Wolff’s Contemlation Ontology
In the preface of First Philosophy, or Ontology Wolff says that: “Prime Philosophy (namely, metaphysics) was first laden by the Scholastics with enviable praise, but, ever after the success of Cartesian philosophy, it fell into disrepute and has become a laughing stock to all.” On his opinion, it seems that he is full of questions and ideas on the Metaphysics in his century. From the life of him, we could see that Wolff was keenly conscious of carrying on the work of the great Scholastics and most important part of the Metaphilosophy is Ontology.
Wolff saw ontology as a deductive science, knowable a priori and based on two fundamental principles: the principle of contradiction (“it cannot happen that the same thing is and is not”) and the principle of sufficient reason (“nothing exists without a sufficient reason for why it exists rather than does not exist”). In the First Philosophy, or Ontology, CHAPTEAR I, ON THE PRINCIPLE OF CONTRADICTION, The Foundation of the Principle of Contradiction, Wolff says “ we experience as the nature of our mind that when we conclude hat something is, we cannot conclude at the same time that it is not. The experience that we are referring to is so oblivious that no other can be considered more obvious: it is present as long as the mind is aware of itself.” In the later part, The Formula of the Principle of Contradiction, Wolff said: “ … if A is equals to B, it is false for that same A not to be equal to B, whether A denotes an entity that is considered in absolute terms or is seen under a given condition.” In another paragraph, Defining Contradiction, he saaid: “ … in Logic, two propositions are called contradiction if they postulate that the same is & is not at the same time. This definition springs from the concept of contradiction, as will become clear below.”
As for Wolff, the principle of contradiction is a very fundamental principle of human thought that he believed is a self-evident first principle, its truth made manifest through our inability to think in a manner contrary to it. The principle of contradiction states that contradictory propositions cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time. As the most obvious and non-doubtable conclusions of human knowledge, such as knowledge of the self (“I think; therefore I am”), might also be called into question if the principle of contradiction were put into question, it is said to be like the basic stone for all of the certainty in the world. We become aware of the impossibility of denial in order to acknowledge the reality of our own existence. But the sense of certainty that comes with this cognition would be undercut if it were able to affirm and reject our own existence simultaneously.
For Wolff, this principle not only means for the physical existence, and our thinking about or conceiving, but also means we could distinguish between possible and impossible, since “it cannot happen that the same is and is not at the same time.” It could be further concluded that impossibility stands that there is a contradiction, but it is possible that there would be such a possibility in existence. In the part of Whether Nothing and Something Contrdiction Each Other, Wolff said: “So it is clear that nothing is not something, that nothing and something contradic each other, and therefore that there is no middle between nothing and something.” With the former statement of Wolff, in the paragraphs named Definition of Sonething, and Definition of Nothing, “Something is what correspondence to notion” and “we call nothing (nihilum) that which does not correspondence to any notion”, we could better understand the deep thinking of Wolff on possibility and impossibility.
And the idea of possibility and impossibility continues to play a very important role in Wolff’s approach to ontology when he is talking about existence, non-existence, or about essence, and many other things, relating to Wolff’s belief of most general sense of being. A being, or said to be the certainty of existence, can only be considered to be something if it is internally possible, which means that there are no conflictions inside its basis of existence, so-called “determinations” for Wolff. In contrast, nothing, or none, would not be worthy of thinking about since there is nothing in correspondence. In Definition of Nothing, there is a vivid example he proposed: “ Namely, if one were to posit the notion of a triangle by imagining a figure encompassed by three lines and afterward remove this notion without putting another in its place, then what remains will benothing.” From this we can aloso get an more narrowly for Wolff’s view on existence that existing objects figure account only insofar as existing objects are a subset of possible things.
Now with some taste on Wolff’s opinions on possibility, impossibility, existence, and non-existence, we could go further to another principle for Wolff’s ontology — the principle of sufficient reason (PSR). Wolff holds that the goal of the philosopher is to provide “the way and reason” of their possibility insofar as the subject matter of philosophy pertains to the universe of all possible things. And here somes PSR. Wolff believed that there would be sufficient reason for everying, nonetheless things in reality or in possibility. In the paragraph Definition of Sufficient Reason, Wolff said : “ we understand under Sufficient Reason that from which it is understood why anything is.” and “ the specific by contingency both in the material world and in out souls will shed an even greater light on this notion in its proper place; of these two, the former is taught in Cosmology, the latter in Psychology.” From these two statement, we could see the PSR plays a fundamental role in Wolff’s philosophy system, not only in ontology, but in his cosmology and psychology thinking.
Glossary
The principle of contradiction (PC): if one contradictory is true the other is false and vice versa, for nothing can be simultaneously true and false
The principle of sufficient reason (PSR): a powerful and controversial philosophical principle stipulating that everything must have a reason, cause, or ground
Nihilum: nothingness, which does not exist
Most important bibliography
1730, Philosophia prima sive ontologia methodo scientifica pertractata qua omnis cognitionis humanae principia continentur (First Philosophy, or Ontology), Frankfurt.
English translation: First Philosophy, or Ontology: Treated According to the Scientific Method, Containing the Principles of All Human Cognition (1730), PART 1: §§1–78 Kindle Edition by Christian Wolff (Author), Klaus Ottmann (Introduction, Translator)