It has become evident that Wolff clearly
wants to distance himself from the image of a radical atheist and Spinozist.
This is even more evident, if we take into consideration his comments
on cosmology, which he straightforwardly defines as a discipline required
especially for the proof of God's existence. Indeed, it is the
contingency of the world and its dependence on God that Wolff
especially wants to emphasize in his comments – thus, he once again
uses considerable efforts to state the difference between absolute
and hypothetical necessity, which his opponents had muddled.
Wolff also clarifies the notion that
things are infinitely dependent on other things, which I also noted
to be somewhat confusing statement and which the pietists read as a
commitment to the eternity of the world. Wolff notes that he is
merely stating what the worldly things would have to be like, if only natural explanations or causation according to natural laws would be
allowed. In other words, there couldn't have been a natural beginning
of the world, because every natural law requires a previous state
from which the current state arose.
Such an impossibility does not of
course rule out a supernatural beginning or a beginning that did not
happen according to natural laws. Indeed, Wolff is convinced that the
principle of sufficient ground must then lead us to accept such a
supernatural beginning – infinite series of causes just isn't a
possibility. Wolff is here underlining the contingency of natural
laws: they are necessary only within the world, but not from a more
extensive perspective.
Furthermore, Wolff even makes it clear
that in a sense natural laws are not necessary even within the world,
that is, if God is taken into account. Wolff states that God need not
follow laws of nature, but if he so desires, he can make worldly
things behave in a manner they usually wouldn't. Of course, Wolff is
quick to point out that God doesn't do such miracles, unless there is a good
reason, but it is evident that he wants to make God's freedom stand
more out.
Interestingly, Wolff appears to take
the principle of the identity of indiscernibles as a mere natural
law. Indeed, he does consider it a real possibility that God could
have created two completely equal things, although he just has had no
reason to do it. We can see Wolff distancing himself here from
Leibniz, who apparently suggested that the identity of indiscernibles
might somehow be based on the principle of sufficient reason.
Even clearer is Wolff's struggle
against becoming identified a a mere Leibnizian in his behaviour
towards monadology. Wolff does want to present the theory of monads
in as plausible manner as possible, but he emphasizes forcefully
that he himself does not believe in it. Main reasons for his
disbelief are physical. Wolff is unconvinced that all the richness of
phenomena could be reduced to elements that all share the same force
of representation. True, one could on basis of this power understand
why elements or monads can form larger totalities, such a material
objects, but the further characteristic of material objects that resist the intrusion of other material objects into the same place is
something Wolff cannot understand as derived from force of
representation.
Still further clue of Wolff's growing
disenchanment of Leibniz is provided by Wolff's clarification of the
status of pre-established harmony as a mere hypothesis, but this is
something we have already dealt with. In addition, Wolff seems keen
to downplay the importance of whole rational psychology: if one just
knows e.g. that movements of soul and body somehow correspond with
one another, nothing more is required, if one does not have a
scientific bent for discovering grounds for everything.
The urge to distinguish himself from
Leibnizian thought is probably a symptom of Wolff's need to answer
the accusations of atheism and fatalism, which becomes even more
evident in the rest of Wolff's book. Thus, Wolff spends considerable
number of pages in explaining that while one can derive all
properties of souls from its representative capacities and all
properties of God from his capacity to view all possible worlds at
once, this does not mean that the nature of soul and God would be
mere theoretical or passive regard of actual and possible worlds, but
that both soul and God are active. And just like Wolff decided to
defend the freedom of the soul, equally certain is his tendency to
defend the divine liberty – even if the act of creating this world is
the most reasonable and God as eminently good and wise will then
inevitably choose to create it, this still doesn't mean that God
couldn't have chosen completely different world to create.
Thus end Wolff's remarks on his
metaphysics, which set his scheduled publication back a year – it
was only the next year that Wolff could finally publish his account
of biology, to which I shall turn next time.
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