Christian Wolff and Experimental Philosophy

Vanzo, Alberto

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198748717.003.0007

Cited by 21 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…9 Although the terms had varied in meaning since the Middle Ages, in Wolff's time the above sense was firmly established and commonly accepted in the scientific community (Daston, 2011 , p. 86; Park, 2011 ; Pomata, 2011 ). Wolff, who had taught on and written about experimental philosophy since 1709, was of course familiar with it (École, 1979 ; Mühlpfordt, 1992 ; Vanzo, 2015 ; Wolff, 1980a , p. 146). What I wish to bring to light here, however, is the epistemic logic of the experimental experience.…”

Section: Towards a Psychology Of Extraordinary Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemics of the soul: Epistemic logics in German 18th‐century empirical psychology

Rydberg

2022

J History Behavioral Science

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This article examines epistemic logics in 18th‐century German empirical psychology and distinguishes three basic patterns at play throughout the century. First, as empirical psychology was introduced in the 1720s, it relied on the Aristotelian‐scholastic conception of experience as universal and evidently true propositions of how things typically behave in nature. Empirical psychology was here a matter of defining and demonstrating the general nature, structure, and functions of the soul by referring to experiences that most people could recognize as universally and evidently true. Second, around midcentury this logic was challenged as a new generation of philosopher‐physicians launched an empirical psychology based on extraordinary medical cases. Rather than focusing on the general and universal, this new strand of case‐based empirical psychology charted the individual, unique and often abnormal. Third, from the early 1770s, the interest in the individual was complemented by a new discourse on psychological method. Adopting the epistemic techniques developed within natural and experimental philosophy, empirical knowledge of the soul was seen as the result of rigorously conducted singular observations that were frequently repeated and carefully documented and analyzed. Rather than replacing one another sequentially, these three epistemic logics should be understood as cumulative. That is, despite sometimes profound differences, each new logic was layered on top of the existing ones, thereby broadening and increasing the epistemic complexity of empirical psychology.

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Section: Towards a Psychology Of Extraordinary Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Epistemics of the soul: Epistemic logics in German 18th‐century empirical psychology

Rydberg

2022

J History Behavioral Science

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“…That experience is used to verify propositions of physics is also evident from Wolff’s account of hypotheses. According to Wolff, hypotheses gain in probability be logically deducing consequences from them and verifying them on the basis of experience (Vanzo 2015 , p. 236). Reimarus adopted a very similar account of hypotheses (Reimarus 1766a , p. 334).…”

Section: Theoretical Virtues Then and Nowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition

Berg

2020

HPLS

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Within eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition we can distinguish at least three main theoretical positions: (i) Buffon’s mechanism, (ii) Reimarus’ theory of instincts, and (iii) the sensationalism of Condillac and Leroy. In this paper, I adopt a philosophical perspective on this debate and argue that in order to fully understand the justification Buffon, Reimarus, Condillac, and Leroy gave for their respective theories, we must pay special attention to the theoretical virtues these naturalists alluded to while justifying their position. These theoretical virtues have received little to no attention in the literature on eighteenth-century animal cognition, but figure prominently in the justification of the mechanist, instinctive, and sensationalist theories of animal behavior. Through my philosophical study of the role of theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition, we obtain a deeper understanding of how theoretical virtues were conceptualized in eighteenth-century science and how they influenced the justification of theories of animal cognition.

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“…Lewis White Beck argues that it is this identification of “a priori” with “derived through a valid syllogism” that made the Wolffians believe that “they could get all the advantages of a rationalistic theory of knowledge while still maintaining an empiricistic basis” (Beck 1996 , p. 265). Similarly, Vanzo ( 2015 , pp. 242–244) states that “Wolff’s notion of the a priori is so weak that early modern experimental philosophers could have easily admitted the existence of a priori truths in Wolff’s sense,“ i.e., in the sense of “derived through valid syllogism,” and Favaretti Camposampiero ( 2016 , p. 365) calls Wolff’s notion of the a priori “mild” and “procedural” and notes that it is all but synonymous with “inferential.” Given what he meant by “a priori,” there are no reasons to assume that Wolff’s respect for empirical or experimental inquiry would have weakened his commitment to the demonstrative ideal of science.…”

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confidence: 94%

“…5 If we turn to Wolff's Deutsche Physik, that is, his dogmatic physics, we see that the propositions that Wolff derived in his experimental physics function as fundamental principles (axioms) of dogmatic physics. Thus, in his account of air in the Deutsche Physik, Wolff specifies the axioms, proved in his experimental physics, that air has weight and that air has an expansive force (C. Wolff [1723] 4 The importance that Wolff assigns to experience in science leads Vanzo (2015) to classify Wolff as an experimental philosopher. However, Vanzo also acknowledges that Wolff adopts a mathematical demonstrative method.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Axiomatic Natural Philosophy and the Emergence of Biology as a Science

Berg

Demarest

2020

J Hist Biol

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Ernst Mayr argued that the emergence of biology as a special science in the early nineteenth century was possible due to the demise of the mathematical model of science and its insistence on demonstrative knowledge. More recently, John Zammito has claimed that the rise of biology as a special science was due to a distinctive experimental, anti-metaphysical, anti-mathematical, and anti-rationalist strand of thought coming from outside of Germany. In this paper we argue that this narrative neglects the important role played by the mathematical and axiomatic model of science in the emergence of biology as a special science. We show that several major actors involved in the emergence of biology as a science in Germany were working with an axiomatic conception of science that goes back at least to Aristotle and was popular in mid-eighteenth-century German academic circles due to its endorsement by Christian Wolff. More specifically, we show that at least two major contributors to the emergence of biology in Germany—Caspar Friedrich Wolff and Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus—sought to provide a conception of the new science of life that satisfies the criteria of a traditional axiomatic ideal of science. Both C.F. Wolff and Treviranus took over strong commitments to the axiomatic model of science from major philosophers of their time, Christian Wolff and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, respectively. The ideal of biology as an axiomatic science with specific biological fundamental concepts and principles thus played a role in the emergence of biology as a special science.

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Christian Wolff and Experimental Philosophy

Cited by 21 publications

References 4 publications

Epistemics of the soul: Epistemic logics in German 18th‐century empirical psychology

Epistemics of the soul: Epistemic logics in German 18th‐century empirical psychology

Theoretical virtues in eighteenth-century debates on animal cognition

Axiomatic Natural Philosophy and the Emergence of Biology as a Science

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