotal point in the deductions is human liberty. Lange's cosmological proofs that apply to material universe hinge on the results of empirical science and the supposed finite age of the Earth, but the proofs concerning human soul are based on the inshakeable conviction that human soul is free and able to control matter and therefore is irreducible to mere matter. Furthermore, the assumption of human liberty is also behind Lange's improved Cartesian proof. While Descartes used the presence of the idea of God in human mind as a justification of God's existence, Lange tries to deintellectualise this argument – human mind is primarily will and not cognition, but because in our will we have an impulse to know God, this impulse must come from a higher source.

Secondly, Lange then uses the supposedly established existence of God as a justification of further propositions, which include also the fact of human liberty – one of the supposed axioms of Lange. Lange's proof of human liberty hinges on God's role as a judge that will evaluate the worth of every human being. Lange points out that such evaluation would be meaningless, unless the evaluated persons have a liberty to choose their own actions – thus, God must have created human beings as free agents.

It is obvious that human liberty is then crucial to Lange. Without it most of the proofs for God's existence would fall down – or at least they wouldn't lead to a sort of God that Lange is looking for, but to a fatalistic world soul. Indeed, it appears that when Lange is attacking atheism, his true target is the deterministic and mechanistic worldview of new philosophy. Human liberty is the highest ground of human existence and those who dare to deny it are miserable people, because they contradict the natural certainty of their own freedom. The topic of human liberty is also where Lange's grudge against Wolffian philosophy becomes clear. Wolff's endorsement of Leibnizian pre-established harmony breaks the required connection between the soul and the body: soul only appears to control body, which is actually moving according to its own laws.

One could even say that the battle against atheism has always been a battle for human liberty. Nowadays hardcore atheists feel great pleasure in pointing out faults in creation science. Yet, the kernel of a religion is not constituted by any dogmas, but by rituals and cults. Denial of God appears to leave no room for an objective meaning of life and hence deprives world of all magic. Even pantheism is suspected, because it reeks of closet atheism.

So much for Lange, next time I'll take a look at a philosophical dispute for the first time in this blog.

Ludwig Philipp Th'ummig: Varied essays and rare arguments, collected in one volume (1727)

When we speak of a Wolffian school, it is not just Christian Wolff himself we are thinking of, but a whole parade of more minor figures who in some sense continued the work of their masters. The 1720s appear to be the earliest point at which we can speak of Wolffians as a recognizable philosophical movement. I have already discussed a dissertation of one Wolffian, Bilfinger, that appeared 1722, and the topic of the current post, Meletemata varii et rarioris argumenti in unum volumen collecta, contains dissertations and essays published during 1720s.

Although the name does not reveal it, the continuous references to the works of the illustrious Wolff suggest that the writers are hard core Wolffians. Most of the contributors are quite minor names in the school and apparently did not even publish anything after their dissertation, so I'll skip introducing them. The only exception is the editor of the collection, Ludvig Philip Thümmig, a faithful follower of Wolff.

What I am mostly interested in this collection is the range of different topics discussed, which reflects well the multifarious nature of Wolff's philosophy. A considerable number of the essays concern natural or mathematical sciences, which was the original research field of Wolff and which he still continued to study even when he had already started his famous series on reasonable thoughts on nearly everything – even at this time Wolff published a series called Allerhand nützliche Versuche (All sorts of useful studies), which dealt with such important problems as how we can weigh objects or use a thermometer. The pupils of Wolff appear to have been interested at least of biology (there's an essay on how to study leaves), but especially of astronomy and ”things happening up in the sky”, like propagation of light.

It is not just physics that interested pupils of Wolff, but there are also more philosophical essays that concern all the four Rational thoughts we have encountered thus far. There's a logical discourse on the necessary and contingent concepts, which also has ontological consequences – the writer argues how Wolffian distinction between absolute and conditional necessity discredits Spinoza's idea that the world is necessary, because the existence of the world is not impossible, but depends on the free choice of God. This writing is the first sign thus far of the looming threat of Spinozan pantheism – we have more to say on the matter in a couple of decades.

Furthermore, the collection contains a metaphysical study of the immortality of soul – or more likely, it is an advertisement of the Wolffian proof, which is based on the simplicity of the soul and the supposed impossibility of a material basis of thinking. The only novelty in the essay appears to be the author's idea that the life of soul consists of a clarification of its ideas: the newborn child has only confused ideas, but the soul of a dead person sees everything distinctly. Despite its unoriginality, the essay shows well the appreciation of Wolff's rational psychology in contemporary Germany. Indeed, I think that Kant's theory of paralogisms is primarily targeted towards Wolffian ideas.

Morality is also topic of an essay, which analyses the notion of sincerity. A considerable portion of the essay is dedicated to defending Wolff's ideas of China as an atheist and still a moral nation – an issue that will surface often in the writings of 1720s.

Wolffian politics is not forgotten, although this essasy covers also architectural ideas. The author follows Wolff's suggestion that the needs of a comunnity determine what is good art. The outcome of the argument is that the Wolffian writings on architecture fulfill this criterion of good art perfectly.

It is this final tendency of subjugating art to the moral upbringing of people that will be the topic of my next post, where I'll discuss my first piece of fiction.