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Drechsler, Wolfgang --- "Christian Wolff (1679-1754)" [1999] ELECD 56; in Backhaus, G. Jürgen (ed), "The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 1999)

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to Law and Economics

Editor(s): Backhaus, G. Jürgen

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781858985169

Section: Chapter 49

Section Title: Christian Wolff (1679-1754)

Author(s): Drechsler, Wolfgang

Number of pages: 5

Extract:

49 Christian Wolff (1679-1754)
Wolfgang Drechsler


Introduction
Christian Wolff is the most eminent German philosopher between Leibniz
and Kant. His main achievement is a complete Oeuvre on practically any
scholarly subject of his time, displayed and unfolded according to his demon-
strative-deductive, mathematical method, which perhaps represents the peak
of Enlightenment rationality in Germany. Wolff is also the creator of German
as the language of scholarly instruction and research, although he published
likewise in Latin, so that an international audience could, and did, read him.
A founding father of, inter alia, economics and public administration as
academic disciplines, he concentrated especially in these fields on advice, on
practical matters for members of government, and on the professional nature
of university education. Although he was a quintessentiallyContinental thinker,
both in form and in content, his work is said to have had a strong impact even
on the American Declaration of Independence (Goebel, 1920).

Biography'
Christian Wolff was born on 24 January 1679 in Breslau, Silesia. Coming
from a modest background, he received his degrees from the University of
Leipzig and spent his entire life as a university professor of mathematics,
sciences, philosophy and, later, public law at the Universities of Halle, Prussia
(1706-1723 and 1740-54) and Marburg, Hesse-Cassel(l723-1740).
In 1723, Wolff was ousted from his first chair at Halle in one of the most
celebrated academic dramas of the 18th century. By decree of the King of
Prussia, initiated by the pietist Divinity Faculty ...