Abstract
In this chapter, I examine Wolff’s position on what I identify as four “dogmas” of classical rationalism: the acceptance of innate ideas, the emphasis on certain rather than probable cognition, the strict prioritization of reason over experience as a source of knowledge, and the endorsement of the principle of sufficient reason. While Wolff is usually taken to outdo his fellow rationalistic thinkers with respect to these dogmas, I contend to the contrary that Wolff actually stakes out a nuanced position on each of these points, and indeed that this is made evident through careful consideration of elements of his metaphysics, and of his rational psychology in particular.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The first three claims are singled out explicitly in Dea et al. (2018). For a compatible presentation, see Huenemann (2008). Della Rocca (2003) emphasizes PSR as a central rationalist doctrine. Anderson (2015) provides a compatible characterization in the context of “rationalist ideal of knowledge from concepts alone” (p. 79).
- 3.
Anstey (2005), for instance, has argued for the rejection of the rationalism-empiricism distinction in favour of a distinction between speculative and experimental methodologies.
- 4.
- 5.
I have adopted the term “dogmas” for these historical core contentions of philosophical rationalism (following the lead of Allison, 2005) for the sake of convenience and by way of reflecting their importance in the historical (and historiographical) debate, and so not in order to suggest that they were only uncritically adopted by these thinkers.
- 6.
As Wolff writes in the first Vorrede (preface) to the German Logic: “In our land one takes Locke’s work on human understanding for uncommonly sensible throughout, so that even those who despise all of his countrymen nonetheless hold him in high esteem” (Wolff, 1754/1965a, p. 107).
- 7.
For a discussion of Wolff’s treatment of inner sense, see Favaretti Camposampiero (2018).
- 8.
Wolff seems to exclude mathematical cognition (i.e. cognition in geometry and algebra) from that which is traceable back to sensation, since some of such cognition is figurative, but also because such cognition employs concepts obtained through arbitrary determination, which concepts are not formed by reflection on sensation or abstraction. So, concerning this cognition, he claims that “thus it is said that there is much in the intellect that was not in the senses” (Wolff, 1755/2003a, §.4, p. 14; cf. also Arndt, 1965, p. 24).
- 9.
This suggests a resolution to the disagreement between Hans Werner Arndt and Gideon Stiening concerning Wolff’s position on innate ideas. So, Arndt (1983), contends contrary to the passages cited that “there is hardly a plank of classical rationalism with respect to which Wolff expressed himself in a more hesitant way than the doctrine of the innateness of ideas” (p. 38) inasmuch as this issue has nothing to do with the formation of concepts which is Wolff’s main interest (see also Beck, 1993, p. 10, for an even stronger formulation). Against this, Stiening (2004, p. 222) has emphasized Wolff’s express endorsement of the innateness of the soul’s ideas, though he limits these to certain notiones communes (or properly speaking a capacity to have these on the occasion of experience). However, contra Arndt, Wolff is clear in his endorsement of the doctrine of innate ideas (and this is consistent with his account of the origin of all the soul’s thoughts in sensation), but contra Stiening, this amounts only to a qualified endorsement, and the fact that all of our thoughts (including of the intellect itself) have their source in sensation distinguishes Wolff’s version of the Aristotelian dictum from the one later canvassed by Leibniz.
- 10.
- 11.
This likely constitutes a reference to the notion of moral certainty, which however Wolff does not devote much discussion to; on this consult Fonnesu (2011).
- 12.
For a detailed discussion of Wolff’s notion of a philosophical hypothesis and the development in his views concerning it, see Leduc (2017).
- 13.
See Vanzo (2015), for a detailed treatment of Wolff’s experimentalism in various parts of his philosophical system.
- 14.
For more on the significance of historical cognition for Wolff, see Kreimendahl (2007, p. 97).
- 15.
See Cataldi Madonna (2007), for discussion and an account of the historical context of Wolff’s notion of such a connubium.
- 16.
For instructive discussion of this, see Dunlop (2019).
- 17.
- 18.
Cf. also Goubet (2011, especially, pp. 81–82).
- 19.
While Wolff first introduced this analysis of theorems in 1707 (cf. Wolff, 1755/2003b, Section I, Num. II, p. 7), in the German Logic, Wolff presents this structure as a feature of propositions (Sätze) generally, but elsewhere indicates that it pertains to theorems specifically (as in Wolff, 1710/1999, §.39 and 1716/1965b, pp. 1377–1378). Note as well that even in the German Logic, Wolff later identifies the propositions under discussion in Chap. 3, §.6 as theorems (cf. Wolff, 1754/1965a, Chap. 3, §.14, where he refers back to Chap. 3, §.5 to which §.6 in turn refers).
- 20.
This passage is particularly emphasized by Anderson (2015, pp. 80–81) as evidencing Wolff’s commitment to the claim that all truths are conceptual.
- 21.
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Dyck, C.W. (2021). Wolff and the Dogmas of Classical Rationalism. In: Araujo, S.d.F., Pereira, T.C.R., Sturm, T. (eds) The Force of an Idea. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74435-9_5
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