Christian von wolff biography of william

Sign In Register. Email Us or Live Chat. A reliable academic resource for high school and college students. Essay database with free papers will provide you with original and creative ideas. Further Reading Richard J. Blackwell's translation of Preliminary Discourse on Philosophy in General is Wolff's only work available in English. For secondary literature in English consult John V.

Need a custom written paper? Let our professional writers save your time. Wolff's professed ideal was to base theological truths on mathematically certain evidence. Strife with the Pietists broke out openly in , when Wolff, on the occasion of stepping down as pro-rector, delivered an oration "On the Practical Philosophy of the Chinese" Eng.

On 12 July , Wolff held a lecture for students and the magistrates at the end of his term as a rector. According to Voltaire , Prof. August Hermann Francke had been teaching in an empty classroom but Wolff attracted with his lectures around 1, students from all over. In the follow-up, Wolff was accused by Francke of fatalism and atheism, [ 10 ] and ousted in from his first chair at Halle in one of the most celebrated academic dramas of the 18th century.

His successors were Joachim Lange , a pietist, and his son, who had gained the ear of the king Frederick William I. They claimed to the king if Wolff's determinism were recognized, no soldier who deserted could be punished as he would have acted only as it was necessarily predetermined that he should, which so enraged the king that he immediately deprived Wolff of his office, and ordered Wolff to leave Prussian territory within 48 hours or be hanged.

The same day, Wolff passed into Saxony, and presently proceeded to Marburg , Hesse-Kassel , to whose university the University of Marburg he had received a call even before this crisis, which was now renewed. The Landgrave of Hesse received him with every mark of distinction, and the circumstances of his expulsion drew universal attention to his philosophy.

It was everywhere discussed, and over two hundred books and pamphlets appeared for or against it before , not reckoning the systematic treatises of Wolff and his followers. According to Jonathan I. Israel , "the conflict became one of the most significant cultural confrontations of the 18th century and perhaps the most important of the Enlightenment in Central Europe and the Baltic countries before the French Revolution.

In , Frederick William began the hard labour of trying to read Wolff. His entry into the town on 6 December took on the character of a triumphal procession. In , he became chancellor of the university, and in , he received the title of Freiherr Baron from the Elector of Bavaria , possibly the first scholar to have been created hereditary Baron of the Holy Roman Empire on the basis of his academic work.

When Wolff died on 9 April , he was a very wealthy man, owing almost entirely to his income from lecture-fees, salaries, and royalties. He was also a member of many academies. His school, the Wolffians, was the first school in the philosophical sense to be associated with a German philosopher. It dominated Germany until the rise of Kantianism.

Wolff was married and had several children. Wolffian philosophy has a marked insistence everywhere on a clear and methodic exposition, holding confidence in the power of reason to reduce all subjects to this form. He was distinguished for writing copies in both Latin and German. Through his influence, natural law and philosophy were taught at most German universities, in particular those located in the Protestant principalities.

Wolff personally expedited their introduction inside Hesse-Cassel. The Wolffian system retains the determinism and optimism of Leibniz , but the monadology recedes into the background, the monads falling asunder into souls or conscious beings on the one hand and mere atoms on the other. The doctrine of the pre-established harmony also loses its metaphysical significance while remaining an important heuristic device , and the principle of sufficient reason is once more discarded in favor of the principle of contradiction which Wolff seeks to make the fundamental principle of philosophy.

Wolff had philosophy divided into a theoretical and a practical part. Logic, sometimes called philosophia rationalis , forms the introduction or propaedeutics to both. Theoretical philosophy had for its parts ontology or philosophia prima as a general metaphysics , [ 19 ] which arises as a preliminary to the distinction of the three special metaphysics [ 20 ] on the soul, world and God: [ 21 ] [ 22 ] rational psychology , [ 23 ] [ 24 ] rational cosmology , [ 25 ] and rational theology.

This scheme, which is the counterpart of religious tripartition in creature, creation, and Creator, is best known to philosophical students by Kant's treatment of it in the Critique of Pure Reason. His school, the Wolffians, was the first school, in the philosophical sense, associated with a German philosopher. It dominated Germany until the rise of Kantianism.

Christian Wolff redefined philosophy as the science of the possible, and applied it in a comprehensive survey of human knowledge to the disciplines of his time. Wolffian philosophy has a marked insistence everywhere on a clear and methodic exposition, holding confidence in the power of reason to reduce all subjects to this form. He was distinguished for writing copies in both Latin and German.

Christian von wolff biography of william

Wolff's teachings held virtually undisputed sway in Germany till the Kantian revolution, and even after that, Wolff continued to be regarded as one of the most important philosophers from German-speaking lands. Through his influence, natural law and philosophy were taught at most German universities, in particular those located in the Protestant principalities.

Wolff personally expedited their introduction inside Hesse-Cassel. Until the s, it was usually maintained by historians that Wolff's philosophy amounted to a common-sense adaptation or watering-down of the Leibnizian system; or, more charitably, Wolff was said to have methodized and "reduced" to dogmatic form the thoughts of his great predecessor.

The Wolffian system retains the determinism and optimism of Leibniz, but the monadology recedes into the background, the monads falling asunder into souls or conscious beings on the one hand and mere atoms on the other. The doctrine of the pre-established harmony also loses its metaphysical significance while remaining an important heuristic device, and the principle of sufficient reason is once more discarded in favor of the principle of contradiction which Wolff seeks to make the fundamental principle of philosophy.

Wolff had philosophy divided into a theoretical and a practical part. Logic, sometimes called philosophia rationalis, forms the introduction or propaedeutics to both. Theoretical philosophy had for its parts ontology or philosophia prima as a general metaphysics, which arises as a preliminary to the distinction of the three special metaphysics on the soul, world and God: rational psychology, rational cosmology, and rational theology.

The three disciplines are called empirical and rational because they are independent of revelation. This scheme, which is the counterpart of religious tripartition in creature, creation, and Creator, is best known to philosophical students by Kant's treatment of it in the Critique of Pure Reason. In the "Preface" of the 2nd edition of Kant's book, Wolff is defined "the greatest of all dogmatic philosophers.

Practical philosophy is subdivided into ethics, economics and politics. Wolff's moral principle is the realization of human perfection—seen realistically as the kind of perfection the human person actually can achieve in the world in which we live. It is perhaps the combination of Enlightenment optimism and worldly realism that made Wolff so successful and popular as a teacher of future statesmen and business leaders.

Logic, or rational thoughts on the powers of the human understanding. Preliminary discourse on philosophy in general. Christian August Crusius Metaphysics: A Critical Translation. Free registration. Barocco, Rocco. Barocci, Federigo. Barocci, Federico ca. Barocchio, Giacomo. Barnwell, William Curtis. Barnwell, Tim Barnwell, Barbara Olive c.

Barnum, Gertrude — Barnum, Frances Courtenay Baylor. Barnum, Barbara J. Barnum's American Museum. Barnum Effect. Baron d'Holbach. Baron de Hirsch Fund. Baron de Ley S. Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey.