Christian Wolff (philosopher)

Christian Wolff
Born	(1679-01-24)24 January 1679 Breslau, Habsburg Silesia
Died	9 April 1754(1754-04-09) (aged 75) Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg
Alma mater	University of Jena University of Leipzig (Dr.phil.habil., 1703)
Era	18th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Enlightenment philosophy
Institutions	Leipzig University University of Halle University of Marburg
Main interests	Philosophical logic, metaphysics
Notable ideas	Theoretical philosophy has for its parts ontology or philosophia prima, cosmology, rational psychology, and natural theology
Influences Leibniz, Tschirnhaus, Descartes, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Suárez
Influenced Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Georg Bernhard Bilfinger, Johannes Nikolaus Tetens, Emer de Vattel, Michael Christoph Hanow, Martin Knutzen, Johann Christoph Gottsched, Moses Mendelssohn, Johann Heinrich Samuel Formey, Georg Friedrich Meier, Mikhail Lomonosov, Anton Wilhelm Amo

Christian Wolff (less correctly Wolf; also known as Wolfius; ennobled as Christian Freiherr von Wolff; 24 January 1679 – 9 April 1754) was a German philosopher. The mountain Mons Wolff on the Moon is named in his honor.

Wolff was the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz and Kant. His main achievement was a complete oeuvre on almost every scholarly subject of his time, displayed and unfolded according to his demonstrative-deductive, mathematical method, which perhaps represents the peak of Enlightenment rationality in Germany.

Wolff was also the creator of German as the language of scholarly instruction and research, although he also wrote in Latin, so that an international audience could, and did, read him. A founding father of, among other fields, economics and public administration as academic disciplines, he concentrated especially in these fields, giving advice on practical matters to people in government, and stressing the professional nature of university education.

Wolff was born in Breslau, Silesia (now Wrocław, Poland), into a modest family. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Jena, soon adding philosophy. In 1703, he qualified as Privatdozent at Leipzig University, where he lectured until 1706, when he was called as professor of mathematics and natural philosophy to the University of Halle. By this time he had made the acquaintance of Leibniz (the two men engaged in an epistolary correspondence), of whose philosophy his own system is a modified version. At Halle, Wolff at first restricted himself to mathematics, but on the departure of a colleague, he added physics, and soon included all the main philosophical disciplines.