Journal of the History of Philosophy

These three robust volumes make available in its entirety a collection of correspondence, held at the University of Leipzig library and comprising nearly five hundred letters, between Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and Ernst Christoph, Graf von Manteuffel (1676–1749). At the time of the correspondence, Wolff was the most famous philosopher of the German Enlightenment, having taken a position in Marburg after his exile from Prussia in 1723. Manteuffel was a Saxon diplomat, advocate for the Wolffian philosophy at the Prussian court, and a cofounder of the Societas Alethophilorum, a group of thinkers devoted to propagating and defending the Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy. The decade covered by the correspondence would see the death of Friedrich Wilhelm I, the ascension of Friedrich II (the Great), and ultimately Wolff's triumphant return to Halle in late 1740.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given his prolific output, Wolff was an active letter-writer, even inviting comparisons (immodest to be sure) to Leibniz; yet little of his correspondence has been preserved. One exception is his correspondence with Leibniz early in his career, which continued until Leibniz's death in 1716, though this only rarely touched on philosophical issues. By contrast, the correspondence with Manteuffel routinely concerns matters of philosophical interest, including topics in natural philosophy, metaphysics, natural theology, ethics, and political philosophy, but also provides a window into Wolff's efforts to expand the appeal of his thought and to defend his legacy against the hostile and encroaching influence of Newtonianism.

For example, we find Manteuffel urging Wolff to offer a presentation of his thought pour les dames, on the model of Francesco Algarotti's recently published popular digest of Newtonianism. This issues in a remarkable draft of a letter (1:601–6) by Wolff to a fictional young noblewoman in which he outlines a new, and recognizably Cartesian, methodology for grasping the basic concepts and principles of his metaphysics (though the project would be abandoned, despite considerable interest from the Queen of Prussia). Similarly of interest are Wolff's reports to Manteuffel of his correspondence with Émilie du Châtelet, who took an interest in Wolff's metaphysics, to such an extent that she volunteered to serve as his "apostle in France" (1:371), and for whom a French translation of the Deutsche Metaphysik was procured (through then crown-prince Friedrich). Wolff recognized du Châtelet's expertise in physics and mathematics, even lauding her philosophical understanding above that of her companion Voltaire (see 1:419), and he heaped praise on her presentation of his metaphysics in the Institutions de physique, which he says was just like "hearing myself in one of my lectures" (1:420). Du Châtelet's support was relatively short-lived, however, as Wolff was unable or unwilling to support her in the dispute with Samuel König, her tutor and a former student of Wolff's, regarding the authorship of that text (see 1:535–36). Her support may have been sorely missed as Wolff's legacy came under fire from the revived Berlin Academy, whose presidency he was once offered (and which had to be turned down delicately to negotiate the return to Halle). Now under the hostile leadership of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis and Leonhard Euler, the Academy announced that [End Page 332] the doctrine of monads would be the topic of the prize essay competition for 1747. The ensuing Monadenstreit became a matter of widespread public interest and saw an anonymous anti-Wolffian essay contentiously awarded with the prize. The letters between Wolff and Manteuffel during this period range over the metaphysical details of the doctrine of monads, but also the identity of the author of the winning submission (at one point thought to be Euler himself, but later revealed to be Johann Heinrich Gottlob Justis), and the organization of the Wolffian response.

The Wolff...