Bilfinger: Logical lessons (1739)

It is somewhat peculiar to notice that almost all notable German philosophers of the period wrote a textbook on logic. Considering that there had been no notable additions to Aristotelian syllogistic, one might think that the market would have quickly been saturated with these books. Of course, one would then be forgetting that logic books of the time contained something beyond syllogisms and were more like books on methodology. Thus, they even gave the philosopher a chance to share his opinion on the proper means to do philosophy. Hence, it is not surprising to find Bilfinger in his Praecepta logic attacking Rüdigerian idea that mathematical and logical method would not be equivalent terms.

Bilfinger continues the trend of putting logic itself in logical form, that is, of using the formal schema of definitions, propositions and corollaries. An interesting part of his exposition is the heavy use of problems, that is, of practical propositions suggesting solution to some task, which especially emphasises the methodological part of the book. This methodological feeling is also heightened by an appendix concentrating in the use of logic in academic disputations – Bilfinger gives quite practical advise, for instance, on the means by which a defender or opponent of a thesis can look for arguments for or against some proposition.

As is often the case, the most interesting part of the book is the first one dealing with the ideas or concepts. Bilfinger's notion of idea is quite representational – idea is like a picture of something, although it might indeed be quite an obscure picture. The primary source of ideas for Bilfinger is our sense or experience, but we can then produce new ideas out of these first ones, e.g. through recombination, analogies and abstraction. Especially abstraction is a potent source of mistakes, because it might lead to embodiment and substantialisation of mere properties. This might happen e.g. in physics, where we speak of wind, which is nothing else but movement of air, or in psychology, where different capacities of mind are thought of as distinct entities, like Aristotelian souls.

The practical aim of Bilfinger with ideas is their clarification, that is, making them better tools for identifying things which they represent. This means for Bilfinger primarily making them more intuitive, that is, connecting them to ideas that are directly connected to what they represent. Most of our ideas are mere signs for other ideas – this is especially true of words, but also e.g. of some written symbols (like + and -), inflections of speech etc. Words should be defined, so that we could find marks which help to distinguish things signified by these words from other things.

Mere definitions are still not enough for Bilfinger. Even if we would have a definition of, say, God as the most perfect entity, we still wouldn't know from this mere definition whether there really could be possible things represented by this definition – for instance, even if we had a definition of a biangled figure, there still couldn't be any biangled figures. Thus, Bilfinger notes, the so-called Cartesian proof of God's existence (what Kant later called an ontological proof) wouldn't work if we weren't sure about the possibility of the notion of God. A better foundation for reliable information, according to Bilfinger, is a real definition, which gives an account of causal processes that would generate things signified by certain words. Because all things are ultimately generated by God, perfect real definitions would show how things are connected to God.

Ideas are connected to form judgements or propositions, and at this point Bilfinger's account starts to become more and more formulaic, with all the different forms of judgement. A more interesting thing is what methods to use for accepting propositions. Experience is, according to Bilfinger, undoubtedly a starting point of all cognition, whether it is formed through passive observation or through active experimentation. Still, experience is not the whole basis of cognition, Bilfinger continues, because we must still make some deductions to move from particular experiences to generalisations – for instance, although we can see light revealing a rock, we need still something more to conclude that light is a general cause for seeing things. Deductions might even lead us to things we cannot observe straightaway, Bilfinger says, for example, when we deduce the existence of caloric matter from observing its effects or heat.

After moving from propositions to syllogisms, Bilfinger's exposition becomes even more formulaic, although it does have its moments, especially in discussion of problems, for instance, when Bilfinger points out that a solution to a problem must be 1) a possible solution (perpetuum mobile is a solution to nothing), 2) a real solution of the problem, 3) a full solution (diligence alone is not enough for becoming a scholar) and 4) accurate (phases of the Moon are not an accurate enough criterion for deciding when to sow the seeds).

Despite these interesting tidbits, Bilfinger's logical lessions contain nothing surprisingly novel. Indeed, the same verdict can be pronounced on his whole philosophical career. He was undoubtedly a historically important figure, because he both introduced Chinese philosophy to a serious discussion in German culture and also started a move within Wolffian school to a more Leibnizian way of thinking. Yet, in both cases Bilfinger was again merely a follower of other philosophers and not an imaginative and creative thinker.

This is as much as we'll see of Bilfinger. We shall continue with logical treatises and this time check whether Darjes has anything new to say about it.

Philosophical commentary on the origin and acceptance of evil, especially moral evil (1724)

A considerable problem for most theistic systems is presented by the question of theodicy. God is usually portrayed as infinitely benevolent person who wishes good for everyone. Furthermore, he is also thought to be omnipotent or capable of anything possible. Given these premises, it would seem a necessity that God would eradicate world of all evil. Yet, the world is clearly full of evil things, and not just minor evils, like the pain that I got when my toe hit a stone, but also evil of major proportions, such as earthquakes and wars. These considerations thus present a challenge for anyone accepting the existence of omnipotent and benevolent deity.

Bilfinger considers the problem in the section of Dilucidationes concerning natural theology, but he had also dedicated for it earlier a whole treatise, De origine et permissione mali, praecipue moralis, commentatio philosophica. While apparently only about this particular question, Bilfinger takes considerable time defining and explicating all concepts involved in the problem and thus goes through a significant portion of other metaphysical issues. Thus, it is no wonder that central concepts for solving this problem are actually physical or psychological: causation and letting things happen.

Of the two concepts, causation appears easier to understand: if A does something that makes B happen, then A has caused B, that is, if my pressing the trigger leads to the death of the person, the pressing was the cause of the death and I am thus to be blamed. Being a cause of something then requires a) that the cause was active in causing something and b) that without this activity that which was caused wouldn't have happened.

Letting or allowing things to happen is then, in a sense, a concept contrasting with the concept of causation. The crucial difference lies in the clause a), which in this case would say that the allowing factor was in a sense passive or did not act in some manner. Furthermore, the clause b) would be otherwise identical, but instead of activity, the lack of activity is the crucial element required for the event. Thus, if I don't push a person away when she is about to be hit by a rock, I could be said to have allowed the rock to hit the person.

Now, it is clear that the notion of allowing something to happen is meaningful only from the perspective of conscious agents, who can be said to have considered whether to act or not. Thus, we wouldn't say that an immovable stone allowed a robbery to happen by not dropping onto the head of the robber, because stones usually don't have any say in how they happen to be moved.

An intriguing question, especially from the viewpoint of ethics and justice, is whether allowing something to happen should have the same status as causation. In one sense, causation is something more: I am punished by law, if I actively make bad things happen, but not if I allow them to happen with my own passivity. Thus, it is no wonder that Bilfinger adopts this distinction as a partial explanation of the problem of evil. That is, he argues that we couldn't blame God for all the evil in the world, because he hasn't really caused it, but merely admitted it within the world.

Bilfinger's justification might still not completely satisfy us. After all, we do sometimes reproach people also for not doing things, especially if they are very powerful and would have had the capacity to prevent some extreme evil to happen: politicians who do nothing for things such as pollution and poverty fall to this category. It appears preposterous to suppose that God Almighty could get away from all guilt merely by saying that he had nothing to do with the evil in the world, he just watched it unfold.

Bilfinger thus must also have recourse to the Leibnizian idea that God has chosen the optimally good of all possible worlds. Whatever evil there is, it should be just a necessary ingredient of and condition for ultimate goodness – and if we could see things from God's viewpoint, we could immediately see how all the seeming evil falls into a greater pattern of goodness.

What then is the real cause of evil, if not God? Ultimately, Bilfinger says, it all comes down to the finiteness or imperfection of the world and its denizens: only God can be perfect, so all things outside him might possibly lead to some evil consequences. God cannot be faulted for their imperfections, because imperfection is in their nature. Instead, God merely gave these finite substances actuality, which is positive in itself.

A particular source of evil Bilfinger emphasizes is free will: because humans and other conscious beings are imperfect, but free to choose their own fates, they might e.g. make their egoistic desires into maxims guiding their action. Evil following from perverted use of free will Bilfinger calls moral, distinguishing it from general metaphysical evil associated with finity and from physical evil.

The most problematic is Bilfinger's account of physical evil: if a stone falls on my head and kills me, I cannot blame the stone, because it had no choice in the matter. Some responsibility obviously lies with free agents: if I get angry to a person and drop a stone on him, it is my fault and not stone's. In these cases physical evil is just a consequence of moral evil, but it appears that a fair portion of physical evil is not of this kind: witness, for instance, earth quakes. True, we could suppose that there is an evil supernatural entity behind all such phenomena, but this seems overly complicated. Bilfinger himself adopts a different defense: physical evil that has not been caused by actions of a morally evil person is probably God's punishment for immoral life. Although this notion is consistent, I find it rather barbaric that a God would have to unleash earthquakes and volcanoes for punishing criminals.

So much for Bilfinger, next time I shall return to the beginning of the atheism controversy, that is, Wolff's lectures on Chinese philosophy.

Intuitive and symbolic cognition

Both Leibniz and Wolff divided cognition into two kinds: intuitive and symbolic. I've had some difficulties clarifying to myself how these two relate to the progression from sensations through imagination and memory to intellectual faculties of understanding and reason, so it feels a bit helpful to see what Bilfinger has to say about the issue.

The basic definitions deriving from Leibniz are pretty straightforward: intuitive cognition is caused by attending the nature of things directly, while symbolic cognition is connected to things only via mediation of signs. Leibniz then had supposed that composite concepts are usually cognized symbolically: after all, analysis of concepts into its constituents happens usually through signs, e.g. if I define square as a rectangle with all sides equal, the definition would be expressed verbally. Primitive concepts, on the other hand, might be cognized either intuitively or symbolically: e.g. point could be defined either by looking at points or by saying what one means when speaking of a point.

Furthermore, all distinct concepts – that is, concepts that can be analysed into clear concepts or into concepts through which we can distinguish objects – must be based on intuitive concepts. In other words, if we had an analysed concept, in which we would know all the constituent concepts only through further linguistic explications, somewhere along the line we would have to use a circular explication, which clearly wouldn't help to distinguish any objects. Thus, an analysis or explication that is successful should at some point meet some cognitions which are directly connected to things. Intuitive cognition is therefore a necessary ingredient of good cognition: if our cognition is not grounded on things, it might well deteriorate into a shamble of contradictions and meaningless expressions.

From the perspective on what Leibniz has to say, intuitive cognition is essential to well-founded science. What good is symbolic cognition then? Bilfinger answers by turning into Wolff's account. While symbolic cognition cannot by itself be a source of true cognition, it can be used in inferring truths from known truths. In particular, symbolic cognition is required whenever we want to move to general truths about classes of objects: we cannot literally be effected by any class of objects, because classes are not real entities. Thus, symbolic cognition makes it also possible that the Leibnizian ideal of an algebraic art of thinking could be one day found. In addition, symbolic cognition is also useful in transmitting cognition from one person to another: we cannot share intuitions, but we can share signs and symbols.

Interesting here is how the division of cognition into intuitive and symbolic kinds corresponds better with Kantian division of sensibility/intuition vs. spontaneity/understanding than Wolff's own division of sensations and concepts. Indeed, Kant's famous statement that intuition without understanding is blind, while understanding without intuition is empty, could be easily translated into the Leibnizian-Wolffian statement that intuitive understanding by itself is blind, because it cannot be generalized, while symbolic understanding by itself is empty, because it fails to connect cognition with actual things. Of course, Kant doesn't call his intuitions and concepts alone cognitions, but reserves this name only for the result of the interplay of the two.

So much for Bilfinger's take on Wolffian psychology, next time I'll discuss his notes on Wolffian natural theology and especially the problem of evil.

Reduction of physics

At least since Aristotle's Posterior analytics, mathematics has been the model of science, in which everything should be deduced from self-evident axioms and definitions. Indeed, mathematics was quite long considerably more advanced and certain than any other field of research. It is then no wonder that Descartes tried to fit physics and especially mechanics into this model. Even more, he suggested that basic laws of mechanics could be derived from mere geometrical considerations: after all, matter was defined by extension, so the characteristics of the motion of matter should be reducible to the extensional characteristics of matter, such as size and velocity.

What Descartes had failed to take into consideration was that the nature of matter is not exhausted by its extension and that it cannot be identified with mere space. Thus, one had to take into account also the mass of bodies, when considering e.g. how two bodies behaved in a collision. Recognizing this made it a necessity to empirically observe the actual movement of bodies and to look for regularities that could be generalized from these observations. Inconsistently, such studies were still often called mathematical and even a semblance of mathematical deduction was upheld.

Followers of Leibniz in Germany were more aware of the inability to reduce physics to mathematics. Hence, we see Christian Wolff admitting that his cosmological considerations had an empirical basis and that reliable experiences in general must supplement the inabilities of human understanding. In light of the empiricist tendencies of Wolff, it is interesting to see that Bilfinger supposed that it might be possible to derive basic laws of physics apriorically. I do not think Bilfinger is necessarily going against Wolff, but merely explicating the Wolffian position from a different angle: true, in practice we must use empirical method, but in principle we should be able to use deduction.

Bilfinger still doesn't advocate a return to supposedly geometrical demonstrations of Descartes. Instead, he supposes laws of physics should be derived from metaphysics. In other words, Bilfinger doesn't want to state that physical laws would be necessary like laws of logic and mathematics. Instead, they are based ultimately on the decision of God. According to the Wolffian position, God has created the best out of all the possible worlds. Hence, all the laws that the world follows must also be as perfect as they could be – and if we knew what is objectively best, we could know the laws chosen by God.

What Bilfinger's position makes clear is the contingency of physical laws. Specifically, the creator of the laws still holds the power to suspend these laws for a limited period and place. In common parlance such local suspensions of laws are called miracles. In effect, Bilfinger is saying that miracles are possible and that God has power to make them – another defense of Wolff against suggestions of atheism.

So much for physical laws, next time I shall deal with the difference between intuitive and symbolic cognition.

Philosophical dilucitations on God, human soul, world and general affects of things (1725)

Georg Bilfinger hasn't really struck me thus far as an original thinker, and indeed, many of his writings have been mere summaries of theories belonging to other philosophers. Hence, I did not have high expectations of Bilfinger's metaphysical work, Dilucidationes philosophicae de Deo, anima humana, mundo, et generalibus rerum affectionibus. In fact, the very first pages felt very familiar: the division of metaphysics into ontology, cosmology, psychology and natural theology has been used already by Wolff, and even many of the doctrines readily reveal the philosophical allegiances of Bilfinger. Because Wolff's other student, Thümmig, had already latinized Wolff's philosophy, Bilfinger's motives for publishing his own work appeared confusing.

Even so, Bilfinger's work feels somewhat more substantial presentation of Wolffian philosophy than Thümmig's summaries, and surprisingly, often manages to round even the discussions of Wolff himself. One clear reason is Bilfinger's habit of expounding opinions of previous thinkers, which was something sorely lacking in Wolff's texts. This does not make Bilfinger's work a mere redundant repetition of familiar ideas, but allows him to engage in a fruitful philosophical discussion. Bilfinger was a man of compromises, and Kant later adopted in his early work Bilfinger's suggestion that one should always try to reconcile opposing views by finding out what is good in both of them.

Good example of Bilfinger's abilities is his theorizing on modalities, that is, notions of possibility, impossibility, necessity and contingency. While Wolff was content with just one definition of e.g. possibility, Bilfinger starts with several definitions and notices interesting relations between them. In addition to Wolffian definition that possibility means lack of self-contradiction, Bilfinger considers the explication that possibilities are something inherently potential in other things. This second notion of possibility is clearly dependent on actuality in the sense that nothing could be possible in this sense, if there were nothing actual: there couldn't be any potential, if we had no source for such a potential.

Now, Bilfinger notes rather ingeniously that if some preconditions hold, the two notions of possibility coincide. Clearly, potentialities must also be non-contradictory. Furthermore, if we have an entity with infinite powers, it will obviously have the capacity to produce anything that is not inherently contradictory: thus, the extension of the two concepts of possibilities coincide. Bilfinger can so explain reasonably why e.g. Wolff did not notice or at least ignored the crucial distinction: he accepted the existence of God and did not therefore need to consider the second form of possibility.

Just like possibility is not a single concept for Bilfinger, similarly impossibility isn't either. Of course, there is the absolute impossibility of contradictions like round square, but there's also contextual impossibility, where a certain thing or person is incapable of doing something. Furthermore, this incapacity might be proper or due to a lack of power, but there are also important cases of improper incapacities. Firstly, Bilfinger thinks that the general incapacity to change past is an improper incapacity: it's just the nature of past to be completely determined. Secondly, an even more important type of incapacity concerns moral issues. Thus, God could well have created quite a horrible world, full of torture and grief, in the sense that he has the necessary power for doing this, but because of his infinite goodness, he doesn't have the moral possibility for doing this – a distinction clearly influenced by the need to defend Wolff against the suspicion of determinism.

It is in making these clarifications and in pointing interesting problems where Bilfinger's worth really lies. Some of these are familiar already from Wolff, like Bilfinger's notion that a sufficient reason does not need to necessitate an action, because of the freedom of agents, or his idea that imperfection might be just contextual. I shall thus proceed by picking up one important point in all of the four major divisions in Bilfinger's work. As I've already noted an important ontological statement of the plurality of the concepts of possibility, I shall next time plunge in cosmology and ask what sort of validity physical laws are supposed to have.

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.

Georg Bernhard Bilfinger: The harmony between human soul and body, altogether pre-established, out of the mind of illustrious Leibniz, hypothetically studied (1723)

It is no wonder if you don't remember Bilfinger, because the first work I read from him was short, immemorable and not very original. Although Bilfinger won't get any points for originality this time either, at least the topic is of a more general interest. Like the name says, De harmonia animi et corporis humani, maxime praestabilita, ex mente illustris Leibnitii, commentatio hypothetica aims to examine the theory of the pre-established harmony. Leibniz himself had spoke of harmony between all substances whatsoever, but Bilfinger here concentrates on the particular case of souls and bodies. Bilfinger follows here the example of Wolff, who had already had some reservations on the full Leibnizian theory of monads.

Bilfinger starts from ths established fact that bodies and souls do work in harmony. When an object is brought in front of my eyes, I experience usually a visual sensation corresponding to the object. Similarly, when I have a volition of moving my hand, the hand in fact moves. Thus, the causal series governing bodies and causal series governing souls reflect themselves partially.

Bilfinger considers quickly the possibility that at least one of the series would consist of necessary processes. For instance, Spinoza thought that the series of both bodily and mental events followed necessarily from the eternal essence of God. Bilfinger disregards this option, because the two series do not seem necessary – I could have walked somewhere else etc.

Bilfinger suggests there are only three possible ways to explain the harmony between the two contingent series. Firstly, there could be true causal influx between the two series – this is the common sense explanation. As Bilfinger notes, the influx theory goes against certain assumption of modern science. Observations appear to show that material objects retain the quantity of their motion, unless they interact with other material objects – they either share some of their quantity of motion with others or receive some quantity from others. Because soul doesn't move, it cannot impart motion to material objects, not even to its own body, and cannot thus make the body do anything.

Descartes' stance on the issue was ambiguous. He did accept the physical fact of the stable quantity of motion, but suggested that the soul might still change the direction of movement of the body or some part of it. By the time of Leibniz, it had become evident that this solution would not do – material objects retained also the direction of their motion, unless the direction was changed by the force of other material objects.

The Cartesian school had then slowly turned towards a new explanation. They suggested that whenever body appeared to do something to soul or vice versa, God on this occasion decided to interfere in the causal chain and connect the movement of the body with the respective change in the soul and the change in soul with the respective movement of body. This occasionalism had the setback that it appeared to break the ideas of modern science even more than causal influx. If occasionalism were right, there would be no true causal regularities, but everything would depend on the will of God, who would be constantly making miracles to sustain his creation.

Leibnizian solution is then that God has preordained souls and bodies to work in harmony, like two clocks that a perfect watchmaker has winded up show always the same time. Bilfinger notes that the thesis of pre-established harmony has justification enough in the fact that all other options fail to meet the standards of modern science. Still, he also notes that the harmony becomes an immediate corollary if we just accept other aspects of Leibnizian metaphysics – if souls are monads representing everything and especially the group of monads that constitutes its body, then the representing soul and represented body necessarily work in harmony.

All the previous is pretty straightforward summarising of Leibniz's thoughts. More original are Bilfinger's attempts to answer objections presented against the theory. A good representative of those objections come from Pierre Bayle, the skeptical encyclopedist. Bayle had accused Leibniz that his theory leads to materialism, because he must assume that bodies can run their own course, without any guidance of souls – my body could be writing these apparently reasonable words without me being aware of it. Bilfinger notes that even such complex phenomena like the movement of the planets can happen without any governing soul. Furthermore, he emphasizes that the world still isn't necessary substance of Spinoza, because it has been created by God. Finally, the independence of material world still wouldn't lead to a denial of souls, because mere material things couldn't represent anything – here Bilfinger is following Wolff.

Bayle had also ridiculed the notion of a causal series of the changes of soul. Bayle compared monads with atoms and assumed that monads would also be governed by similar iron laws. Furthermore, he wondered how sudden changes in the experiences of soul could arise, for instance, how could such complex phenomenon like music suddenly appear in our minds. Bilfinger emphasizes the importance of obscure representations in the life of a soul. These obscure sensations make our experiences so varied and thus differentiate monads from simple, featureless atoms. They also help us to understand sudden changes in our mental life. These changes have built up gradually, but only through unaware representations. Only when a certain threshold had been passed will the symphony start to play in our minds.

Even more interesting are Bilfinger's attempt to answer objections he has heard from his own acquaintances. For instance, Bilfinger has to explain why sickness of the body limits also the capacities of soul. Bilfinger notes that this is just natural – because soul is in harmony with the body, the soul sure must follow what the body does and act confused, when the body is ailing. Furthermore, Bilfinger explains that the sequence of ideas in soul must correspond to some movements in brain, which are capable of producing movements of body that appear rational. In effect, theory of pre-established harmony could be reconciled with the idea of human actions being dependent on brain.

So much for pre-established harmony. Next time we'll begin a summary of Wolffian philosophy.

Georg Bernhard Bilfinger: The three types of cognition – historical, philosophical and mathematical – articulated (1722)

Although my blog has been dedicated to the task of expounding the story of classic German philosophy in general, the field has been thus far ruled by Christian Wolff, with the exception of few pietists, who will become fierce enemies of Wolff. It is time to introduce a new minor figure, this time from the Wolffian side of the game: Georg Bernhard Bilfinger with his dissertation De triplicium rerum cognitione, historica, philosophica et mathematica, articulos.

I called Bilfinger a minor figure, and judging by his influence, he truly is such. The main point of importance in Bilfinger's career is that he introduced Germans to Chinese philosophy and especially to Confucianism – even in the dissertation he mentions these themes in passing.

We have already have the opportunity to familiarise ourselves with the dissertations of the time when we looked at Wolff's first publication, which combined elementary mathematics with rather strong philosophical conclusions without any clear connecting link. Bilfinger's dissertation is rather less ambitious and is mostly a discussion of the ideas of Wolff and his teacher Tschirnhaus.

The main purpose of Bilfinger's thesis is to classify and define different types of cognition or science. Bilfinger starts by determining various meanings of the term philosophy by comparing it with mathematics (well, actually he just follows his two predecessors, as he does in the whole book). When you learn mathematics, you might learn various definitions of mathematical objects. Similarly, philosophy if often restricted to mere verbal bickering, where the fight is all about the meaning of words. This is the lowest type of philosophy: although it is important to make one's meaning clear, it is not worth to start arguing for the meaning of a word.

Secondly, we could be taught who was the person who discovered some important theorems. This corresponds with merely historical study of philosophers, philosophical schools and their opinions. Beyond the verbal explanation of mathematical and philosophical terms and the historical description of mathematics and philosophers, there's still the real mathematics, and corresponding to it, real philosophy. What do these consist then?

To answer this question, Bilfinger presents another division, this time between different moments of cognition. Cognition should begin with a historical phase, where history has the traditional sense: we observe and experiment. The results of this historical phase are then to be used by philosophy as a material for discovering the first principles of cognition. These principles are then to be used finally in mathematics for deriving new truths.

The three types of cognition, historical, philosophical and mathematical, form then a sequence based on experience, but ending with a system of knowledge founded on indubitable experiences: note the balance between empiricism and rationalism that Wolff had already endorsed. If the sequence would form a cycle, we would be very close to the later hypothetico-deductive account of science, where theories are tested against observations.Yet, Bilfinger imagines that the creation of theories involves more than mere guess work, and indeed, is what real philosophy is all about.

It seems amazing, but this is the whole content of Bilfinger's dissertation: two divisions borrowed from other philosophers. Next time, we shall return to Wolff and to another set of reasonable thoughts.