Christian, baron von Wolff
German philosopher
Wolff also spelled Wolf
born Jan. 24, 1679, Breslau, Silesia [now Wrocław, Pol.]
died April 9, 1754, Halle, Prussia [now in Germany]
Main
philosopher, mathematician, and scientist who worked in many
subjects but who is best known as the German spokesman of
the Enlightenment, the 18th-century philosophical movement
characterized by Rationalism.
Wolff was educated at the universities of Breslau, Jena,
and Leipzig and was a pupil of the philosopher and
mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. On the
recommendation of Leibniz he was appointed professor of
mathematics at the University of Halle in 1707, but he was
banished in 1723 as a result of theological disputes with
Pietists, who were followers of the German movement for an
increase of piety in Lutheran churches. He became professor
of mathematics and philosophy at the University of Marburg,
Hesse (1723–40), and, as science adviser to Peter the Great
(1716–25), he helped found the St. Petersburg Academy of
Sciences in Russia. After returning to the University of
Halle, at the request of the king of Prussia, Frederick II
the Great, he became chancellor (1741–54).
Wolff wrote numerous works in philosophy, theology,
psychology, botany, and physics. His series of essays all
beginning under the title Vernünftige Gedanken (“Rational
Ideas”) covered many subjects and expounded Leibniz’s
theories in popular form. Wolff emphasized that every
occurrence must have an adequate reason for happening or
there arises the impossible alternative that something might
come out of nothing. He applied the rational thought of the
Anglo-French Enlightenment and of Leibniz and René Descartes
in the development of his own philosophical system, the
Wolffian philosophy. Rationalism and mathematical
methodology formed the essence of this system, which was an
important force in the development of German philosophical
thought.
