Christian Wolff

Christian Wolff (1679-1754), German rationalist philosopher and mathematician. Born in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), and educated at the University of Jena, he became Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at the University of Halle in 1706. Wolff’s rationalist doctrines gradually came into sharp conflict with the religious views of some of his faculty colleagues. In 1721 he delivered a lecture in which he cited the moral axioms of Confucius as proof that human reason could attain moral truth by its own efforts. As a result, he was banished from Prussia in 1723 on grounds of atheism and fatalism. He went to Hesse and taught at the University of Marburg until 1740. In that year Frederick II, King of Prussia, recalled Wolff to Halle, where, in 1743, he became Chancellor of the university.

Wolff’s philosophy is a modification of the philosophical system developed by the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Although he was not an original thinker, Wolff was important as an organizing and systematizing philosopher. His voluminous writings include Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt, und der Seele des Menschen (Rational Thoughts on God, the World, and the Souls of Men, 1719).