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Corey Dyck, Wolff & the First Fifty Years of German Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, 2024, 276pp., $105.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780192865090.
Reviewed by Christian Henkel, University College Dublin
In the history of German philosophy between Leibniz and Kant, Christian Wolff (1679–1754) is no doubt the most important philosopher. Wolff offers a comprehensive and consistent system of human knowledge that extends to mathematics, logic, metaphysics, physics, natural theology, ethics, law, and politics. Corey Dyck’s aim in his book, Wolff & the First Fifty Years of German Metaphysics, is to offer a reappraisal of Wolff’s philosophy and its importance for the German intellectual landscape from roughly 1700 to 1750. Dyck’s specific focus is on Wolff‘s Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt, usually simply called the Deutsche Metaphysik (German Metaphysics) of 1719, and its (critical) reception. This means that he excludes Wolff’s Latin volumes that were intended…
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