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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | The most obvious mechanism is the demonstrative syllogism, which leads us finally to Wodeham’s conception of a science and the immediate object of this act of assent. In article two of question one, he discusses whether a scientific act of knowing (the evident assent given to the conclusion of a syllogism) has as its immediate object “that which is signified by only one proposition, i.e., the conclusion” or “that which is signified by the conclusion and the premises joined together at the same time through a syllogism” (LS I:199, ll. 5–11). Wodeham’s conclusion is decidedly in favor of the latter; namely, in order for a previously dubitable proposition to be elevated to the third degree of evidence, whereby the intellect is necessitated to assent, it must acquire that evidence from the force of the syllogism as whole. The conclusion by itself is not per se nota. Thus, for a truly evident judgment to take place, a single evident proposition cannot be its cause, rather all three propositions of the syllogism must be taken together in order for the concluding proposition to have the evidence it needs to not only appear true, but to compel the mind’s assent (LS I:199–208). This requirement that scientific assent be given to the syllogism as a whole (and cannot be sustained if one of the premises is forgotten) is a position that will be explicitly opposed by the later Parisian reader of Wodeham, Gregory of Rimini (Lectura, I, Prol., q. 3, a. 1, Trapp I:107ff). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | If there is a topic that has dominated Wodeham scholarship, it is the complexe significabile or alternatively, that which is signifiable in a complex way, i.e., through a proposition. This mysterious entity was intended by Wodeham to function both as the immediate object of propositional knowledge and as a genuine via media between two extreme theories regarding the object of knowledge offered by his contemporaries. Representing one extreme was William of Ockham, who was thought by Wodeham to identify the terms of a proposition as the actual object. This is sometimes referred to as the anti-realist position. On the other hand there was Walter Chatton, who argued that the object of propositional knowledge was the actual entity signified by the subject term of the proposition. Wodeham, in turn, rejected both these positions and stated that the object of science was an actual state of affairs which could only be signified through a complex or a proposition. Questions and puzzles have continued to linger regarding the exact ontological status of these states-of-affairs. While insisting that they have some real ontological weight, they do not fit nicely under either of the Aristotelian categories of real being, substance or accident. Thus, within an Aristotelian framework, it is difficult to articulate exactly how or in what way the complexe significabile is actually real. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | The legacy of the complexe significabile has a somewhat involved history. We can find several examples of its use and discussion throughout the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. However, for many years the idea was thought to originate with Gregory of Rimini. Modern scholarship slowly discovered, albeit not immediately, that this particular terminology was original to Wodeham and only later adopted by Rimini. (The idea, however, has many precursors evident in earlier debates over terms like dicta or enuntiabilia. See Klima 1993; Nuchelmans 1973; Bermon 2007.) The most frequently cited misattribution in modern scholarship has been Hubert Elie’s “Le complexe significabile” (Elie 1936). In the following generation, Gedeon Gàl (Gàl 1977) discovered that Wodeham was actually the author of this idea. Gàl edited the first modern edition of the Lectura Secunda dist. 1, q. 1, the traditional point of entry into Wodeham’s thought on the matter. Since Gàl’s article, several studies have followed: Nuchelmans (1980), Tachau (1987), Grassi (1990), Zupko (1994–1997), Karger (1995), and Brower-Toland (2007). A frequent part of the contemporary discussion involves distinguishing the genuine doctrine of Adam Wodeham from later versions. Gàl’s initial characterization of Rimini’s position as a “mutilation” of Wodeham’s position has exerted its influence over the subsequent scholarship (cf. Nuchelmans, and esp. Zupko). Most complaints stem from the idea that Rimini gives too much ontological weight to this mysterious entity or at least lacks the nuance of Wodeham, exposing the doctrine to objections that could not be addressed to Wodeham himself (cf. Zupko 1994–1997). Brower-Toland has recently challenged this traditional reading. She suggests the “radical nature of Wodeham’s claims” have largely gone unrecognized, and that his complexe significabile represents a significant “ontological addition” to the Aristotelian substance-accident framework (Brower-Toland 2007:600n7, 638–640). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Wodeham’s approach to philosophical theology begins with a traditional attempt to determine whether or not God’s existence can be philosophically and demonstratively proved. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | In both the Lectura secunda and the Ordinatio his strategy is structured by two proofs. The first is taken from and explicitly attributed to Scotus. Of the Scotist proof, Wodeham remarks that it seems very persuasive and more evident than any reason that can be brought against it. The second argument appears to be original to Wodeham. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | The first proof taken from John Duns Scotus is found both in his Ordinatio and De Primo Principio. The argument follows from an initial disjunctive premise: there is either some first uncaused cause or there is not. If the former, Scotus and Wodeham argue that it is obvious that this is God. If the latter is chosen then unacceptable consequences follow. The most notable is that there would be an infinite series of caused causes without a terminating point. Two reasons are offered for why such an infinite series is impossible. The first is that, the whole of all “essentially ordered” causes must have a cause, but if the cause of this multitude comes from the totality of caused causes, then this cause will be the cause of itself, which is impossible. The second reason that an infinite series of causes will not work is this would require that there are an infinite amount of causes acting at the same time. This requirement is built into Wodeham’s (and Scotus’s) conception of essentially ordered causes—which Wodeham later sharply distinguishes from a series of accidentally ordered causes. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Wodeham offers a second proof for the existence of God. Regarding this proof he states that it is sufficient to incline the intellect to assent, but he also acknowledges that it is still able to be doubted by “shameful adversaries” (LS II:121; OO I, d. 2, a. 1). According to Wodeham’s description of different types of evidence, it is clear that this “proof” is not able to compel a truly evident judgment because the proof remains open to doubt and thus only reaches the second degree of evidence. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | The proof begins from another disjunctive proposition inspired by Anselm’s Proslogion. Either there is some most noble being about which no more noble thing is able to be thought, or there is no such most noble thing. Wodeham remarks that one possible consequence that might follow is that there would be an infinite succession of more noble things, thus permitting an infinity of beings. This conclusion, he says, is unpleasant to the mind; that is, the intellect is not able to admit an infinity of beings without “grumbling” (murmere). For this option at least, it is clear that the intellect can incline us to assent that God exists, but it is still possible to doubt it, which is the distinguishing mark of the second degree of evidence. The other alternative is that there must be some most noble thing actually existing (in actu existens), even though this is not the most noble thing possible. Wodeham finds this alternative opposed by the most evident of reasons—something akin to Anselm’s ontological argument: whatever is actually existing (existens in actu) is de facto more noble than what is not in existence. Thus, it is nonsensical to speak of something more noble, which is only potentially existing (LS II:121, ll.13–15). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | From the philosophical proof of the existence of the highest being, not always demonstrative, but evident in at least the second degree, Wodeham turns to the question of whether there is one highest being or many. The question found in Lectura, I, q. 1, a. 3, and the Ordinatio I, d. 2, a. 2 is posed in an ambiguous way. It asks whether it is evidently probable that something absolutely uncausable is only one in number. The question is ambiguous because it is not immediately clear whether Wodeham’s intention is to show that there is only one God or if he intends to evaluate the relative degrees of evidence of the existing proofs of God’s unicity or multiplicity. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | As the question progresses, it appears that Wodeham is primarily interested in evaluating the evidence of both pro and con arguments. Wodeham juxtaposes arguments of Scotus against counter arguments of Ockham in order to argue that the unicity of God cannot be demonstrably proven. Ultimately, he argues that its seems that natural reason is not able to prove evidently the numerical unity of God (LS II:144). He argues for the inconclusiveness of several arguments including: the argument that proceeds from the belief that there cannot be several total causes of the same effect (LS II:144); that there cannot be more than one necessary being (LS II:159); and that there cannot be more than one final cause (OO I, q. 2, a. 2, dubium 5). In the end, Wodeham is not interested in denying that there is only one God, but he simply wants to show that the relatively strong arguments for God’s unicity do not reach the third and highest degree of evidence. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Even when it comes to the specific unity of God, which is granted only a brief discussion in the Lectura secunda and is left out of the Ordinatio altogether, Wodeham shows some hesitation. He writes: “I say that the argument of Scotus given above is probably able to be persuasive” (LS II: 171). Thus he again shows that even though it is his own opinion that God is specifically one, it is possible for doubt to continue to linger. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Adam Wodeham’s trinitarian theology is developed in the Lectura (d. 2, d. 3 q. 5; d. 7; dd. 9–16; dd. 18–21; dd. 23–26) and the Ordinatio I, d. 3; d. 33 qq. 1–9. The two accounts, despite their various formal placements in the two works, are often identical (e.g., LS d. 11, q. un. and OO d. 33, q. 6). Wodeham, however, did substantially re-work his discussion of the imago Trinitatis (LS d. 3, q. 5; OO I, d. 3), focusing in the latter work on the writings of Richard FitzRalph instead of Richard Campsall. Further, in the closing discussion of distinction 2 of the Ordinatio, Wodeham tells his readers that the discussion of the Trinity will be collected into the numerous questions of distinction 33. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Wodeham’s trinitarian theology has received little attention from scholars. However, there are several notable exceptions. Hester Gelber offers an analysis of Ordinatio I, dd. 33, qq. 1–3, concerning the formal distinction and formal non-identity (q. 1) and the complex problem of trinitarian paralogisms (qq. 2–3) (Gelber 1974, 235–264, 629–648). Russell Friedman treats the relationship between Peter Auriol and Adam Wodeham in the Lectura secunda, d. 7 on the question: utrum potentia generandi possit communicari Filio (whether the power to generate can be communicated to the Son) (1997, 342–349). Olli Hallamaa considers Wodeham’s discussion of trinitarian paralogisms within the context of other fourteenth-century Franciscans (Hallamaa 2003). For our purposes Gelber’s and Hallamaa’s analyses of trinitarian paralogisms are the most relevant philosophically, as Wodeham debates the universality of Aristotelian logic with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Like many of his Oxford contemporaries, Adam Wodeham was particularly concerned with solving the tension between Aristotelian logic and trinitarian theology. In the Lectura secunda, Wodeham did not address the problem in a substantial way (see LS III, 446–448), although in the Ordinatio he devotes a specific question to the problem of whether there is a “certain rule or art” through which one can solve trinitarian paralogisms (OO I, d. 33, q. 3). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | The problem of trinitarian paralogisms arises when one considers certain syllogisms regarding the Trinity. God, according to Church teaching, is one simple divine essence and three distinct divine persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). And, when some valid syllogisms are formulated according to Aristotelian rules, paradoxes arise in which both premises are true and the conclusion is false. For example: | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | In this valid expository syllogism, both of the premises are true according to Church teaching, but the conclusion is false. The theologians of the first half of the fourteenth century developed two strategies when confronting such syllogisms. First, some theologians denied the universality of Aristotelian logic outside of the natural order. This approach, which remained in the minority, can be found in the author of the Centiloquium theologicum (OPh VII, § 56–59, 469–472) and in Robert Holcot’s commentary on the Sentences (Holcot 1518, q. 5) (albeit Holcot’s position changes in other parts of his corpus, cf. Gelber 1974). In his commentary, Holcot remains ambiguous about his eventual solution, although he writes that there are two logics: the logic of faith (logica fidei) and the logic of the natural order (logica naturalis). Second, and more moderately, most theologians insisted that Aristotelian logic is universal—thus, valid in both the natural and supernatural realms—but that the trinitarian syllogisms in question are not valid syllogisms, despite their seemingly valid form. This approach was shared by William of Ockham and Adam Wodeham. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Adam Wodeham, in the first two questions of distinction 33, surveys the traditional methods of solving the problem of trinitarian paralogisms (Gelber 1974, 235–253), and in the third question finally offers his own response. It is not possible to recount all of Wodeham’s methods for addressing such paralogisms, but it is useful to consider the following syllogism: | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | In the above case, the two premises are universal. As such, the syllogism should be governed by “all or none”: meaning that, with respect to a given subject and predicate, what is said of all (dici de omni) of the subject (essence) must also be said of the predicate (Father) (OO I, d. 33, q. 3, a. 2). In the above argument, there is a fallacy of the figure of speech because not everything said of the divine essence is predicable to the Father, because the term divine essence (subject) supposits for the Son and Holy Spirit while the term Father (predicate) does not. Thus, the premise is not sufficiently universal and violates the rules of a valid expository syllogism (Gelber 1974, 255–256). This is one of Wodeham’s methods for addressing trinitarian paralogisms, and effectively captures his basic method and approach to such problems. Further, it helps elucidate Wodeham’s broader approach to the role of Aristotelian logic within theology and his characteristically “analytic” approach to questions of philosophical theology. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Adam Wodeham’s Tractatus de indivisibilibus and Tractatus alphabeticus establish him as one of the leading representatives of the theologia Anglicana. This group of thinkers, including the Oxford Calculators, was heavily influenced by natural philosophy and its implications for a range of philosophical and theological problems. Wodeham’s discussion of the continuum and the latitude of forms demonstrates his place within this philosophical tradition. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Adam Wodeham, like many of his English contemporaries in the first decades of the fourteenth century, was embroiled in the debate over divisibilism and indivisibilism (atomism). Following William of Ockham, Adam Wodeham was a divisibilist who argued in his Tractatus de indivisibilibus against philosophical atomism (indivisibilism). Wodeham cites extensively from the writings of divisibilists and indivisibilists, such that his Tractatus de indivisibilibus is a rich source for tracing the history of this long and complex debate (Wood 1988, 14). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Aristotle, in the sixth book of the Physics, develops several arguments against the idea that continua are composed of atoms or indivisibles. The majority of medieval philosophers accepted Aristotle’s position, but by the end of the thirteenth century there developed a minority opinion that supported indivisibilism. The most famous proponents of indivisibilism were Robert Grosseteste (d. 1253), Henry Harclay (d. 1317), Walter Chatton (d. 1343), Gerard Odon (d. 1349), William Crathorn (fl. 1330s) and Nicholas Bonet (d. 1360). The divisibilists/indivisibilist debate in the fourteenth century was concerned with the philosophical status of space and time. Spacial-temporal reality, according to the traditional Aristotelian view, was infinitely divisible. Thus, authors like Thomas Bradwardine and Adam Wodeham follow Aristotle and Averroes in defending the view that the continuum is composed of divisible parts without end, and not of atoms. This view (divisibilism) is the one defended by Adam Wodeham in his magisterial Tractatus de indivisibilibus. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | In response to the classical divisibilist position supported by Aristotle, the indivisibilists held that there were “indivisibles” which constituted the composition of temporal and spatial continua, e.g., temporal instants and lines respectively. Such “indivisibles”, in the early 14th century, were understood to be an extended and simple ontological unit, but not physical atoms per se. It is helpful here to consider briefly an indivisibilist account, before turning to the divisibilism of Wodeham. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Henry Harclay and Walter Chatton are two relatively well known medieval philosophers who supported indivisibilism. Thinkers such as Harclay and Chatton argued, in response to Aristotle, for the possibility that a continuum is composed of indivisibles. The individual components, or indivisibles, were generally held to be extensionless regardless of whether or not the individual thinker understood there to be an infinite (Harclay) or finite (Chatton) number of indivisibles in a given continuum. But, as is well know, such indivisibilists accounts were generally so defensive in their posture—arguing for the mere possibility of indivisibles—that it is difficult to ascertain the broader philosophical motivations which grounded such arguments. John Murdoch argues that there are perhaps two motives that can be gleamed for the texts: (1) indivisibles may have been useful as a method of accounting for the motion of angels; or (2) indivisibles may have been useful when addressing the inequality of infinites (Murdoch 1982, 576–577). Although, he notes that such motivations are mentioned only in passing and that a broader motivation could have simply been that “the analysis of Aristotle’s arguments against indivisibilism uncovered loopholes in them” (Murdoch 1982, 577). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | The Tractatus de indivisibilibus consists of five questions and it is instructive to consider the content briefly. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | In the second doubt of question 3 (LT 171–175; ¶13–20), as noted above, Wodeham considers the argument of Zeno (recorded in Aristotle’s Physics) against those who argue that motion is compatible with the divisibility of a continuum. This particular argument, familiar to all students of ancient philosophy, is exemplary both of Wodeham’s historical approach to the questions posed by the continuum and his own method of argumentation. Thus, it is instructive to consider the argument in some detail. Wodeham records Zeno’s argument as: | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | If every continuum is infinitely divisible, then every movable object traversing any space will reach the middle of that [space] before the end, and consequently it will reach the middle of the second half before reading [the end] of the completing [part] of that half, and then [it will reach] the middle of that next fourth [before] its completing [part]. Therefore if such halves are infinite proportional [parts], and if it does not happen that [a moveable object] traverses infinitely many [parts] in a finite time, then it is impossible that any space be traversed in a finite time. And consequently, it is impossible that anything move locally (LT 172–173; ¶14). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Wodeham, who is a divisibilist, offers a response to Zeno’s “paradox” because it is necessary to avoid the reductio ad absurdum (i.e., there is no motion) posed by the claim that an infinitely divisible finite space is not traversable. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Wodeham begins by considering Averroes’s argument that Aristotle, in the Physics VI, contradicts the “words, not the substance, of Zeno’s discourse” (LT 173; ¶15). But, Wodeham does not agree with Averroes’s interpretation of Aristotle, and he defends Aristotle’s argument. Wodeham argues that Aristotle recognizes that Zeno’s argument “supposes falsely” that it is “not possible to traverse something infinite … in a finite time” (LT 173; ¶16), although he also correctly recognizes that there is more to be said in response to Zeno. Further, Wodeham argues that Aristotle recognized that there is an equivocation with respect to the term “infinite” as applied to a continuum of space or time: infinite can be understood with respect to “division”, or with respect to “infinite ends”. That is, the term infinite can refer to the infinite divisibility of a given finite continuum of space or time, or the term can refer to the fact that space or time extends without end or termination (LT 173; ¶17). Because of this equivocation, the phrase “a moveable object may traverse infinitely many things in a finite time” can be understood in two ways: either (1) as stating that a moveable object traverses infinitely many things that are extensively never terminated in a finite time; or (2) as stating that a moveable object traverse infinitely many non-equal things (that a given continuum is divided into) in a finite time (LT 173–175; ¶18). In the former sense the claim is false, in the latter sense it is true. And, in this way, Aristotle solves Zeno’s “paradox” to Wodeham’s satisfaction. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Finally, Wodeham analyzes William of Ockham’s interpretation—in the Expositio Physicorum (OP V, ll. 49–56)—of Averroes’s argument that Aristotle addresses the words and not the substance of Zeno’s argument. Wodeham, recording Ockham’s argument, implies that Ockham’s reading of Averroes is too “charitable”, concluding that “if [Averroes] did understand [the matter] in the manner expounded here, both his exposition and what he expounds are false” (LT 175; ¶175). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | As demonstrated by this brief example, in the Tractatus de indivisibilibus Adam Wodeham engages at length with the ancient and medieval philosophical tradition. Further, throughout the work he quotes extensively from William of Ockham’s Exposition Physicorum and his Tractatus de quantitate. Wodeham also considers in detail the arguments of Henry Harclay and Walter Chatton, all of which provides a useful historical record of this heated debate. But, ultimately, the work remains a barrage of arguments against the indivisibilist, or atomist, position as defended in the early fourteenth century. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | In his minor work, the Tractatus alphabeticus, Wodeham takes up the question of qualitative change and offers a position that is consistent with his overall opposition to atomism (cf. Wood 1990). According to Sylla, there were three dominant views of qualitative change that shaped the context of the discussion: the succession theory, the addition theory, and the admixture theory (Sylla 1973, 230–232). The succession and addition theory distinguish themselves from the admixture theory in that they are both committed to the fact that qualitative forms themselves do not change in degree. Rather it is the subject that changes in degree through the acquisition of a new qualitative form (cf. Sylla 1973, 232; Wood 1990, 375). Wodeham, in relative concord with the views of Ockham and FitzRalph and against the Mertonian Campsall and his usual nemesis Walter Chatton, argues against the admixture theory. He claims that it is impossible for one and the same quality to be changed while retaining its identity. As Wood says: | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Addition and succession of forms theorists agree on this issue; in no sense is it true that the same form undergoes remission or intension…strictly speaking it is the subject, not the form, which becomes more white, more hot or more charitable. (Wood 1990, 375) | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | A helpful analog can be found in the case of numbers. When the number 9 is increased to 10, Wodeham understands the admixture theorist to be claiming that the same form has been intensified, but he wonders how this numerically identical form can really be said to retain its old identity now that it has been increased to 10 and is no longer 9. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | While the succession and addition theorist are united in their opposition to any admixture, and while both believe that intension and remission occur in the subject and not in the qualitative form, they disagree about just how this intension and remission occurs. In the Tractatus alphabeticus, Wodeham shows himself to be numbered among the addition theorists. The key difference here is that the succession theorist believes that when a quality increases a new form of a given quality destroys and then replaces the old form. Wodeham and the addition theorist disagree. They hold that when qualitative change happens, a new form is indeed acquired, but it does not destroy the proceeding form. On the contrary, the new form takes in the preceding form as one of its parts. And here, the analogy of quantitative change is again helpful. When 9 increases to 10, the succession theorist argues that the old form of 9 is completely destroyed and replaced by an entirely new form, where no part of the old form of 9 contributes to the new form of 10. In opposition, the addition theorist argues that when a quality increases, this is analogous to the number 1 being added to 9, and through this addition, the new form of 10 is created. In this case, the old form of 9 has not been destroyed, but rather becomes a part of the new whole. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | A critical underlying difference between the succession and addition theorists is the question over whether forms are indivisible or can be perpetually broken down into smaller parts. The succession theorist thinks forms are indivisible and do not contain parts (Sylla 1973, 231). But Adam Wodeham, in harmony with his general anti-atomists position, argues that forms can be infinitely divided. In this way, there is no trouble in saying that, through addition, a new form is created, which contains the old form as one of its parts. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Since the Lectura secunda does not extend beyond book I, the moral philosophy of Adam Wodeham found in book IV of the Ordinatio has remained relatively unexamined. However, in 1981 Marilyn Adams and Rega Wood edited the tenth question of Book IV of the Ordinatio, providing us with a glimpse into Wodeham’s moral philosophy. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Question ten concentrates on the moral worth or goodness of an action. Here the philosophical debate is about whether the moral worth of action resides in the choice of the will alone (in the manner of Kant) or whether moral goodness can be ascribed to the performance of actions themselves, independent of the intention of the agent. Wodeham’s discussion is embedded in a larger Franciscan discussion, whose main players are Scotus and Walter Chatton on the one hand, and Ockham and Wodeham on the other. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | The discussion is grounded in the distinction between purely internal acts (or volitional acts, acts within the power of the will) and external acts (or acts that can only be indirectly controlled by the will). In the case of the latter (an external act), the power of the will is not sufficient, and another source of power is needed. Scotus’s position, as understood by Wodeham, states that while an external act can only be good if it falls under the control of the will (cf. Adams and Wood 1981, 9), the external and indirectly controlled act can nevertheless contribute an additional moral goodness beyond the moral value accrued through the act of volition. The result is that while willing to do the right thing or bad thing is in itself praiseworthy or blameworthy, executing and performing that act can impute to the agent further praise or blame, depending on how well one performs the willed act (cf. Adams and Wood 1981, 9). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Wodeham, like Ockham, finds this position rather confusing. If someone performs a morally praiseworthy volition, but this volition is not able to be executed, the only reason for this failure of performance is some impotency within the agent. But Wodeham insists that no one should be damned for not doing what is not in their power to do (OO IV, 57–59, ll. 11–30; cf. Adams and Wood 1981, 14). Thus, no one can earn more merit for simply having the potency to perform the action that they willed meritoriously. Having or not having the potency to execute that volition does not fall under the free power of the agent, and, even for Scotus, only those acts that “are under the free power of the agent” are imputable acts (Adams and Wood 1981, 9 and 14). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | For Walter Chatton, Ockham and Wodeham’s position on the amoral status of external acts leads to unsavory consequences. Among other things, Chatton is concerned about the implications of Wodeham’s position for the necessity of faith. Wodeham’s reply not only gives us a nice illustration of how his moral theory plays out in concrete instances, but also provides us with a helpful introduction to his position on the nature of belief and its connection to the will. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Chatton is concerned that if one holds a position similar to the one of Wodeham there will no longer be any need for faith or belief, but only the desire to believe. Chatton has this concern because, for him, the act of belief is not directly under the control of the will (cf; OO IV 36, ll. 20–23). Wodeham responds by starkly distinguishing between two kinds of faith. Infused faith, which appears to be a pure act of the will and acquired faith which is not a direct act of the will and is not required for salvation (OO IV 58, ll.13–14). Presumably, this act of acquired belief is an act of the intellect and a response to the relative evidence of a given proposition or an entire syllogism taken together (see above An Evident Judgment). | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | With this distinction in place, Wodeham uses his moral theory to show that the act of acquired belief, described as the act of believing calmly (quiete) and presumably without intellectual hesitation or doubt, does not add any moral worth. This is the case since, as we have already seen, if one wishes to believe, but is prevented from doing so by a lack of power, the agent should not be held responsible for this lack of power. Reasons for such a lack of power include a melancholic disturbance, a passion, or sophism (OO IV 58, ll. 15–18). He further concludes, it is quite possible that the person who wishes to believe, but is not able to do so calmly (quiete), may be more morally praiseworthy than the person who intellectually believes “quietly” and is not beset by doubt. Intriguingly, he critiques Lombard at this point, saying: | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | If the Master means to say that in order to achieve salvation one must believe with something more than a perfect will, but must also have belief calmly (quiete), then he does think correctly … . (OO IV 58, ll. 26–29) | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Aquinas, Thomas | atomism: ancient | Auriol, Peter | categories: medieval theories of | Chatton, Walter | continuity and infinitesimals | Crathorn, William | Duns Scotus, John | Gregory of Rimini | Holkot [Holcot], Robert | medieval philosophy | Nicholas of Autrecourt [de Altricuria, Autricuria, Ultricuria, Autricort] | Ockham [Occam], William | Zeno of Elea | Zeno of Elea: Zeno’s paradoxes | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | We wish to thank Professor Simo Knuuttila, Dr. Olli Hallamaa and the Department of Systematic Theology of the University of Helsinki, Finland, where this article was written. Further, we thank the participants of the Adam de Wodeham Workshop (Helsinki, 2011) for reading a draft of this article and providing useful criticism. Finally, thanks are due to Gyula Klima for reading the draft on behalf of SEP and providing us with several important corrections which have been reflected in the final version. | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Copyright © 2019 by John T. Slotemaker <[email protected]> Jeffrey C. Witt <[email protected]> | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | View this site from another server: | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2021 by The Metaphysics Research Lab, Department of Philosophy, Stanford University | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wodeham/ | Library of Congress Catalog Data: ISSN 1095-5054 | wodeham |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Christian Wolff (1679–1754) was a philosopher, mathematician, and scientist of the German Enlightenment. He is widely and rightly regarded as the most important and influential German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant. His scholarly output was prolific, numbering more than 50 (most multi-volume) titles, in addition to dozens of shorter essays and prefaces and nearly 500 book reviews. Through his series of textbooks, published first in German and then in Latin, Wolff made signal contributions to nearly every area of philosophical investigation of his time, including but not limited to logic, metaphysics, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics. Wolff is perhaps best known in his role as (co-)founder of the “Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy”, and while Wolff himself rejected the term, the philosophical system it designates quickly gained broad, if not universal, acceptance within German universities in the first half of the eighteenth century. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff’s influence on German philosophy is manifold and profound. Through his textbooks and his “martyrdom” for the cause of Enlightenment, he succeeded in placing modern philosophical ideas at the forefront of German academic debate. Moreover, since he was among the first to publish philosophical texts in German, Wolff had a formative role in establishing German itself as a philosophical language. Wolff’s philosophy gained an ascendant position in the German academy as a result of his own (seemingly tireless) defense of his ideas as well as through his many students and sympathizers, including Georg Bernhard Bilfinger (1693–1750), Ludwig Philipp Thümmig (1697–1728), F. Chr. Baumeister (1709–85), A. G. Baumgarten (1714–62), G. F. Meier (1718–77), and J. C. Gottsched (1700–66). Among his more prominent adherents and (sometime) admirers, Wolff could count Voltaire, Émilie du Châtelet, Moses Mendelssohn, Frederick the Great (who had a hand in translating one of his works), and Catherine the Great (who offered him a pension). Kant, who himself owed much to Wolff for both the form and content of his philosophy, would later recognize him in the Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason as “the greatest of all dogmatic philosophers” (B xxxvi). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Christian Wolff was born 24 January 1679 in Breslau in the province of Silesia (now part of Poland) to parents of modest means.[1] Wolff was educated at the Lutheran-humanist Maria-Magdelena-Gymansium, where his teachers included Christian Gryphius (1649–1706), a baroque poet and dramatist, and Caspar Neumann (1648–1715), the latter of whom Wolff credited with introducing him to the Cartesian philosophy. In 1699, Wolff enrolled at the University of Jena, where he pursued a course of study in theology, physics, and mathematics, moving from there to Leipzig in 1702 where he would sit the Magisterexamen and then complete his Habilitationsschrift in 1703 entitled: Philosophia practica universalis, methodo mathematica conscripta (On Universal Practical Philosophy, composed according to the Mathematical Method). Otto Mencke (1644–1707), the founder of the learned journal Acta eruditorum, served as an examiner for the dissertation and, impressed, sent it to Leibniz, with whom Wolff subsequently struck up a correspondence that continued until Leibniz’s death in 1716. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Due in part to Leibniz’s support, Wolff was soon offered, and accepted, a position in Giessen (though he had also been offered positions at Danzig and Wismar) which he intended to take up after visiting his family in Breslau. However, on his homeward journey the occupation of Saxony by Charles XII of Sweden required Wolff to take a detour through nearby Halle in Prussia, whose recently founded university also happened to be in need of a professor of mathematics. Wolff was offered the position and, again with Leibniz’s assistance, was able to extricate himself from his commitment to Giessen, delivering his inaugural lecture at Halle in early 1707. During the next 15 years he enjoyed a prolific period, publishing and lecturing at first primarily in mathematics and natural science, though he began to lecture in philosophy proper around 1710.[2] Wolff’s first major philosophical textbook was published in 1713, the Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Kräfften des menschlichen Verstandes und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in Erkäntnis der Wahrheit (Rational Thoughts on the Powers of the Human Understanding and its Propert Use in the Cognition of Truth) [the German Logic, hereafter GL]. In 1720, Wolff published his German textbook on metaphysics, the Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt (Rational Thoughts on God, the World and the Soul of Man, and on All Things in General) [the German Metaphysics, hereafter GM]. These were followed by further German textbooks on ethics (1720), politics (1721), and physics (1723). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff’s expanding philosophical activity, especially concerning topics in natural theology, as well as his popularity as a lecturer and growing influence within the university drew the ire of his Pietist colleagues in the faculty of theology, including August Hermann Francke (1663–1723), the founder of the famous Waisenhaus (orphanage), and Joachim Lange (1670–1744). They took exception to a number of doctrines expressed in Wolff’s German Metaphysics, including its privileging of the intellect to the will, its apparent demotion of freedom to mere spontaneity, and the diminished role played by revelation in matters of theological interest. While the Pietists were at first content to wage a behind-the-scenes campaign, Wolff’s address as outgoing rector of the university on 12 July 1721, in which he defended the reasonableness of Confucian moral philosophy, led to a significant escalation of the dispute. Wolff, asserting the independence of the philosophical faculty, refused to submit the text of his lecture for subsequent examination by the faculty of theology, a conflict that came to involve the university senate and even king Frederick Wilhelm I (the “soldier king”) himself. While Wolff enjoyed the support of officials within the royal court, the Pietists exploited their personal connections with the king, who was ultimately persuaded that Wolff’s endorsement of the pre-established harmony represented a threat to military discipline (as the acts of deserters would be pre-established and so not subject to sanction). On 8 November 1723, the king issued an edict removing Wolff from his university position and ordering him to leave Prussia within 48 hours on pain of hanging. The edict was received in Halle four days later, and Wolff immediately left Prussian lands on 12 November 1723. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | While Wolff’s Pietist colleagues celebrated Wolff’s exile (reportedly even from the pulpit), it ultimately served only to enhance Wolff’s reputation, bringing him to the attention of luminaries of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire. He was immediately offered positions in Leipzig and Marburg, the latter of which he accepted though a special exemption had to be granted to allow a Lutheran to teach at a Reformed university. And even as the dispute with his critics continued, generating a substantial literature in its own right, Wolff managed during his Marburg years to complete a reworked Latin presentation of his theoretical philosophy intended to make his ideas available to a pan-European audience. These texts include: Philosophia rationalis sive Logica (Rational Philosophy, or Logic) of 1728 [the Latin Logic, hereafter LL], the first part of which is the Discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere (Preliminary Discourse on Philosophy in General) [DP]; the Philosophia prima sive Ontologia (First Philosophy, or Ontology) of 1730 [Ont.]; Cosmologia generalis (General Cosmology) of 1731 [Cosm.]; Psychologia empirica (Empirical Psychology) of 1732 [EP]; the Psychologia rationalis (Rational Psychology) of 1734 [RP]; and the two-volume Theologia naturalis (Natural Theology) of 1736–37 [NT]. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Friedrich Wilhelm I eventually thought better of his precipitous action against Wolff, as he attempted in 1733 to entice him (unsuccessfully) back to Halle and in 1736 lifted a prohibition he had enacted against the teaching of Wolffian texts. However, Wolff remained in Marburg, collecting tributes and memberships in learned societies, until the ascension of Friedrich Wilhelm I’s son, Friedrich II (the Great), himself an enlightened monarch and admirer of Wolff. Wolff accepted the new king’s offer of a professorship and vice-chancellorship at his previous institution in Halle and returned to the city on 6 December 1740 to take up his new position. Wolff continued to lecture and publish actively, with his later efforts devoted particularly to works on the law of peoples, natural law, and ethics. He died in Halle on 9 April 1754. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff’s wide intellectual interests saw him exposed to a diverse set of influences. Neumann not only acquainted Wolff during his time at Gymansium with the Cartesian philosophy but impressed on him the need for “mathematical” treatments of philosophical topics (including natural theology and practical philosophy). Wolff also familiarized himself with late Scholastic philosophy, through a textbook by Johannes Scharf (1595–1660), a follower of Suarez; indeed, Wolff’s mastery of Scholastic thinking was displayed in his successful disputations with students at the rival (Catholic) St.-Elizabeth-Gymnasium. While Wolff’s own later philosophy would likewise be branded a form of scholasticism, or Schulphilosophie, the extent of the influence of Scholastic philosophers, such as Suarez, upon his thought is debated (École 2001, Leduc 2018). Wolff’s interest in mathematics was encouraged by his teachers, which interest ultimately brought him to Jena where he attended classes from G. A. Hamberger (1662–1716), the successor of Erhard Weigel (1625–99); he also studied a Euclidean textbook by J. C. Sturm (1635–1703), though his reflection on its obscurities reportedly brought him his “first light concerning the ancient method of demonstration” (Wuttke 1841: 122–3). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | A rather important if under-appreciated early influence on Wolff’s thinking, particularly concerning scientific method, was Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651–1708). Tschirnhaus, a Saxon nobleman, studied at the University of Leiden where the Cartesian Geulincx was active,[3] and was an important member of Spinoza’s circle of friends (among whom he circulated the Ethics). Yet, Tschirnhaus was also an active scientist, mathematician, and inventor, who among other things played a (perhaps the) key role in the discovery of the secret for making porcelain. Tschirnhaus’ principal philosophical work is his Medicina mentis (1687, 2nd ed. 1695), and he characterizes his aim there as outlining a “certain and constant method” for the discovery of all unknown truths. Wolff first gained an interest in reading the Medicina mentis while at Gymnasium, but it was only after taking up his mathematical studies in Jena in 1699 that he found himself able to profit from reading it. Wolff evidently read the text with great interest and care, marking his own copy with comments and queries and later preparing an excerpted text for use in lectures for students without the requisite mathematical background. Wolff even sought out Tschirnhaus himself during an Easter book fair in Leipzig to press him with his concerns relating to his method. (After Tschirnhaus’ death in 1708 Wolff inquired as to the status of his manuscripts but was disappointed to learn that, like Spinoza, he had ordered them destroyed). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | It was G. W. Leibniz, however, who would exercise the most consequential influence on Wolff, both professionally (as seen above) and philosophically. Wolff is often described as a disciple or follower of Leibniz, a characterization for which there is some justification. So, central tenets of Wolff’s philosophical system closely resemble those advanced by Leibniz. The commitment to metaphysics, the extensive use of the principle of sufficient reason, and the (qualified) endorsement of the pre-established harmony are among many striking points of agreement. Indeed, Wolff appears not only to accept the principles and methods of analysis posed by Leibniz, but he also identifies opponents to his system, such as Descartes, Spinoza, and the Atomists, that Leibniz opposed in his own. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | To describe Wolff as merely a disciple of Leibniz, however, is misleading in several respects. First and foremost, this characterization undercuts the important philosophical differences that existed between the two men. Second it misconstrues the nature of their relationship and the type of intellectual exchange that transpired between them. During the early part of Wolff’s career, and the period when he corresponded with Leibniz, Wolff’s primary focus was in the field of mathematics. It is maintained that Wolff was the first to teach calculus formally in Germany (Beck 1969: 257). According to Wolff’s own report (Wuttke 1841: 146), when he arrived at Halle in 1707, mathematics was “entirely neglected, nay quite unknown, in that place”. With the exception of his German Logic, Wolff’s energy early in his career was directed at producing a four-volume Elements of All the Mathematical Sciences [German edition 1710, and Latin edition 1713] as well as a Mathematical Lexicon [1716]. In this light, it is perhaps not surprising to find the bulk of the Wolff-Leibniz correspondence dedicated to issues in mathematics. Although they also exchanged ideas on philosophical topics (for discussion, see Rutherford 2004), their philosophical correspondence centered primarily on ethics and philosophical theology. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Leibniz published his Theodicy in 1710, and this work remained the only extended presentation of his philosophical ideas published in his lifetime. Apart from a handful of other smaller articles written on philosophical topics, most notably, Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas [1684], A Specimen of Dynamics [1695], and On Nature Itself [1698], there were relatively few texts available, and hardly any from what is regarded today as the core of Leibniz’s corpus, from which Wolff could have extracted a definitive statement of Leibniz’s philosophy. Consider a remark by Leibniz to Nicolas Remond, in a letter dated July 1714: | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Mr. Wolff has adopted some of my opinions, but since he is very busy with teaching, especially in mathematics, and we have not had much correspondence together on philosophy, he can know very little about my opinions beyond those which I have published. (Leibniz 1989b: 657) | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | The philosophical works by Leibniz that we typically consider today to represent his mature philosophical views were published posthumously. The Principles of Nature and Grace appeared in 1718, The Monadology in 1720, and the New Essays Concerning Human Understanding as late as 1765. Although the early Kant and later German thinkers had the benefit of these texts, Wolff had no such luxury when writing his German Metaphysics in 1719. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | What is significant about considering the relationship between Wolff and Leibniz is that although there is clear evidence that Leibniz was a direct influence on Wolff, there is also equal evidence that testifies to Wolff’s independence from Leibniz, particularly when Wolff was formulating and first presenting his philosophical views (cf. Corr 1975 for an influential discussion). Recognizing Wolff’s independence is perhaps important for understanding what Kant and his contemporaries understood by the expression “Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy”. Instead of taking this expression to mean “the philosophy of Leibniz, interpreted and presented by Wolff and his followers”, as it commonly is, it is perhaps preferable to understand the expression to mean “Wolff’s philosophical system, variously corrected and improved through the posthumously discovered views of Leibniz”. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Early in his career, until shortly after his expulsion from Halle, Wolff primarily presented his work in the German vernacular. His reasons for choosing German, rather than Latin, the standard languages for academic texts in Germany at the time, were both tactical and theoretical. Before Wolff, there were very few philosophical works written in German. By providing treatises on logic and metaphysics, Wolff was able to service a noticeable gap in the German university curriculum while at the same time promoting his own philosophical agenda. Prior to Wolff’s contributions, the standard text books in philosophy were largely outdated Lutheran-scholastic treatises modeled after the treatises of Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560) (cf. Beck 1969: 189–94, 101–10). Unlike English and French universities, which had set aside hidebound scholasticism and embraced modern ideas and systems, German universities (often under the direct jurisdiction of local theological authorities) were slow to make such a change. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | But Wolff also had deep-seated theoretical reasons for writing a German-language philosophy. He believed that the goal and purpose of philosophy should not only be rooted in what he calls “the pursuit of the knowledge of the truth” but also in its utility and the practical value it has for humans in their everyday life. In the preface to his German Logic, he writes: | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | a person should learn philosophy …[not with] a view to the vicious taste of the schools for idle disputation and wrangling, but in order to [enjoy its] usefulness in future life…. (GL: lxxvii; cf. also Corr 1970) | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | By writing a German-language philosophy, Wolff sought to transform philosophy from a discipline that had become mired in formalism and centered around traditionally defined topics to a discipline that had genuine utility for German students. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Among the practical aims of Wolff’s philosophy is outfitting the mind with the tools it needs to pursue and attain properly scientific knowledge, in contrast with “common” or “vulgar” knowledge, or as Wolff sometimes says “the natural way of thinking”. If certain groups of facts can be shown to follow from “well-grounded” assumptions according to strict requirements of demonstration, the class of facts is deemed by Wolff to constitute a “science”. Wolff gives several definitions of the term science: | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | By science, I understand, that habit of the understanding, whereby, in a manner not to be refuted, we establish our assertions on irrefragable grounds or principles (GL: c. 1, §2). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | By science here I mean the habit of demonstrating propositions, i.e., the habit of inferring conclusions by legitimate sequence from certain and immutable principles (DP: §30). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Science is the capacity to prove from indisputable grounds everything one asserts or, in a word, the capacity to demonstrate; and in demonstration truths are connected together; therefore through science one knows the connection of truths, and thus science comes from reason (GM: §383). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | While Wolff emphasizes that science is a “habit of the understanding”, this should be taken to also involve the human capacity of reason, inasmuch as it is the faculty for perceiving the connection between truths. When properly employed, then, human reason can discern groups of facts, establish a certain order and interconnectedness between these facts, and ultimately justify them as being certain parts of human knowledge. Put slightly differently, science is a disposition or ability of the human mind to conceive the facts of reality in an ordered and structured way. Individual sciences, therefore, such as theology, cosmology, or psychology, are simply the various sets, or subsets of demonstrable cognitions and the principles (including axioms, definitions, and empirical facts) from which they are derived. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff’s system is also structured according to a notion of rational order. The “order of science” pertains to the relationship not only between individual sciences but also between the sets of discoverable facts within each given discipline (cf. DP: §§132–5). The central idea here is that certain truths are known prior to, and serve as a basis for discovering, other truths. And just as there are certain facts that are more fundamental and serve as a basis for discovering other facts, there are, Wolff believes, certain sciences whose subject matter is more basic and which ultimately stand as the foundation for other sciences that have a more specialized focus. For example, in the “order of demonstration”, physics follows general cosmology which, in turn, follows ontology (or first philosophy) (DP: §§94–5). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | It appears, at first glance, that Wolff’s insistence on the rational order of science simply follows from a dogmatic metaphysical claim about the structure of reality. A reasonable objection to Wolff might be that his conception of the rational order of science is based on an unwarranted assumption about the harmonious order he believes to be present in all facets of reality. This harmonious order (the objection continues) illicitly presupposes that a divine architect has created everything according to a plan and thus the rational order of human science is simply an upshot of God’s creative power. There are certainly passages of Wolff’s works that lend support to such an objection (see for instance GL: c. 16, §3). However, to reduce Wolff’s view of the rational order of science to simply a dogmatic metaphysical claim really ignores the practical and common sense dimensions to his thought. An important part of the reason why Wolff believes that there is a rational order to science is because of the progress he believes he has witnessed in such sciences as astronomy and optics, which he believes have utilized such an order when establishing various scientific truths (DP: §139). By virtue of the very interconnectedness of the different disciplines (most notably, mathematics with physics and physics with astronomy) the claim for an intrinsic rational order among the sciences is seen by Wolff to be a pragmatic explanation for what is already largely observed and accepted as the status quo among many natural philosophers (GL: c. 1, §39). Unlike Leibniz, Wolff was much more willing to embrace the advances brought in the name of Newtonian natural philosophy (on this, see the next section). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff gives the following definition of philosophy in his German Logic: “[p]hilosophy is the science of all possible things, together with the manner and reason of their possibility” (Preface, §1). Now because of its subject matter, philosophy is considered by Wolff to be the broadest and most fundamental science. In the classification of sciences given in his Preliminary Discourse, Wolff first divides philosophy into two branches: practical philosophy, on one hand, and theoretical philosophy, on the other. Practical philosophy deals (in general) with human actions and includes morality, politics, jurisprudence, and economics. Theoretical philosophy, by contrast, deals with sets of possible and actual objects and is (itself) divided into three separate branches: (1) ontology, or metaphysics proper, (2) “special” metaphysics, which includes general cosmology, psychology and natural theology, and (3) physics (DP: §92). Whereas ontology and general cosmology are considered by Wolff to be completely “pure” (or a priori) sciences, psychology, natural theology, and physics are considered to be based upon empirical (i.e., historical) principles. As a brief aside, Wolff and the Critical Kant hold very different views on the relationship between practical and theoretical philosophy. Whereas Wolff believes that all of practical philosophy is subordinated to metaphysics (i.e., ontology as well as the three sub-disciplines that comprise special metaphysics), the Critical Kant argues for the independence of practical from theoretical principles. Wolff, in stark contrast, maintains that discoveries and conclusions made in practical philosophy are necessarily based upon prior conclusions drawn from ontology or metaphysics. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Before turning to an examination of Wolff’s theoretical philosophy, and metaphysics in particular, it will be helpful to first consider Wolff’s distinctive, and often misunderstood, rationalism. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Philosophical rationalism can be understood to involve any or all of the following: commitment to the existence of innate ideas or principles, the privileging of a priori cognition to cognition known a posteriori, and endorsement of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR). Even though Wolff is officially agnostic regarding innate ideas, a priori cognition (at least in the traditional sense of a cognition from grounds) enjoys a privileged place in his system, and to be sure, PSR is central to Wolff’s entire exposition of metaphysics and figures prominently in all levels of his philosophical system. Wolff is, accordingly, correctly identified as a philosophical rationalist; yet, this label has often inspired misleading characterizations of Wolff’s thought as abjuring all reliance upon experience in the aim of constructing a pure intellectual system founded solely on the principle of contradiction. Such a caricature, however persistent, is to be firmly rejected on both historical and philosophical grounds. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Historically, this misrepresentation of Wolff as an arch-rationalist ignores his liberal borrowings from, and deep engagement with, empiricistic and scientifically-minded thinkers, most notably Locke and Newton. In his capacity as reviewer for the Acta eruditorum, Wolff was intimately familiar with intellectual developments in England—indeed he was brought on by Mencke specifically in order to comment on the mathematical and scientific developments there (for which task Wolff taught himself English over a Summer)—and he wrote approving early reviews of Newton’s Optics and Locke’s Opera posthuma. In general, Wolff took Locke’s “historical, plain method” as a model for his own empirical psychology, and admired the blending of reason and experiment that characterized Newton’s method, even if Wolff was deeply skeptical of Newton’s speculative and metaphysical excursions in the Queries in the Latin edition of the Optics and in the General Scholium of the second edition of the Principia (not to mention the metaphysical views explicitly defended by Samuel Clarke in the correspondence with Leibniz, for the German edition of which Wolff wrote the preface). Even so, Wolff’s importance for the reception of Locke in Germany is currently under-appreciated (vide Fischer 1975), and his contributions to the reception of Newton have only recently been explored in some detail (see Dunlop 2013, Stan 2012). | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | It might nonetheless be thought that Wolff’s philosophy itself does not reflect this engagement with empiricism. Indeed, Wolff himself gives this impression when he states in the German Metaphysics that experience is opposed to reason such that they constitute “two paths to truth” (GM: §372), and while the path of experience might suffice for the concerns of ordinary life, Wolff makes clear that the philosopher cannot rest content with it but must use reason to press beyond what experience offers. That this is so is reflected in Wolff’s distinction between “common knowledge or cognition [gemeine Erkäntniss]” and “the cognition of a philosopher [Erkänntniss eines Welt-Weisen]” which he first offers in the German Logic: | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | It can now be seen how common cognition is distinguished from the cognition of a philosopher, namely, one who has no understanding of philosophy can learn many things about what is possible from experience, yet, he will not know how to indicate the reason why it [i.e., that which he learns from experience] can be. For instance, he learns from experience that it can rain, but cannot say how it happens […] nor indicate the causes why it rains. (GL: Preface, §6) | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | This would suggest, then, that for Wolff the path to genuinely philosophical truth is ultimately that of reason pursued independently of experience. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Yet, a more careful look at Wolff’s texts reveals that, rather than representing completely divergent paths, reason and experience are envisioned as forming a complementary whole, where experience provides an indispensable basis for properly philosophical cognition and even serves to confirm the latter’s results. Indeed, the important dependence of philosophical cognition upon experiential cognition is emphasized in Wolff’s later discussion in the Preliminary Discourse. There, Wolff labels the cognition of that which is and which happens historical cognition (DP: §3), and contends that cognition of the reason of that which is or occurs, that is, philosophical cognition (DP: §6), frequently relies on historical cognition as its foundation (fundamenta). This is the case, for instance, when we discover by means of experience something that can serve as the ground for something else that is or occurs (DP: §10). Since that which is known directly through experience is, for Wolff, “firm and unshakeable” (DP: §11), it follows that anyone who strives for philosophical cognition should not neglect the historical, or as Wolff claims, that | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | historical cognition should precede philosophical cognition and be constantly conjoined with it so that it does not lack a firm foundation. (DP: §11; cf. Kreimendahl 2007) | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Unsurprisingly, Wolff sets up his distinctive emphasis on experience and introduces his innovations in philosophical method in conscious opposition to his rationalist predecessors. He faults Descartes, for instance, for attempting to posit universal metaphysical principles “from which one will deduce through the mere understanding everything that is possible in nature” (Wolff 1723 [Preface]). Instead, Wolff recommends near the end of the German Logic that the philosopher should be trained | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | to draw determinate propositions from experience and with the help of some to find the ground of others, consequently, to unite reason with experience (GL: c. 16, §11) | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | and later, in his oft-used metaphor, Wolff characterizes philosophical cognition itself as a “marriage of reason and experience [connubium rationis et experientiae]” (LL: §1232; cf. Cataldi Madonna 2001). Ideally, then, Wolff construes reason and experience as converging toward a common end rather than constituting divergent paths, and the philosopher is warned against pursuing one at the expense of the other (DP: §11). In this way, Wolff’s rationalism clearly separates itself from the spirit of classical rationalism. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Philosophy is a science of possible and actual reality. According to Wolff’s own taxonomy, theoretical philosophy is divided into three separate branches: ontology (or metaphysics proper), special metaphysics, and physics. Cosmology, as a branch of metaphysics, is a special or restricted science insofar as its subject matter deals with the “world-whole” rather than “being in general” (the subject matter of ontology). Although there is an important sense for Wolff in which ontology is relevant for, and even necessarily grounds cosmology and the other special sciences, cosmology (itself) stands in a grounding relationship to physics that is, yet again, a more narrow and specialized discipline (Cosm. §121). Just as there are certain principles and certain truths established in ontology that are relevant for cosmology, there are certain principles and certain truths established in cosmology that are relevant for the more specialized science of physics. In fact, within Wolff’s system there is complete uniformity from the top-down (so to speak), so that even principles of ontology are relevant for the discipline of physics. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff’s ontology is constructed on two foundational principles, namely, the principle of contradiction [PC hereafter] and the principle of sufficient reason. According to Wolff, PC is the fundamental principle of human thought, the very first principle of “all metaphysical first principles”, and the “font [or source] of all certitude” (Ont. §§54–5). It is regarded by him to be a self-evident first principle, its truth made manifest through our inability to think in a manner contrary to it. In the Ontologia, he writes: | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | §27. We experience…[PC]… in the nature of our mind, in that, while it judges something to be, it is impossible at the same time to judge the same not to be…. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | §28.…[I]t cannot happen that the same thing simultaneously is and is not…. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | §30.…[For] … contradiction is simultaneity in affirming and denying. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | PC is the “font of all certitude” insofar as, if it were called into question, the most evident and secure judgments of human knowledge, such as knowledge of the self (as a thinking thing), could likewise be called into question. We recognize the fact of our own existence by recognizing the psychological impossibility of denying it. But if it were possible both to affirm and also deny our own existence (simultaneously), then the experience of certitude that accompanies this cognition would thereby be undermined. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff contends that PC is not only for our thinking but, in defining the limits of what is conceivable or not, also serves to distinguish the possible from the impossible. So, impossibility, defined formally, is that which involves a contradiction, whereas that which does not is taken to be possible. Now for Wolff, “possible” and “possible thing” are basically synonymous terms. What is possible as a concept is simply reducible to what is possible as a thing. The realm of concepts and the ontological realm of objects converge in the Wolffian system (Kuehn 1997). A thing or “being” is defined as “that which does not involve a contradiction” (Ont. §135). A possible concept, consequently, is that which corresponds to a possible object (Ont. §§57, 59, 60). This analysis of the concept of the possible typifies Wolff’s non-existential and essence-centered approach to ontology. Very briefly, Wolff’s understanding of being (or what is) involves regarding being in its most general sense. A being is “something” if and only if it is intrinsically possible, and something is intrinsically possible, if and only if its predicates or “determinations” are not contradictory. “Nothing”, in contrast, is simply a term that is empty of all content. In the ontological realm of objects there is literally no thing to which “nothing” corresponds (Ont. §57). Nothing, by definition, is not thinkable or conceivable. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | One important point to emphasize about Wolff’s exposition of ontology is that existence (or the actual reality of being) is regarded exclusively as a determination or “complement” of a possible thing (Ont. §174). Although existing things are included in his overall description of reality, they are not as a class of objects his primary focus. More accurately, existing objects figure into Wolff’s metaphysical account only insofar as existing objects are a subset of possible things. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | With the notions of “possible thing”, “something”, and “nothing” firmly in hand, we can now explain the notion of reason (Grund or ratio) that Wolff includes in his definition of philosophy. Insofar as the subject matter of philosophy concerns the realm of all possible things, Wolff believes that the task of the philosopher is to provide “the manner and reason” of their possibility. Warrant for this claim is grounded in the idea that everything, whether possible or actual, has a “sufficient reason” for why it is rather than not. In §56 of his Ontologia, he writes: “By sufficient reason we understand that from which it is understood why something is [or can be]”. Unlike Leibniz who essentially restricts the notion of sufficient reason to “contingent truths of fact”, Wolff considers the notion to have a much broader scope of application to include the set of all possible objects and what Leibniz calls “necessary truths of reason”. The idea that everything has a sufficient reason is presented formally by Wolff as the principle of sufficient reason. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff’s most extensive treatment of the PSR appears in §§56–78 of his Ontologia. In this discussion, Wolff appears to give two separate accounts of the theoretical origin of the principle. On the one hand, in §70, Wolff provides a proof (or derivation) of PSR from PC and the notions of “something” and “nothing”. And, on the other hand, in §74, Wolff claims PSR is a principle of the human mind and a self-evident logical axiom. Although prima facie, it is unclear why Wolff attempts to advance both views, it is perhaps worth pointing out the difference between (1) being able to be demonstrate the truth of a proposition and (2) knowing the truth of a proposition because it is self-evident. While demonstrating the truth of a proposition yields knowledge of it, to know a proposition because it is self-evident may or may not mean the proposition is also demonstrable. There is no inconsistency, for example, in holding that one and same proposition is both self-evident and demonstrable. A proposition could be known immediately one way and yet, in another way, follow as a conclusion of a sound deductive argument. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Wolff believes that the fact that PSR obtains becomes apparent when we consider three specific aspects of our rational/conscious experience. The first is that PSR is never contradicted by experience; the second is that we can recognize singular instances, or examples, of it in our experience of the world, and the third is that we have an inquisitive attitude toward our surroundings and future life (Ont. §§72–4). For Wolff, these characteristics are not regarded as empirical evidence for PSR, but rather that PSR is a necessary presupposition for these characteristics to be a part of our conscious experience. Thus by simply reflecting on the nature of our understanding of the world, Wolff believes that we arrive at the manifest truth of PSR. | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Now according to Wolff there are at least four self-evident (axiomatic) principles of human thought: PC, the principle of excluded middle, the principle of certitude (or principle of identity), and PSR (Ont. §§52–55). Of these, only PC is indemonstrable in the sense that the truth of the principle cannot be proved to follow from a formal deductive inference. As we have seen, Wolff believes that we gain assurance of the truth of this principle by attending to the psychological experience of not being able to both affirm and deny our own existence in introspection. Thus only in a weak (and non-Wolffian) sense of “demonstration” can Wolff be said to demonstrate the truth of PC. The remaining principles, however, are demonstrable in the strict sense and each, he believes, can be derived from PC. His demonstration of PSR in §70 of the Ontologia is as follows: | wolff-christian |
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wolff-christian/ | Nothing exists without a sufficient reason for why it exists rather than does not exist. That is, if something is posited to exist, something must also be posited that explains why the first thing exists rather than does not exist. For either (i) nothing exists without a sufficient reason for why it exists rather than does not exist, or else (ii) something can exist without a sufficient reason for why it exists rather than does not exist (§53). Let us assume that some A exists without a sufficient reason for why it exists rather than does not exist. (§56) Therefore nothing is to be posited that explains why A exists. What is more, A is admitted to exist because nothing is assumed to exist: since this is absurd (§69), nothing exists without a sufficient reason; and if something is posited to exist, something else must be assumed that explains why that thing exists. | wolff-christian |