Esperienza e ragione in Christian Wolff

The comparison between experience and reason is essential for an interpretation that is able to relieve Wolff’s thought of the easy accusation of dogmatic rationalism widely shared in the history of philosophy. The merit of the present volume is precisely that of overcoming traditional paradigms in order to show a path that starts from metaphysics and deals even with the issues linked to the theme of progress and the scientific discussions of that period. The result is the picture of a thinker who never stopped adding new pieces to his work, in the name of that freedom of philosophizing which goes beyond any school conditioning. Only by means of the direct comparison with experience all the different positions can be considered and a central thread that allows reason to develop its knowledge can be identified. We find evidence of this in both the distinction between empirical psychology and rational psychology, and the position of eclectic mediation taken by Wolff in the debate on the Leibnizian heritage of monadology and pre-established harmony.