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Psychology and Mechanism: Christian Wolff on the Soul-Body Analogy

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Mechanism, Life and Mind in Modern Natural Philosophy

Abstract

What does it mean for the soul to be mortal or immortal? Christian Wolff’s defense of the immortality of the soul includes a preliminary justification of the applicability of the physiological concepts of life and death to the soul itself. This justification relies on his doctrine of the analogy between body and soul, which he also uses as a heuristic device to explore the similarities between psychology and physics and thus to establish psychology as a genuine science dealing with forces, laws, faculties, and measurements. Arguing that Wolff’s soul-body analogy is ultimately based on the idea that the mind is a machine, just like the body, this paper makes a case for the view that the Wolffian foundation of modern psychology was strongly influenced by his ideal of mechanistic science.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hatfield 1995 describes this process as the eighteenth-century ‘remaking’ of psychology as a natural science.

  2. 2.

    See Essais de Théodicée (1710), §90, in Leibniz 1875–1890, Vol. VI, 152; and Monadologie (1716), §6, in Leibniz 1875–1890, Vol. VI, 607.

  3. 3.

    See Thümmig 1721, Favaretti Camposampiero 2017 and Forthcoming.

  4. 4.

    On Wolff’s use of the traditional concept of analogy, see Tommasi 2011.

  5. 5.

    See Wolff’s characterization of dualism in Wolff 1972 [1734], §39.

  6. 6.

    In a different context concerning the definition of persona, Wolff observes however that a being is said to be alive ‘quatenus habet operationum principium intrinsecum’ (Wolff 1972 [1734], §741n), which is meant to apply to both material and immaterial beings.

  7. 7.

    A fundamental assumption of Wolff’s theology is that God is essentially similar and not merely analogous to the human mind: see Favaretti Camposampiero 2011, 94.

  8. 8.

    Wolff’s reviews of Hooke 1705 and Coward 1706 (the latter review also including a detailed account of Coward 1704) appeared in the Acta Eruditorum of 1707 (now in Wolff 2001, Vol. I, 128–140 and 181–188 respectively). In Psychologia rationalis, Wolff still mentions Coward along with John Toland as champions of Hobbesian materialism (Wolff 1972 [1734], §33n). See also Wolff 1962 [1730], §548n; Favaretti Camposampiero 2009, 627–628.

  9. 9.

    Hooke’s theory of vision – writes Wolff – has led him ‘ad actiones mentis mechanice explicandas’ (Wolff 2001, Vol. I, 131).

  10. 10.

    See Wolff 2001, Vol. I, 185: ‘Est igitur ipsi [sc. Coward] cogitatio continua idearum in cerebro circulatio seu rotatio: cui sententiae cogitationum celeritatem minime repugnare ait, quia celeritas, qua lux juxta Roemeri observationes movetur, celeritati cogitationum non cedit’. Here, Wolff translates the characterization of thought by Coward 1704, 124 (thought is ‘but a continual circulation or rotation, as it were, of Ideas in the Brain’) and summarizes his argument from ‘swiftness’ (Coward 1704, 125–128). On Coward’s materialism, see Thomson 2008, 104–117.

  11. 11.

    On Wolff’s distinction between proper and improper meaning, see Favaretti Camposampiero 2018, 122–123.

  12. 12.

    See Wolff 1972 [1734], §79: ‘Celeritas autem cum perceptionibus, appetitiones atque aversiones cum directionibus eadem non sunt, si vel maxime quidpiam analogi fingere velis, neque illae per leges perceptionum, neque hae per leges appetitus atque aversationis explicari posse patet. … Quodsi vero vel maxime celeritatem cum claritate perceptionum componas; nihil tamen in lege imaginationis praesidii deprehendes ad celeritatum in mobili mutationem explicandam’.

  13. 13.

    On Wolff’s theory of imaginary entities, see Favaretti Camposampiero 2016b.

  14. 14.

    See also Wolff 1962 [1730], §716. The rendition of potentiae activae as ‘active powers’ (Richards 1980, 235n) can be misleading, if it is taken to imply that faculties are something more substantial than possibilities.

  15. 15.

    The same rhetoric also appears in the Preface to Psychologia empirica: psychology is useful to moral praxis because it teaches how our mental faculties are governed by their laws, so that ‘singularum actionum humanarum determinationes atque directiones per constantes quasdam leges non minus intelligibili modo explicentur et ex natura animae a priori deducantur, quam in Physica actiones corporum ac pendentes inde mutationes in universo hodie explicari solent’ (Wolff 1968 [1732], Praefatio, unpaged).

  16. 16.

    Wolff’s identification of the soul’s essence and force seems to introduce an asymmetry in the scheme: whereas bodies have an essence (their structure) distinct from their nature (force), souls only have their force, which plays both roles. However, Wolff mantains that there is a difference between the soul’s essence and its nature, ‘even though both consist in the same force’ (Wolff 1972 [1734], §67n). The soul’s essence is force restricted to a certain physical point of view, it is what explains why the soul experiences such or such representations in such or such order; in this respect, force plays a role that is similar to that of physical structure. The soul’s nature, on the other hand, is force considered as that which actualizes those representations, hence its role is similar to that of the motive force (see Wolff 1972 [1734], §68).

  17. 17.

    See Feuerhahn 2004, 229: Wolff ‘denkt Physik und Psychologie in Analogie zueinander und stellt sich vor, daß, genau so, wie die Physik mathematisiert wurde, auch die empirische Psychologie mathematisiert werden kann’.

  18. 18.

    Wolff, Epistola gratulatoria in qua vera philosophiae mechanicae notio explicatur (1710), in Wolff 1974 [1755], Sect. III, 17–18 (emphasis added). On Wolff’s various definitions of ‘machine’, see Favaretti Camposampiero 2019.

  19. 19.

    See Wolff 1964 [1731], §75: ‘Mechanice de rebus in mundo adspectabili existentibus philosophatur, qui mutationes, quae ipsis accidunt, ex eorum structuris, texturis et mixtionibus, seu ex modo compositionis secundum regulas motus intelligibili modo explicat’.

  20. 20.

    See Wolff 1962 [1730], §§493–498.

  21. 21.

    See Wolff 1962 [1730], §§499–500.

  22. 22.

    See the 1710 definition quoted above and Wolff 1964 [1731], §65: ‘Per Machinam intelligimus ens compositum, cujus mutationes modo compositionis convenienter beneficio motus consequuntur’.

  23. 23.

    Wolff, Methodus serierum infinitarum (1705), Corollary 7, in Wolff 1974 [1755], Sect. II, 318–319.

  24. 24.

    Leibniz to Wolff, s.d., in Gerhardt (ed.) 1860, 56. Here, however, Leibniz implicitly warned his correspondent against the multiplication of faculties, by claiming that all that we can conceive in the soul amounts to either perception or percepturitio, i.e. the tendency to a new perception.

  25. 25.

    Système nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances (1695), in Leibniz 1875–1890, Vol. IV, 485; trans. Leibniz 1989, 144.

  26. 26.

    ‘[Veteres] nunquam, quod sciam, conceperunt, uti nos hîc, animam secundùm certas leges agentem, et quasi aliquod automa spirituale’ (Spinoza 1677, 384; trans. Spinoza 1985, 37). Leibniz’s excerpt: ‘Veteres non considerarunt, velut nos, animam secundum certas leges agere, ad instar automati spiritualis’ (Leibniz 1923ff., VI, iv, 1758). Here, ‘certain laws’ clearly means fixed or necessary laws: see Marshall 2013, 1n.

  27. 27.

    His excerpt reads as follows: ‘Operationes secundum quas fiunt imaginationes contingunt secundum alias plane leges quam intellectiones, et anima circa imaginationem habet tantum rationem patientis’ (Leibniz 1923ff., VI, iv, 1758; see Spinoza 1677, 384).

  28. 28.

    Essais de Théodicée, §52, in Leibniz 1875–1890, Vol. VI, 131; trans. Leibniz 1985, 151.

  29. 29.

    Essais de Théodicée, §403, in Leibniz 1875–1890, Vol. VI, 356; trans. Leibniz 1985, 364–365 (slightly modified).

  30. 30.

    Bilfinger also specifies that ‘Animam sensu propriissimo esse Automaton’ (Bilfinger 1723, §124n), thus not metaphorically. The phrase ‘machinam novi generis’ comes from Simon Foucher’s 1695 reply to Leibniz (‘une machine d’une nouvelle espèce’: Leibniz 1875–1890, Vol. I, 425), which Bilfinger discusses here.

  31. 31.

    Though dated 1724, Wolff’s Monitum actually appeared in October 1723, shortly after Lange 1723 (see the editor’s introduction to Wolff 1983a [1724]).

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  1. Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

    Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero

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Correspondence to Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero .

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  1. Département de philosophie, Université Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès, Toulouse, France

    Charles T. Wolfe

  2. Department of Philosophy, Università di Roma Tre, Rome, Italy

    Paolo Pecere

  3. Department of Humanities, Università di Roma Tre, Rome, Italy

    Antonio Clericuzio

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Favaretti Camposampiero, M. (2022). Psychology and Mechanism: Christian Wolff on the Soul-Body Analogy. In: Wolfe, C.T., Pecere, P., Clericuzio, A. (eds) Mechanism, Life and Mind in Modern Natural Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 240. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07036-5_15

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