Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - The law of the land

The purpose of state or republic, according to Crusius, is to guarantee common good of its citizens, and prudence in affairs of state means finding the best means for this common good. Crusius notes that no one constitution is the only possible means for common good - all three simple constitutions (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy) and their various combinations could work. Following tradition beginning from Aristotle, Crusius remarks that all of these constitutions could also be corrupted, if the regents of the state cared only for themselves and their own class (e.g. the three simple constitutions could be corrupted into tyrannies, oligarchies and ochlocracies). This corruption or illness of republic, Crusius clarifies, is not to be confused with mere irregularity of republic, where its constitution does not wholly serve the common good - irregularity does not yet give subjects right to overthrow their regents nor does it give other republics a right to meddle in its affairs.

In practice, Crusius advises that constitution of a republic should somehow restrict the power of regent. At least during the crucial time, when a new regent is required, either citizens should have a say in choosing the new government of the republic or this should be precisely determined by the constitution, so that the common good would not be too dependent on whims of an arbitrary individual. Indeed, the constitution should allow for strengthening and weakening the power of the regent, as the situation demanded.

In monarchy, Crusius specifies, regularity of the state demands that the power of the monarch is restricted by immutable laws, and even better, by an independent council or collegium, because individual rulers can easily become vicious. Still, Crusius adds, these restrictions shouldn’t get in the way of swift decisions, if common good required them. Furthermore, Crusius suggests that monarchies should be hereditary, because this would allow educating future monarchs to their position.

In addition, hereditary monarchies fall more rarely in civil wars, Crusius believes. In fact, he considers civil war so great a danger that he counsels making hereditary lines definite. Crusius advises particularly against monarchies with several monarchs, because at worst this encourages civil wars and at best it still weakens the republic.

Crusius has not as much to say about aristocracies and democracies. He notes that aristocracies should not be hereditary, because that could prevent best people becoming regents. Furthermore, Crusius thinks that rules stating how an aristocratic counsel comes to a decision should be clear, so that there would be no ambiguity about the decision making process. Of democracies Crusius really has nothing to say beyond noting that it requires a completely civilised nation.

In addition to choosing a constitution, Crusius continues, prudence in affairs of state concerns also the day-to-day decisions of a republic. Individual republics have their own particular circumstances requiring particular decisions, but Crusius notes that some general rules can be justified already by the general nature of republics.

Crusius begins by noting that good and prudent government has three goals, none of which should be ignored nor emphasised over others. First goal is to secure the position of regent and apply his powers most efficiently. Crucius remarks that writers like Machiavelli had focused on this goal, forgetting that the good of the regent was intricately connected with the good of the citizens, the second goal of prudent government. This second goal was overemphasised, Crusius says, by republican writers, who had forgotten that a republic still required an efficient regent. Finally, Crucius picks as the third goal the status of republic among other republic. Just like with other goals, he notes that some politicians focused too much on this particular goal, forgetting that external glory of state is based on its internal happiness.

Crusius states that prudence in affairs of state uses the very same capacities as prudence in private affairs, although it applies these capacities in different matters, which it then ought to be informed of. Specifically prudent governor should know the geographical characteristics of the land and the citizens, the political constitution of the whole republic and various communities within it, economic state of the republic, and finally, interests and goals of neighbouring republics.

Crusius emphasises the role of religion as the basis of security of republics. In addition to religion, sciences, arts and freedom of thinking should be protected, because they serve as means for securing all the goals of human life and make republics respected. Despite the lip service to freedom of thinking, Crusius is not willing to tolerate ideas working against the security of state, such as, he insists, atheism.

Crusius advises regents to be careful in choosing their officials and to prefer intelligent and virtuous people over those of high birth. Still, he also suggests that regents should not replace their own intelligence with the intelligence of their officials and that they should closely control the doings of those officials, because they work in the name of the regent. Crusius insists that officials should always follow direct commands of regent, to make the republic secure, while laws, according to Crucius, can be broken, if it is prudent to do so. Indeed, Crusius suggests, good example of regent guides subjects better than any laws.

Crusius speaks for strict regulation of state spendings - republic should always have some reserve finances, in case money is required for emergencies. Money shouldn’t particularly be given freely to subjects, Crusius argues, because they wouldn’t respect what they haven’t worked for, and they particularly shouldn’t have the right to press their own coinage. Instead, subjects should be taxed heavily, Crusius says, since no citizen should have means to live by oneself, but be in various ways dependent on other citizens. Indeed, a person providing sustenance to others should be congratulated, Crusius suggests, because they help to realise one goal of republic. To make taxation fair, Crusius notes, richer individuals should pay the most. Generally, he insists that money should be directed to move from owner to another from time to time, since in this manner it helps the state and the subjects more than if it remained stagnant. Thus, if some goods in land were still ownerless, they could be taken as regent’s property, so that they could be used for everyone’s benefit.

Crusius has not very much to say about legislation, beyond the general fact that laws should be applicable to different subjects. Furthermore, Crusius emphasises that laws should definite, so that there can be no room for misinterpretation, whether it is accidental or purposeful. Against another sort of fraud is directed Crusius’ advise that regents should be careful that religious communities won’t meddle into civil life of their members, since this is often a way to deceive lower classes.

When it comes to foreign relations, Crusius advocates for maintaining the army in good condition, because a strong army has an important role in preventing foreign conquest and in raising the prestige of the republic, which is important for achieving its goals. In commerce, Crusius holds onto essentially mercantilist ideals: foreign imports should be restricted, because losing gold weakens the state, and if something is to be imported, it should be raw materials that are then further developed into manufactures that could be sold to other countries for more money. Crusius still does not believe that republics are only competitors of one another. Indeed, he says that just like humans require friends, countries require alliances for their own security.

Christian August Crusius: Instruction to live reasonably - Republics and nations

Until this moment, Crusius has been speaking of a state of nature, that is, a state without no government. Then again, he notes, human beings cannot remain in this state of nature, because their fallen state creates problems. Some people want to do harm to others, and a need to defend oneself leads to the formation of communities. Crusius insists that not everyone can take part in the actual decision making of a community, which requires some form of representation. Furthermore, communities require some principles to fill gaps in the law of nature and means by which to enforce natural law and contracts.

These needs generate an incentive to form republics, by which Crusius means communities in which one or more persons take care of common welfare and security, in order that natural duties and rights of moral person would be better protected. Crusius also insists that God wants republics, because they are in the current state of the world the best means for common welfare. Crusius does admit that first republics were probably dictatorships. Still, he thinks that this genesis does not lessen our obligations toward them. Furthermore, he notes that republics are not absolutely necessary, since in state of nature many things can be determined through contracts.

Crusius notes that republics have two different kinds of members - regents or rulers and subjects or citizens - both of which have their own duties and rights. Although he notes that a republic can have many regents and that even the whole nation could be a regent, most of his discussion seems to rise from the monarchic context of a single ruler.

Duty of regents is, Crusius says, to take care of the welfare of the whole republic and to use their powers only for this purpose and not to restrict individual rights further than necessary. Rights of regent, which Crusius calls rights of majesty, can either be historically determined, such as a right to hunt in certain places where others are not allowed. Still, Crusius notes, some of their rights are determined already by the very notion of regency and thus belong to natural law.

A central right of regents, in Crusius’ account, is the right to explicitly or implicitly appoint civil laws, which are meant for the best of the whole republic and which subjects are obligated to follow. Civil laws either generally say that something should be done or not done, or they assign rights to certain people and to other people a duty to respect those rights.

Crusius bases the obligation toward civil laws on a more fundamental obligation toward natural law - civil laws should be obeyed, because natural law says so. Civil laws are mostly needed where natural law leaves matters very undetermined, for instance, with questions concerning property. In addition, they can be used to bolster parts of natural law that are not accepted by everyone.

Crusius considers also the relationship of civil laws to rights and duties based on natural laws. He notes that civil laws can cancel negative natural rights, for instance, a civil law can cancel a right to hunt. Then again, Crusius adds, positive right can be cancelled only for a good reason. Crusius thinks also that a civil law can cancel those natural duties, which are indeterminate or not in itself necessary, because civil security is more important than following these duties. Then again, he emphasises, immutable natural duties cannot be denied by any civil law, because even civil law is based on such duties.

In addition to devising civil laws, Crusius says that regent is also tasked to apply natural and civil laws as the highest judge of republic. This does not mean that regent would have to sit in court all day, because they can assign officials and judges to help them in their work. Then again, regent cannot leave judicial power to the hands of ordinary citizens - thus, Crusius condemns practices such as dueling. Finally, according to Crusius, regents themselves can judged only by God, so that the security of republic can be maintained.

Crusius says that a regent has a right to punish and thus force subjects to follow laws. In extreme cases they can even kill people, as a deterrent, but Crusius advises this should not be done lightly. Still, Crusius suggests that righteous death penalty should be regarded as deriving from God’s will.

As has already been noted, Crusius wanted regents to avoid meddling into private affairs of citizens, as much as it is possible. This means also that regent should respect property of private persons, although they have a right to tax citizens during extreme times. Crusius also notes that private affairs of regent do not fall under right of majesty, in other words, regent does not have any special rights when e.g. buying or selling property.

Crusius remarks that republic might contain smaller communities. These communities fall also under the command of regent. Thus, Crusius notes, they must provide enough information of their activities to regent, in order to determine whether they won’t pose a threat to a republic. If these communities are harmless, their activities belong to the private sphere.

Crusius also considers the origin of regent’s rights. Originally, he says, majesty must be decided by pact. Such a constitutional pact can be entered freely, but Crusius admits it might also arise through force, if the alternative is even worse. This pact can be explicit - for instance, in case of elections - or implicit. Crusius considers it as a case of an implicit pact, when children continue to live in a republic that has raised them - it is not their parents that have decided the issue, but children themselves, because they enjoy the security provided by the republic.

Crusius says that rights of regent and their limits are determined by the original pact - unless regents want to turn into dictators, they should not try to overcome those limits. Crusius is of the opinion that the rights of regent can be restricted only by an explicit pact or by clear implicit conditions, such as regent’s duty to act for the benefit of the whole republic.

Crusius notes that regent has power also over churches in republic. Indeed, he insists that churches must be regulated more than other communities, because churches are large, depravations can be easily masked as religious dogmas and unruly persons often become church officials. Still, Crusius adds, regent should otherwise give churches the same rights as other communities.

Crusius has further rules about the relationship of regent and religion. Firstly, he begins, regents themselves should not make new religions and they should not make essential changes to religion. Since regents should not meddle in private affairs, they should not force anyone to convert to a religion. Particularly, they should not take children from their parents and make them part of a different religious community. Generally, Crusius says, nobody should be punished just because of their religion. Furthermore, unless the good of the republic demands so, Crusius continues, regent should not force religious community to change its characteristics.

Crusius thinks that power of regents over a religion goes somewhat further, if they follow that particular religion, because then they are obligated to aim for the best of its followers - for instance, regents would then have also judicial power in church. Crusius suggests that regents are obligated to help their religious community survive all internal conflicts. Indeed, he adds, they can even determine the rules of the religious community, if the general good so demands.

According to Crusius, regent can pick some religion as an official religion of the republic, in so far as nobody is forced to uphold it involuntarily. Crusius notes that while regent can punish people who disturb general peace, even if they do it for the sake of their conscience, this does not mean he can punish people just for having a different religion. Still, Crusius allows regents to punish external mockery of the official religion, which Crusius considers to include atheism or deism.

Crusius thinks subjects have a duty to follow civil laws and administration of majesty, thus denying all disobedience. According to Crusius, this duty is based not just on the original pact, but also on the duty of upholding security of whole community. This duty also implies, Crusius says, that despite all their faults, regents must be thought to be good, because on the public image of the regent is based the security of whole republic. Similarly, Crusius continues, subjects must think that a regent always acts according to the best interest of republic.

Crusius admit that if regents forget the duty of upholding common good, citizens are only externally obligated to follow them. He then raises the interesting question whether this external duty of obedience contradicts inner duty of citizens to follow their own conscience. His answer differs from one case to another. Firstly, he notes that when citizens are unsure what is best for the republic, they should just follow their regent. Even if the citizens would know a better course of action than what regent suggests, regent’s suggestion should be follow not be bad as such.

What then if regent’s decision would be foolish or even ethically unsound? Advise of Crusius is to avoid as much conflict as possible. He denies all active rebellion, but accepts a sort of passive resistance, where regent’s commands are not just followed. Even in this case, Crusius says, this disobedience should be done without arousing too much commotion and the citizens should accept the punishment, if their disobedience becomes public.

Since the rights of regent are based on original, explicit or implicit, pact, these rights might vanish and subjects wouldn’t then be obligated to follow their regent. Crusius warns that this could happen only if the regent had committed a great crime, since revolution always endangers public security. Furthermore, he adds that the decision to start a revolution should not rise from a single person, but from whole nation or at least from a majority of nation or from a selected group of its representatives.

While within a republic or a nation, civil laws rule in addition to natural law, when it comes to relation of nations, Crusius says, no such civil laws exist. This means, firstly, that all nations have similar right and no nation can rule or judge over another. Secondly, Crusius adds, it means that all obligations of nations must be based on either natural law or on contracts made by them. Still, the mere existence of free nations changes the natural law somewhat from that holding in a state of nature, for instance, since the existence of nations often implies the existence of entities other than individuals that can own property.

Because free nations have no further ruler above them, Crusius notes, they have a right to force their own rights, in other words, they can start just wars. Just war is no illegal revenge, Crusius clarifies, but a righteous way for a nation to uphold its rights. Still, he points out, war is always an unnatural state and should happen only at very extreme situations, after all diplomatic means have been used. Furthermore, Crusius continues, warring nations should use the least amount of violence and to end the war as soon as possible, while neutral states should not be disturbed during war. Despite these antiwar attitudes, Crusius makes one concession: raging barbarian hordes can be attacked, no matter what.

Gottsched: First grounds of whole worldly wisdom, second part (1734?)

As you might notice from the question mark, I am not completely certain about the publication year of the second part of Gottsched's Erste Gründe der gesammten Weltweisheit. All the external sources I've studied indicate only a publication year for the first book, and because I've seen only later editions of the book, I haven't had the chance to verify this from the original source. Luckily, in the later editions Gottsched added as a preface his own life story, in which he clearly tells that he finished the second part in 1734. Whether the book was also published in the same year I do not know, but it at least seems likely.

In the same preface Gottsched also notes that his philosophical textbooks had been accused of being mere copies of Thümmig's Latin textbooks. Gottsched of course denies the accusation, but one must admit that some influences especially in the ordering of different topics appears indubitable. For instance, in the case of this second part, concentrating on practical philosophy, Gottsched does not follow Wolff's double division of practical philosophy into ethics and politics, but divides first the whole practical philosophy in the same manner as Thümmig, according to levels of generality: the books begins with general account of practical philosophy, moves to natural law and only at the next level introduces the distinction to ethics and politics.

One particular point I forgot to mention when discussing the first part of the book was Gottsched'd definition of philosophy, which differs interestingly from Wolffian definition: for Gottsched, philosophy is a science for obtaining happiness. It is clear then that Gottsched holds practical philosophy to be of primary importance in comparison with theoretical philosophy, which merely serves as a presupposition of practical philosophy – one must know e.g. ontological truths about good and bad and pneumatological truths about human behaviour to get anywhere in practical philosophy.

An important assumption in practical philosophy is that human beings are in some sense free, because practical philosophy is for Gottsched all about free actions – you cannot make evaluations out of reflexes. Freedom, on the other hand, is dependent on us understanding the situation and choosing what to do in that situation – a person with seriously weak understanding, such as a child, cannot then be deemed free and therefore cannot be blamed for his actions.

Gottsched's practical philosophy is thus rather intellectual. Even conscience is for him, just like for Wolff, a faculty for making judgements and involves always syllogistic reasoning: a person has a principle of action (in such and such a situation do this), analyses the situation (this is such an such a situation) and then just follows the conclusion of the deduction. Gottsched also suggests that we could use a sort of reverse reasoning out of their actions in certain situations what their moral principles must be. He notices the possibility of someone faking his behaviour, but has an amusing solution: just make him drunk enough and he will soon reveal his true colours.

Gottsched's rules for evaluating the actions are consequentialist: a principle of action cannot be good, if it won't lead to good consequences. He goes even so far as to suggest that because all actions will ultimately lead to either good or bad results, all actions are either good or bad. It remains rather unclear how long the causal chain starting from an action should be followed to determine its worth – if taken to its utmost extreme of following the consequences to final end of the world, it appears humanly impossible to say anything about the goodness and badness of actions.

Then again, worth of a human being cannot be seen in one action, but more in the general disposition appearing in a number of actions. Furthermore, even the most virtuous person might occasionally have relapses to vicious behaviour because of human weaknesses. Highest good for human beings is then more like a constant attempt to improve one's behaviour and make it more and more virtuous – this is an idea that will reoccur e.g. in writing's of Fichte.

In a very Wolffian fashion Gottsched suggests that the ultimate principle of action should be the demand to make everyone perfect, oneself and others. The care for oneself leads obviously to one's happiness, but it is more difficult to say in Wolffian case how the care for others can be deduced from the assumption of one's own perfection as an end. Gottsched avoids the paradox by noting that God has bound all human beings into a republic ruled by God, which makes it our business to care for citizens of all the universe. Furthermore, Gottsched also points out the Wolffian answer that even intuiting perfection makes one happy, thus making helping one's fellow beings a reasonably prudent choice.

It is this striving towards universal perfection that summarises the content of the law of nature in Gottsched. This law of nature is in a sense backed up by God, in the sense that he has decreed all the causal laws leading from certain actions to certain consequences – vicious action is such that leads to unhappy life, and the connection of the two was the creation of God. Then again, all these causal regularities exist within the world and can be read out of it through a correct use of reason – in other words, we do not need any supernatural revelation to know what is good and what is bad, and even atheists could be convinced of the law of nature.

Gottdched goes then on to further specific features of the law of nature, which is divided, firstly, into duties belonging to all human beings, no matter what their status (and these are classified familiarly into duties towards God, oneself and other human beings), and secondly, to duties pertaining to certain social roles in e.g. a household or a commonwealth. While the law of nature with all its subduties contains then the general principles for all actions, concrete guidance to correct action is provided by the science of ethics and politics. These fields of philosophical investigation tell us how to motivate people to follow the duties implied in the law of nature. Furthermore, they try to give suggestions how following the law of nature becomes easier – one should e.g. educate oneself and tame one's affects and similarly states should provide for both intellectual and moral upbringing of its citizens. The shape of this system has rather Wolffian air, but in small details there are certain differences – for instance, Gottsched seems more willing than Wolff to allow for people helping one another, e.g. with alms.

***

This is also a good place to consider Gottsched as a philosopher in general, since I've now read most of his important writings. He did write a book on rhetoric and he also published a lot of of new editions on his earlier books – especially in his book on poetry he modified the text and added further material as times went by. And undoubtedly a complete picture of Gottsched would have to take into account his poetic achievement. Still, these three books are quite enough to see what is essential particularly in his philosophy.

One can firstly appreciate the role of Gottsched in popularising and summarising central tenets of Wolffian philosophy, as he quite astoundingly manages to make out of five long books (logic, metaphysics, physics, ethics and politics) two books, which still feel complete and full works. One must also appreciate Gottsched's willingness to not follow Leibniz or Wolff slavishly: he adds new material from other writers especially in the matter of natural sciences and even distances himself from some key Leibnizian tenets, like pre-established harmony. Still, one feels that none of this makes Gottsched a very original thinker, but a mere compiler.

The most influential part of Gottsched's ouvre is undoubtedly his poetic, but even here one feels that it is more due to historical reasons of Gottsched just doing in German-speaking world what no one had done before. The book does have an original flair, even if much of the topics have been borrowed from Aristotle, Horace and modern French writers. The same moralising and rule preaching attitude that can be glimpsed in Gottsched's work on practical philosophy shows its full sway in his adherence to rigid rules and in his condemnation of whole genres of poetry. No wonder then that the rising new generation of writers didn't follow Gottsched's instructions.

But this is getting too much ahead of the progress of times. While we now said adieu to Gottsched, next time we will meet a rising star in German school philosophy.

Ludwig Philipp Thümmig: Institutions of Wolffian philosophy provided for the use of academics, part 2 (1727?)

I noticed that in my investigation of the theoretical part of Thümmig's work I left out a crucial element, namely, the very structure of the science in question. A quick schematic is here:

Few words of explanation. Logic forms its own module in Wolffian philosophy. On the one hand, logic precedes all other sciences, because it introduces the very method used in all sciences. On the other hand, logic is clearly based on psychological considerations: to know how human cognition should work, we must know something about human cognitive powers. Because psychology is partly an empirical science, Wolffian logic, as described by Thümmig, must also have an empirical element.

The second module in the picture consists of metaphysics. Here the foundation of the whole lies in ontology, of which it is difficult to say whether it is empiricist of rational – remember the controversy about the principle of sufficient reason. On ontology are based both cosmology and psychology, first of which deals with the sum of all complex objects and second of which deals with one type of simple object or soul. Both cosmology and psychology also have empirical foundations. In addition to the ontological theory of complex objects, cosmology contains also the highest generalizations from physical laws, clearly based on observations. Even more clearly, psychology contains an empirical part, which the so-called rational psychology then tries to explain. Furthermore, rational psychology is also partially based on cosmology, because psychology must explain the supposed interaction of the soul with its body, a complex object. Finally, natural theology is based on both cosmology and psychology – for instance, the existence of God is deduced cosmologically from the existence of the world and the soul.

The final module of theoretical philosophy is then structured similarly as psychology. First, there is the so-called experimental philosophy, which contains results of the physical observations and experiments. The physics proper offers then a rational explanation for the content of the experimental philosophy , just as rational psychology was supposed to explanation of the results of empirical philosophy. Physics is also grounded on cosmology, which defines the most general laws governing the physical things.

If we finally move to Thümmig's vision of the practical philosophy of Wolffian school, we may firstly note how the practical philosophy is dependent on the theoretical philosophy – logic is used to show how human being should use their intellectual capacities, ontology to define the concept of goodness, psychology to show what humans are capable of and theology to determine how humans should take God into account.

In Wolff's writings practical philosophy was detailed in two writings, the one dealing with ethics and the other with civil philosophy, Thümmig's scheme makes it much clearer that the two disciplines are actually just two parts of one discipline. Indeed, the practical philosophy forms a more definite unity with Thümmig than theoretical philosophy:

The practical philosophy has then a general part, on which both of its major divisions are based. The aim of this general part is to establish natural law as the guiding principle of all good actions – all actions must aim towards perfection. The natural law is then divided into two different sublaws, depending on whether the actions involve only a single human being or whether they involve also interpersonal relations. In the former case, the natural law determines the obligation for an individual to perfect one's intellect, volition, body and external state, while in the second case natural law commands members of a community to make other members as happy as possible and the community in general as prosperous and tranquil as possible. The former aspect of natural law is then the foundation of moral philosophy or ethics, which is then nothing but a system of rules for making oneself perfect. The latter aspect, on the other hand, is the foundation of civil philosophy or politics, which is divided into two parts. The first part or economics deals with the prosperity of simple communities or households, while the second or politics proper, which is also based on economics, deals with the prosperity of communities consisting of households, that is, republics.

Thümmig has thus made two additions to the Wolffian practical philosophy: firstly, he has introduced the idea of a general practical philosophy, and secondly, he has divided the ethics and the politics into two parts, first of which investigates the primary goal of these disciplines and the second of which determined the practical measures for obtaining those goals. When it comes to details, Thümmig fails to make any substantial additions to what Wolff himself had said in his works on ethics and politics. This leads us naturally to the question of the role Thümmig played in the development of German philosophy. I shall endeavor to make similar concluding remarks on every philosopher, once I get to the last text I read from them.

The texts of Thümmig considered thus far have had little of lasting interest. In addition to Institutions, he has edited one collection of Wolffian articles and authored a book on scientific curiosities and an article defending Wolff's German metaphysics. Even the Institutions, which has been clearly the main publication of Thümmig, has been mostly a mere summarized translation of Wolff's works. Of course, Institutions still was important for the Wolffian school, because it presented the doctrine of the school for the very first time in the international language of the time.

Furthermore, it is clear that Wolff and at least other Wolffians took Thümmig seriously and referred to his writings various times. Indeed, it is just to be expected that a promising young philosopher follows for a time the writings of his mentor closely, before breaking into some truly new territory. Thümmig never really had the chance to break away from the shadow of Wolff, because he died rather young in 1728.

Still, in light of Thümmig's writings it is difficult to say whether he could have really changed the tone of Wolffian philosophy. He does introduce novelties, but these novelties are not so much reformations of Wolff's doctrines, but merely additions concerning issues Wolff had not discussed – think, for instance, of Thümmig's fascination with animal psychology. In contrast with later Wolffians, like Baumgarten, Thümmig is more like a person who applies a theory to new fields of investigation, while the later Wolffians sometimes even disputed the theory and the axioms on which it was based – not to mention Kant, who replaced even the methods and aims of philosophy.

So much for Thümmig, next time we shall find out the purpose of the world.

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.

Christian Wolff: Reasonable thoughts on the social life of men and especially on the community - The enlightened despot

The origin of households in the Wolffian system is the desire for intercourse, together with the obligation to care for the possible outcome of the intercourse, that is, children. Now, Wolff suggests that household by itself cannot satisfy all needs of a human being. At most, a life constricted to a household can satisfy only basic needs, but this would be only animal and not human life – the households could not provide for the future nor would they be able to care for higher needs like science and arts. Wolff even invokes the Hobbesian argument that a life without a community of men would be a life of fear, because anyone could be killed by other people.

A community or a state is then created by households entering into a mutual contract that aims at the general well-being of all of them – note that it is the head of the houshold that gets to decide the loalty of everyone in his family. Wolff obediently notes all the six classical possibilities with the traditional names derived from Aristotle: the good constitutions or monarchy, aristocracy and polity and their corrupted variants or tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. Wolff then does allow the possibility of ”polities” or republics ruled by majority votes, although he notes that they are often hindered by party politics. Still, the rest of the book is clearly meant for absolute or constitutional monarchies, where the king has all or at least majority of power in his hands. Wolff's task is to enlighten the German despots and make their minds accessible to reforms their states required.

Wolffian ideal of society contains some characteristics that justify calling him an enlightenment philosopher. For instance, Wolff encourages kings to found schools, colleges and universities for educating people in sciences and handicrafts, to build hospitals and apothecaries for serving the sick and to make the cities beautiful for all senses by filling them with works of art and by making sure that nothing stinks. Then again, the main interest of Wolff in politics is the upholding of public morality, which gives Wolff's suggestions a moralizing tone. Thus, Wolff suggests that only art that teaches morals is to be accepted and that a state should be filled with buildings for public moral preaching. The most extreme suggestion from modern standpoint is that all punishments should happen in public in order that potential criminals would think twice of their immoral intentions.

The idea of places for public moral preaching is interesting as a not so veiled attempt to promote churches as necessary for the well-being of the state – the attempt becomes even more apparent, when Wolff notes that belief in God is almost a prerequisite for a moral society. True, Wolff has admitted that morality is possible without religion. Wolff even goes so far as to accept China as an atheist state that has one of the best constitutions in the world – as we shall see, this admission will be fatal to Wolff's carrieer. Still, Wolff is convinced that majority of atheists will be scoundrels incapable of living in community with other people.

Wolffian politics is then not so much interested of the welfare of the people, but of their morality – although bodily and mental welfare is, of course, part of moral perfection in Wolffian system. Thus, it is just natural that in Wolff's opinion laws of a state should be based on the law introduced already in Wolff's moral writings, that is, the natural law. Wolff does allow some changes to be made to the natural law in case when following it would be extremely difficult. For instance, natural law determines that a child should become independent, when she has all the necessary skills for taking care of herself. Yet, because it is often hard to determine the exact time when a person has become mature in his actions, state must make a concession and determine some fixed age at which everyone is to be considered an adult.

Natural law is for Wolff even a higher authority than state. Usually one must obey the rulers of one's state, but if the rulers break the natural law, people are not committed to obeying them. Thus, if a king tries to murder someone, the attemped victim has the right to defend herself. Yet, Wolff advices people to resist the ruler's will only in the cases where one's own well-being is threatened or where one is commanded to do immoral things. Hence, if a despot threatens to kill your neighbours, you have no obligation to help them – unless you happen to be the soldier who is to pull the trigger.

Wolffian system of politics appears then to have no true stopgap for tyrants and dictators. True, Wolff does advise kings to limit their own power and become as symbolic rulers as king of Sweden or queen of England are nowadays. Wolff even justifies this adivce through a comparison with the universal monarch or God, who leaves the actual government of the world to humans. Yet, there is no guarantee that a tyrant would follow Wolff's advice. Indeed, Wolff can only hope that religion and the fear of God would stop kings from tyrannical behaviour – a rather poor hope when Wolff has just congratulated God of not meddling in human affairs.

The individual states are then related like individual persons to one another, and just like persons ideally act like self-enclosed monads, so should states have no concern for the international community. Positive in this isolationism is that Wolff thinks all warfare to be evil and justifiable only as a self-defence – although Wolff does accept also reasonable suspicision of evil intentions as a reason for self-defence, somewhat like American head of state before the attack to Iraq. But Wolff appears to be blind to the invisible economic battle that his mercantilist tendencies generate – Wolff advices states to horde as much money as possible, which in effect make economic co-operation impossible in international level.

So much then for Wolffian politics. Next time I'll have something to say about the generation of Wolffian school.