Fully online workshop organized by Claudine Tiercelin, Chair of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Knowledge.
Introducing the philosophical thought of Christian Wolff (1679-1754) in 1990, Michel Puech pointed out that: "The idea of seeking the metaphysics of new physics is [...] not an invention of Kant's; it occupied metaphysics for half a century before Kant". Even today, this remark has arguably gone unheeded, as historians of philosophy are so obsessed with the reception of Kantian problematization that they tend to block philosophical questioning. Admittedly, Kantian problematization seems to mark an absolute break, but it doesn't appear out of thin air. What's more, it wasn't the only one possible in its context, and in the face of the difficulties it set out to tackle, it gave rise to others, just as considerable.
At Kantian problematization is linked to opposition pairs that have become traditional:critique/dogmatics, rationalism/empiricism, a priori/aposteriori, analytic/synthetic... But they are often employed in a blindly canonical way, or they are perpetually put in crisis, as the history of the analytic current suggests.
It is therefore interesting to go back downstream and determine how the problem of the metaphysics of modern science was established in eighteenth-century Germany before Kant, since it is in this context that the opposition pairs promoted by Kant attempt to establish themselves. Other ways of thinking, other modes of problematization may then appear to us.
How was the notion of the "scientific method" established in the 18th century? How was recourse to metaphysics introduced in this context? How was the notion of pure reason established? Why werea priori anda posteriori distinguished, and to what extent? What role does logic play here? How are logic and ontology articulated? How is causality approached? What scope is given to knowledge? All these questions reflect the structuring role played by Christian Wolff's thinking at the time. This is what the various presentations in this research workshop will reveal, by confronting different aspects of Wolffian metaphysics. Questions that are still very much alive will be addressed.