Christian Wolff

Christian Wolff (Breslau, Silesia, 1679 - Halle, 1754) was a German philosopher and one of the most influential figures of rationalism between Leibniz and Kant. His work covered almost every scholarly subject of his time, presented through a demonstrative, deductive method modelled on mathematics. Kant called him "the greatest of all dogmatic philosophers", and the school of his followers, the Wolffians, dominated German philosophy until Kantianism replaced it.

Born into a modest family, he studied mathematics and physics at Jena before adding philosophy. In 1706 he became professor of mathematics at Halle, on the recommendation of Leibniz, whose philosophy he systematised and popularised. He kept the mathematical ideal of reasoning but reshaped Leibniz's doctrines: the monads moved to the background, the pre-established harmony lost much of its metaphysical weight, and the principle of contradiction became the foundation of philosophy.

In 1721 he gave an oration on the practical philosophy of the Chinese, praising the ability of human reason to reach moral truth by its own efforts. Pietist colleagues accused him of atheism and fatalism. In 1723 King Frederick William I removed him from his post and ordered him out of Prussia. He taught at Marburg under the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel until 1740, when Frederick the Great brought him back to Halle. There he became chancellor of the university in 1743 and was made a baron in 1745.

His system divided philosophy into theoretical and practical parts, preceded by logic. Theory comprised a general ontology and three special metaphysics: rational psychology, rational cosmology and rational theology. Practical philosophy covered ethics, economics and politics. For Wolff, the moral principle was the realisation of human perfection, understood as the kind of perfection people can actually achieve in the world. His writings in German helped fix much of the philosophical vocabulary of that language.

His influence was wide. His ideas on natural law and a paternalistic state fed enlightened despotism, and his division of metaphysics lasted until Kant criticised it in the Critique of Pure Reason. His systematic rationalism also prepared the ground for later idealism.